Science Policy Report

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06 March 2019

In This Issue:

Policy News

Science and Society News

International Corner

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Policy News

Members of Congress are currently working on their appropriations requests for fiscal year (FY) 2020. Now is the time for constituents like you to reach out to your members of Congress to help shape their funding priorities. Three members of Congress have stepped forward to champion the USDA competitive grants program, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), by circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter in the House of Representatives. The letter asks Appropriators to provide strong support for AFRI in FY2020. Email your Representative today and ask them to support food, agriculture, and natural resources research by signing the AFRI “Dear Colleague” letter. Sign-on deadline is this Friday, March 8. Email your Representative here.
 

The White House is considering establishing a presidential committee to assess the consensus of scientists and the Pentagon that climate change poses a national security threat, according to a person familiar with the plan. The move, being spearheaded by William Happer, a physicist and National Security Council senior director who has touted the benefits of carbon dioxide emissions, could give climate skeptics a platform to push back against conclusions reached by Pentagon and other agencies within Trump’s own administration that climate change is a major national security threat. More than four dozen former military and intelligence officials have already sent their objects about the panel to the administration. Read the full article.
 

Six Republicans are joining the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis formed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in January. GOP Reps. Garret Graves (La.), Morgan Griffith (Va.), Buddy Carter (Ga.), Gary Palmer (Ala.), Carol Miller (W.Va.) and Kelly Armstrong (N.D.) will be sitting on the committee. Graves will be the lead Republican on the committee, which is chaired by Democratic Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida. Read the full article.
 

In an op-ed, the acting director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, signaled that the administration plans a 5 percent cut to nondefense discretionary spending — which includes funding for key research agencies — in its FY 2020 budget request. It’s unclear what baseline the administration is using; nondefense spending is currently scheduled to drop by about 9 percent in FY 2020 under the Budget Control Act spending caps. Meanwhile, Vought indicated that the administration intends to increase defense funding using the Overseas Contingency Operations account, which is not subject to the BCA spending caps. Read the op-ed.
 

Science and Society News

Recognize colleagues with an award or Fellow nomination. Students apply for scholarships by March 20. Contact 608-273-8080 or email awards@sciencesocieties.org with any questions. Learn more here.
 

An exciting collaboration between USDA's Agricultural Research Service and Pheronym will send nematodes (small round worms) into space to the International Space Station (ISS). The mission represents a look into the future when food crops will be grown in space. The goal is to develop environmentally friendly methods for space travel that are not harmful to humans. This will be the first biological control experiment in space. The experiment will test the movement and infection behavior of beneficial nematodes. NIFA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative is funding the research. Read the full article.
 

A team of researchers, including two from the University of California, Riverside, has identified the genes responsible for the hallmark sour taste of many citrus fruits. Published Feb. 25 in Nature Communications, the research could help plant breeders develop new, sweeter varieties. Modern citrus varieties have been bred over thousands of years to generate a broad palette of sour and sweet-tasting fruits. Analyses of their pulp reveals that a single chemical element—hydrogen—is largely responsible for the difference between sour and sweet-tasting varieties. Read the full article.
 

The Career Center promotes and encourages opportunities in the agronomic, crop, soil, and environmental sciences and serves as a clearinghouse for resumes and job listings. Employers and recruiters will find the most qualified talent pool with relevant work experience to fulfill their staffing needs. Visit our careers page to browse and post positions. 
 

Researchers at the University of Florida are developing an automated system to deliver chemicals into the vascular parts of trees to reduce their susceptibility to citrus greening disease. Ozgur Batuman, an assistant professor of plant pathology at the university’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, leads a team of researchers trying to help growers deal with the disease. Citrus greening, also known as Huanglongbing disease (HLB), has led to huge losses for Florida’s multibillion dollar-a-year citrus industry. Read the full article.
 

A new study examines the potential climate impacts of the nascent cultured (lab-grown) meat industry in comparison with traditional beef production. The tech-intensive industry may not be as climate friendly as previously thought. Although traditional meat, especially cattle, produces large amounts of methane, this greenhouse gas dissipates more quickly than CO2. If cultured meat production utilizes current manufacturing methods, it may end up producing more greenhouse gas than the industry it hopes to replace. Read the full article.
 

ASA, CSSA and SSSA invite you to publish with us! As recognized leaders in our sciences, our members have a long standing mission to disseminate leading research in the agronomic and environmental sciences. As a published author you will have an international impact while taking advantage of quality peer review and open access options. Find our more and take the next step in your publishing journey!

