Since Galileo corresponded with Kepler, the community of scientists has become increasingly international. A DNA sequence is as significant to a researcher in Novosibirsk as it is to one in Pasadena. And with the advent of electronic communications technology, these experts can share information within minutes. What are the consequences when more bits of scientific data cross more national borders and do it more swiftly than ever before? Bits of Power assesses the state of international exchange of data in the natural sciences, identifying strengths, weaknesses, and challenges. The committee makes recommendations about access to scientific data derived from public funding. The volume examines: Trends in the electronic transfer and management of scientific data. Pressure toward commercialization of scientific data, including the economic aspects of government dissemination of the data. The implications of proposed changes to intellectual property laws and the role of scientists in shaping legislative and legal solutions. Improving access to scientific data by and from the developing world. Bits of Power explores how these issues have been addressed in the European Community and includes examples of successful data transfer activities in the natural sciences. The book will be of interest to scientists and scientific data managers, as well as intellectual property rights attorneys, legislators, government agencies, and international organizations concerned about the electronic flow of scientific data.
A study of the organization, functioning, and effects of university technology transfer activities involving formal intellectual property rights that resulted from the deliberations of two standing National Research Council committees: the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy and the Committee on Science, Technology and Law.
The potential misuse of advances in life sciences research is raising concerns about national security threats. Dual Use Research of Concern in the Life Sciences: Current Issues and Controversies examines the U.S. strategy for reducing biosecurity risks in life sciences research and considers mechanisms that would allow researchers to manage the dissemination of the results of research while mitigating the potential for harm to national security.
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the nation's primary resource for advancing scientific research, development, and evaluation on crime and crime control and the administration of justice in the United States. Headed by a presidentially appointed director, it is one of the major units in the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under its authorizing legislation, NIJ awards grants and contracts to a variety of public and private organizations and individuals. At the request of NIJ, Strengthening the National Institute of Justice assesses the operations and quality of the full range of its programs. These include social science research, science and technology research and development, capacity building, and technology assistance. The book concludes that a federal research institute such as NIJ is vital to the nation's continuing efforts to control crime and administer justice. No other federal, state, local, or private organization can do what NIJ was created to do. Forty years ago, Congress envisioned a science agency dedicated to building knowledge to support crime prevention and control by developing a wide range of techniques for dealing with individual offenders, identifying injustices and biases in the administration of justice, and supporting more basic and operational research on crime and the criminal justice system and the involvement of the community in crime control efforts. As the embodiment of that vision, NIJ has accomplished a great deal. It has succeeded in developing a body of knowledge on such important topics as hot spots policing, violence against women, the role of firearms and drugs in crime, drug courts, and forensic DNA analysis. It has helped build the crime and justice research infrastructure. It has also widely disseminated the results of its research programs to help guide practice and policy. But its efforts have been severely hampered by a lack of independence, authority, and discretionary resources to carry out its mission.
Research universities are critical contributors to our national research enterprise. They are the principal source of a world-class labor force and fundamental discoveries that enhance our lives and the lives of others around the world. These institutions help to create an educated citizenry capable of making informed and crucial choices as participants in a democratic society. However many are concerned that the unintended cumulative effect of federal regulations undercuts the productivity of the research enterprise and diminishes the return on the federal investment in research. Optimizing the Nation's Investment in Academic Research reviews the regulatory framework as it currently exists, considers specific regulations that have placed undue and often unanticipated burdens on the research enterprise, and reassesses the process by which these regulations are created, reviewed, and retired. This review is critical to strengthen the partnership between the federal government and research institutions, to maximize the creation of new knowledge and products, to provide for the effective training and education of the next generation of scholars and workers, and to optimize the return on the federal investment in research for the benefit of the American people.
In the years since the Shelby Amendment, scientists, industry, and policy makers have struggled over how the public's new right of access should be applied to scientific data. There is loose agreement that research data should be accessible, but wide disagreement over the "depth" to which the public has such a right. The National Academies' Science, Technology, and Law Program held a workshop to explore the mounting tensions in the federal regulatory process between the need to provide access to research data and the need to protect the integrity of the research process. The workshop provided a picture of the debate arising from passage of the Shelby Amendment and the resulting OMB revisions of Circular A-110. This report is a summary of the workshop.
The patenting and licensing of human genetic material and proteins represents an extension of intellectual property (IP) rights to naturally occurring biological material and scientific information, much of it well upstream of drugs and other disease therapies. This report concludes that IP restrictions rarely impose significant burdens on biomedical research, but there are reasons to be apprehensive about their future impact on scientific advances in this area. The report recommends 13 actions that policy-makers, courts, universities, and health and patent officials should take to prevent the increasingly complex web of IP protections from getting in the way of potential breakthroughs in genomic and proteomic research. It endorses the National Institutes of Health guidelines for technology licensing, data sharing, and research material exchanges and says that oversight of compliance should be strengthened. It recommends enactment of a statutory exception from infringement liability for research on a patented invention and raising the bar somewhat to qualify for a patent on upstream research discoveries in biotechnology. With respect to genetic diagnostic tests to detect patient mutations associated with certain diseases, the report urges patent holders to allow others to perform the tests for purposes of verifying the results.