Plastics are part of our everyday lives and have been for decades. Lack of recycling has led to “microplastics”—tiny particles of plastic— permeating our environment. Marine life has been heavily impacted, but there is reason to believe that microplastics are in our soil as well. What is certain is that humans are consuming microplastics in their food. The impact this will have on human health is unknown. Read the full article.
 

RNRF has three annual awards to recognize outstanding achievements in the renewable natural resources fields. The Sustained Achievement Award recognizes a long-term contribution and commitment to the protection and conservation of natural resources by an individual. The Outstanding Achievement Award recognizes a project, publication, piece of legislation, or similar concrete accomplishment. The Excellence in Journalism Award honors and encourages excellence in print journalism about natural resources. It recognizes work by an individual, group, or organization. Deadline, May 31. Read the full announcement.
 

International Corner

John Deere, manufacturer of agriculture, construction, and heavy equipment, has been in discussion with the government of Zimbabwe about providing $50 million worth of agriculture mechanization equipment and farmer training. This deal will help support food security and help Zimbabwe reach their economic development goals. Read the full article.
 

A bill on soil conservation, proposed to the Majlis (Iranian Parliament) in December 2014, has been finally approved, secretary of environmental policy at the center for strategic studies affiliated to the presidential office has said. The parliament soon will pass the soil conservation bill, and the country will benefit a comprehensive law on the protection of soil resources. As per the bill, the Department of Environment is the responsible body to deal with business units polluting the soil or even shut down industries contributing to soil contamination. Read the full article.
 

Robert-Jan Smits finished his one year mandate as the European Commission’s open access envoy last week and will be replaced for now by Robert Kiely, head of open research at the Wellcome Trust, until a long-term coordinator for the Plan S open access initiative is appointed. Plan S, which Smits and Science Europe, the body representing national funding agencies, got off the ground last year, demands that papers resulting from taxpayer-funded research be free to read at the point of publication by 2020. So far, 13 of Europe’s national funding agencies have signed up to the scheme. Read the full article.
 

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

The purpose of the IR-4 program is to enable the crop protection industry to provide safe, effective, and economical crop protection products for growers and consumers of minor/specialty crops. The crop protection industry cannot justify the costs associated with the research and development, registration, production, and marketing of crop protection products for minor/specialty crops due to the smaller market base and limited sales potential. The IR-4 program provides the assistance needed to ensure that new and more effective crop protection products are developed and made available to minor/specialty crop producers. These efforts require effective collaborations among federal agencies, the crop protection industry, and land-grant colleges and universities. Deadline, April 3. Read the full announcement.
 

The methyl bromide transition program (MBT) addresses the immediate needs and the costs of transition that have resulted from the phase-out of the pesticide methyl bromide. Methyl bromide has been a pest and disease control tactic critical to pest management systems for decades for soilborne and postharvest pests. The program focuses on integrated commercial-scale research on methyl bromide alternatives and associated extension activity that will foster the adoption of these solutions. Projects should cover a broad range of new methodologies, technologies, systems, and strategies for controlling economically important pests for which methyl bromide has been the only effective pest control option. Research projects must address commodities with critical issues and include a focused economic analysis of the cost of implementing the transition on a commercial scale. Deadline, April 15. Read the full announcement.
 

FFAR’s Seeding Solutions Grants are an open call for applicants to submit innovative and transformative research proposals that furthers any of our Challenge Areas, and foster unique partnerships. Every year, FFAR funds at least one proposal in each of our Challenge Areas, typically awarding each applicant between $300,000 and $1 million. Pre-proposal deadline, April 19. Read the full announcement.
 

The purpose of this program is to promote and strengthen the ability of Alaska Native-Serving Institutions and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions to carry out education, applied research, and related community development programs. NIFA intends this program to address educational needs, as determined by each institution, within a broadly defined arena of food and agricultural sciences-related disciplines. Priority will be given to those projects that enhance educational equity for underrepresented students; strengthen institutional educational capacities; prepare students for careers related to the food, agricultural, and natural resource systems of the United States; and maximize the development and use of resources to improve food and agricultural sciences teaching programs. Deadline, May 6. Read the full announcement.
 