The EPA commissioned The National Academies to provide advice on the vexing question of whether and, if so, under what circumstances EPA should accept and consider intentional human dosing studies conducted by companies or other sources outside the agency (so-called third parties) to gather evidence relating to the risks of a chemical or the conditions under which exposure to it could be judged safe. This report recommends that such studies be conducted and used for regulatory purposes only if all of several strict conditions are met, including the following: The study is necessary and scientifically valid, meaning that it addresses an important regulatory question that can't be answered with animal studies or nondosing human studies; The societal benefits of the study outweigh any anticipated risks to participants. At no time, even when benefits beyond improved regulation exist, can a human dosing study be justified that is anticipated to cause lasting harm to study participants; and All recognized ethical standards and procedures for protecting the interests of study participants are observed. In addition, EPA should establish a Human Studies Review Board (HSRB) to evaluate all human dosing studiesâ€"both at the beginning and upon completion of the experimentsâ€"if they are carried out with the intent of affecting the agency's policy-making.
New legal approaches, such as the European Union's 1996 Directive on the Legal Protection of Databases, and other legal initiatives now being considered in the United States at the federal and state level, are threatening to compromise public access to scientific and technical data available through computerized databases. Lawmakers are struggling to strike an appropriate balance between the rights of database rights holders, who are concerned about possible commercial misappropriation of their products, and public-interest users of the data such as researchers, educators, and libraries. A Question of Balance examines this balancing act. The committee concludes that because database rights holders already enjoy significant legal, technical, and market-based protections, the need for statutory protection has not been sufficiently substantiated. Nevertheless, although the committee opposes the creation of any strong new protective measures, it recognizes that some additional limits against wholesale misappropriation of databases may be necessary. In particular, a new, properly scoped and focused U.S. statute might provide a reasonable alternative to the European Union's highly protectionistic database directive. Such legislation could then serve as a legal model for an international treaty in this area. The book recommends a number of guiding principles for such possible legislation, as well as related policy actions for the administration.
Based on a series of regional meetings on university campuses with officials from the national security community and academic research institutions, this report identifies specific actions that should be taken to maintain a thriving scientific research environment in an era of heightened security concerns. Actions include maintaining the open exchange of scientific information, fostering a productive environment for international scholars in the U.S., reexamining federal definitions of sensitive but unclassified research, and reviewing policies on deemed export controls. The federal government should establish a standing entity, preferably a Science and Security Commission, that would review policies regarding the exchange of information and the participation of foreign-born scientists and students in research.
Imagine sending a magazine article to 10 friends-making photocopies, putting them in envelopes, adding postage, and mailing them. Now consider how much easier it is to send that article to those 10 friends as an attachment to e-mail. Or to post the article on your own site on the World Wide Web. The ease of modifying or copying digitized material and the proliferation of computer networking have raised fundamental questions about copyright and patentâ€"intellectual property protections rooted in the U.S. Constitution. Hailed for quick and convenient access to a world of material, the Internet also poses serious economic issues for those who create and market that material. If people can so easily send music on the Internet for free, for example, who will pay for music? This book presents the multiple facets of digitized intellectual property, defining terms, identifying key issues, and exploring alternatives. It follows the complex threads of law, business, incentives to creators, the American tradition of access to information, the international context, and the nature of human behavior. Technology is explored for its ability to transfer content and its potential to protect intellectual property rights. The book proposes research and policy recommendations as well as principles for policymaking.
In 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., laid out a new test for federal trial judges to use when determining the admissibility of expert testimony. In Daubert, the Court ruled that judges should act as gatekeepers, assessing the reliability of the scientific methodology and reasoning that supports expert testimony. The resulting judicial screening of expert testimony has been particularly consequential. While the Supreme Court sought to bring better science into the courtroom, questions remain about whether the lower courts' application of Daubert accords with scientific practices. This report summarizes discussions held by an ad hoc committee of the The National Academies to consider the impact of Daubert and subsequent Supreme Court opinions and to identify questions for future study.
Since publication of the National Research Council (NRC) reports on chemistry in 1985 and chemical engineering in 1988,1,2 dramatic advances in information technology (IT) have totally changed these communities. During this period, the chemical enterprise and information technology have enjoyed both a remarkably productive and mutually supportive set of advances. These synergies sparked unprecedented growth in the capability and productivity of both fields including the definition of entirely new areas of the chemical enterprise. The chemical enterprise provided information technology with device fabrication processes, new materials, data, models, methods, and (most importantly) people. In turn, information technology provided chemical science and technology with truly remarkable and revolutionary resources for computations, communications, and data management. Indeed, computation has become the strong third component of the chemical science research and development effort, joining experiment and theory. Sustained mutual growth and interdependence of the chemical and information communities should take account of several unique aspects of the chemical sciences. These include extensive and complex databases that characterize the chemical disciplines; the importance of multiscale simulations that range from molecules to technological processes; the global economic impact of the chemical industry; and the industry's major influence on the nation's health, environment, security, and economic well-being. In planning the future of the chemical sciences and technology, it is crucial to recognize the benefits already derived from advances in information technology as well as to point the way to future benefits that will be derived.
Over the course of several decades, copyright protection has been expanded and extended through legislative changes occasioned by national and international developments. The content and technology industries affected by copyright and its exceptions, and in some cases balancing the two, have become increasingly important as sources of economic growth, relatively high-paying jobs, and exports. Since the expansion of digital technology in the mid-1990s, they have undergone a technological revolution that has disrupted long-established modes of creating, distributing, and using works ranging from literature and news to film and music to scientific publications and computer software. In the United States and internationally, these disruptive changes have given rise to a strident debate over copyright's proper scope and terms and means of its enforcement-a debate between those who believe the digital revolution is progressively undermining the copyright protection essential to encourage the funding, creation, and distribution of new works and those who believe that enhancements to copyright are inhibiting technological innovation and free expression. Copyright in the Digital Era: Building Evidence for Policy examines a range of questions regarding copyright policy by using a variety of methods, such as case studies, international and sectoral comparisons, and experiments and surveys. This report is especially critical in light of digital age developments that may, for example, change the incentive calculus for various actors in the copyright system, impact the costs of voluntary copyright transactions, pose new enforcement challenges, and change the optimal balance between copyright protection and exceptions.
In a world where advanced knowledge is widespread and low-cost labor is readily available, U.S. advantages in the marketplace and in science and technology have begun to erode. A comprehensive and coordinated federal effort is urgently needed to bolster U.S. competitiveness and pre-eminence in these areas. This congressionally requested report by a pre-eminent committee makes four recommendations along with 20 implementation actions that federal policy-makers should take to create high-quality jobs and focus new science and technology efforts on meeting the nation's needs, especially in the area of clean, affordable energy: 1) Increase America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education; 2) Sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research; 3) Develop, recruit, and retain top students, scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and abroad; and 4) Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation. Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. Rising Above the Gathering Storm will be of great interest to federal and state government agencies, educators and schools, public decision makers, research sponsors, regulatory analysts, and scholars.
This report reviews a variety of partnership programs in the United States, and finds that partnerships constitute a vital positive element of public policy, helping to address major challenges and opportunities at the nexus of science, technology, and economic growth.
The National Science Foundation developed the Science of Science and Innovation Policy program (SciSIP) in 2006 to fund basic and applied research that bears on and can help guide public- and private-sector policy making for science and innovation. By design, SciSIP has engaged researchers from many domains in the development of a community of practice who work together to continually develop frameworks, tools, and datasets for implementing science and innovation policy. Since its inception, the SciSIP program has funded more than 150 researchers and their graduate students. The program also contributed to the initiation of the STAR METRICS (Science and Technology for America's Reinvestment: Measuring the Effect of Research on Innovation, Competitiveness and Science) program, a collaborative effort between the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The STAR METRICS program develops tools and mechanisms for measuring federal expenditures on scientific activities, with particular focus on quantifying productivity and employment outcomes. Science of Science and Innovation Policy summarizes a public conference convened by the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council to present research funded by SciSIP and foster intellectual exchange among funded researchers, science, technology, and innovation policy practitioners, and other members of the science community. The conference highlighted advances in the emerging field of the science of science and innovation policy, in particular, models, frameworks, tools, and datasets comprising the evidentiary basis for science and innovation policy. This report focuses on return on investment models; organizational structures that foster accelerated scientific productivity; linkages between commercialized scientific knowledge and job creation; the roles of universities and government in technology transfer and innovation; technology diffusion and economic growth; non-economic impacts of science and innovation expenditures; regional and global networks of knowledge generation and innovation; mechanisms for encouraging creativity and measuring outputs and outcomes from transformative research; and development, manipulation and visualization of data representing scientific activities.
Earth science, which in this context does not include oceanic, atmospheric, and space sciences, is vital to the wellbeing of the United States and many of its issues, such as water resources, are expected to grow in importance. An earth science workforce will be needed to deal with this issues and it\'s important that this workforce draw on the talents of all citizens. Thus, federal education programs can be implemented to help attract and retain students on an earth science pathway; however, tight funding means agencies need to invest in programs that actually work. As a result, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Office of Science Quality and Integrity asked the National Research Council (NRC) to establish a committee to carry out a study, organized around a workshop, to address several tasks including: examining recent earth science education programs with a research or training component, both formal and informal, in these federal agencies; indentifying criteria and the results of previous federal program evaluations, and summarizing the knowledge and skills identified in recent NRC workforce reports that are needed by earth scientists in their careers. Preparing the Next Generation of Earth Scientists: An Examination of Federal Education and Training Programs presents the committee\'s finding. The investigation was completed through information provided by federal agency managers and published articles and reports. A 2-day workshop was also held to examine federal earth science education programs and efforts to leverage resources. The report includes the workshop agenda, a glossary of abbreviated terms, and more.
Examines the role of science and technology in countering terrorism. This work presents advice on a strategic approach to transportation security that recognizes the need to move people and goods efficiently and the need to improve security against terrorism.
On March 10-11, 2016, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a public symposium on potential U.S. government policies for the oversight of gain-of- function (GOF) research. This was the Academies' second meeting held at the request of the U.S. government to provide a mechanism to engage the life sciences community and the broader public and solicit feedback on optimal approaches to ensure effective federal oversight of GOF research as part of a broader U.S. government deliberative process. The first symposium, held in December 2014, examined the underlying scientific and technical questions surrounding the potential risks and benefits of GOF research involving pathogens with pandemic potential. The second symposium focused on discussion of the draft recommendations regarding GOF research of a Working Group of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. This report summarizes the key issues and ideas identified during the second symposium.
When, in late 2011, it became public knowledge that two research groups had submitted for publication manuscripts that reported on their work on mammalian transmissibility of a lethal H5N1 avian influenza strain, the information caused an international debate about the appropriateness and communication of the researchers' work, the risks associated with the work, partial or complete censorship of scientific publications, and dual-use research of concern in general. Recognizing that the H5N1 research is only the most recent scientific activity subject to widespread attention due to safety and security concerns, on May 1, 2012, the National Research Council's Committee on Science, Technology and Law, in conjunction with the Board on Life Sciences and the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats, convened a one-day public workshop for the purposes of 1) discussing the H5N1 controversy; 2) considering responses by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which had funded this research, the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), scientific publishers, and members of the international research community; and 3) providing a forum wherein the concerns and interests of the broader community of stakeholders, including policy makers, biosafety and biosecurity experts, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and the general public might be articulated. Perspectives on Research with H5N1 Avian Influenza: Scientific Enquiry, Communication, Controversy summarizes the proceedings of the workshop.
Reliable and valid forensic science analytic techniques are critical to a credible, fair, and evidence-based criminal justice system. There is widespread agreement that the scientific foundation of some currently available forensic science methods needs strengthening and that additional, more efficient techniques are urgently needed. These needs can only be met through sustained research programs explicitly designed to ensure and improve the reliability and validity of current methods and to foster the development and use of new and better techniques. This task is challenging due to the broad nature of the field. Concerns have been raised repeatedly about the ability of the criminal justice system to collect and analyze evidence efficiently and to be fair in its verdicts. Although significant progress has been made in some forensic science disciplines, the forensic science community still faces many challenges. Federal leadership, particularly in regard to research and the scientific validation of forensic science methods, is needed to help meet the pressing issues facing state and local jurisdictions. This report reviews the progress made by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to advance forensic science research since the 2009 report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward and the 2010 report, Strengthening the National Institute of Justice. Support for Forensic Science Research examines the ways in which NIJ develops its forensic science research priorities and communicates those priorities as well as its findings to the scientific and forensic practitioner communities in order to determine the impact of NIJ forensic science research programs and how that impact can be enhanced.
In 1996, the U.S. Congress enacted two laws, Public Law 104-201 (authorization legislation) and Public Law 104-208 (appropriation legislation), mandating that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) conduct an assessment of alternative technologies to the baseline incineration process for the demilitarization of assembled chemical munitions. The PMACWA had previously requested that the National Research Council (NRC) perform and publish an independent evaluation of the seven technologies packages that had been selected during earlier phases of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment (ACWA) program and deliver a report by September 1, 1999. However, to meet that deadline, the NRC Committee on Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons (ACW Committee) had to terminate its data-gathering activities on March 15, 1999, prior to the completion of demonstration tests. In September 1999, the PMACWA requested that the ACW Committee examine the reports of the demonstration tests and determine if the results changed the committee's original findings, recommendations, and comments. Evaluation of Demonstration Test Results of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons documents the committee's reassessment of the findings and recommendations in the original report, Review and Evaluation of Alternative Technologies for Demilitarization of Assembled Chemical Weapons.
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