This solicitation is for Frameworks for Data-Intensive Research in Science and Engineering (DIRSE) as part of the HDR Institutes activity. These Frameworks represent one path of a conceptualization phase aimed at developing Institutes as part of the NSF investment in the Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) Big Idea. The HDR Institutes activity seeks to create an integrated fabric of interrelated institutes that can accelerate discovery and innovation in multiple areas of data-intensive science and engineering.  HDR Institutes will be developed through a two-phase process involving conceptualization followed by convergence. The conceptualization phase will be implemented in FY 2019 via two complementary funding opportunities. The second opportunity in FY 2019, described in this solicitation, will encourage applications from teams of researchers proposing frameworks for integrated sets of science and engineering problems and data science solutions. The conceptualization phase will result in two-year awards aimed at building communities, defining research priorities, and developing interdisciplinary prototype solutions. NSF anticipates implementing the subsequent convergence and co-design phase in the 2021 timeframe with awards that integrate and scale successful prototypes and new ideas into larger, more comprehensive HDR Institutes that bring together multiple science and engineering communities with computer and computational scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, and information scientists around common data science approaches. Deadline, May 7. Read the full announcement.
 

Growing Convergence Research identifies Convergence Research as having two primary characteristics: 1) Research driven by a specific and compelling problem. Convergence Research is generally inspired by the need to address a specific challenge or opportunity, whether it arises from deep scientific questions or pressing societal needs; and 2) Deep integration across disciplines. As experts from different disciplines pursue common research challenges, their knowledge, theories, methods, data, research communities and languages become increasingly intermingled or integrated. New frameworks, paradigms or even disciplines can form sustained interactions across multiple communities. A distinct characteristic of convergence research, in contrast to other forms of multidisciplinary research, is that from the inception, the convergence paradigm intentionally brings together intellectually diverse researchers and stakeholders to frame the research questions, develop effective ways of communicating across disciplines and sectors, adopt common frameworks for their solution, and, when appropriate, develop a new scientific vocabulary. Research teams practicing convergence aim at developing sustainable relationships that may not only create solutions to the problem that engendered the collaboration, but also develop novel ways of framing related research questions and open new research vistas. Deadline, May 8. Read the full announcement.
 

The goal of the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program is to prepare graduate students for science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) careers critically important to the DOE Office of Science mission, by providing graduate thesis research opportunities at DOE laboratories.  The SCGSR program provides supplemental awards to outstanding U.S. graduate students to pursue part of their graduate thesis research at a DOE laboratory/facility in areas that address scientific challenges central to the Office of Science mission. The research opportunity is expected to advance the graduate students’ overall doctoral thesis while providing access to the expertise, resources, and capabilities available at the DOE laboratories/facilities. The SCGSR program provides supplemental funds for graduate awardees to conduct part of their thesis research at a host DOE laboratory/facility in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist within a defined award period. Collaborating DOE Laboratory Scientists may be from any of the participating DOE national laboratories/facilities. The award period for the proposed research project at DOE laboratories/facilities may range from 3 to 12 consecutive months. Deadline, May 9. Read the full announcement.
 

Increasingly, undergraduate computer science (CS) programs are being called upon to prepare larger and more diverse student populations for careers in both CS and non-CS fields, including careers in scientific and non-scientific disciplines. Many of these students aim to acquire the understandings and competencies needed to learn how to use computation collaboratively across different contexts and challenging problems. However, standard CS course sequences do not always serve these students well. With this solicitation, NSF will support teams of Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) in re-envisioning the role of computing in interdisciplinary collaboration within their institutions. In addition, NSF will encourage partnering IHEs to use this opportunity to integrate the study of ethics into their curricula, both within core CS courses and across the relevant interdisciplinary application areas. Deadline, May 9. Read the full announcement.
 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Geosciences (GEO), the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO/IOS), and the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Directorate Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE/CNS), in collaboration with the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) encourage convergent research that transforms existing capabilities in understanding dynamic, near-surface soil processes through advances in sensor systems and modeling. To accomplish this research, multiple disciplines must converge to produce novel sensors and/or sensing systems of multiple modalities that are adaptable to different environments and collect data and report on a wide range of chemical, biological and physical parameters. This type of approach will also be necessary to develop next generation soil models, wireless communication and cyber systems capabilities, and to grow a scientific community that is able to address complex problems through education and outreach. This program fosters collaboration among the partner agencies and the researchers they support by combining resources and funding for the most innovative and high-impact projects that address their respective missions. Deadline, May 15. Read the full announcement.
 

Sources: Bloomberg; Washington Post; The Hill; Real Clear Politics; USDA; Physics.org; Quartz; UFBlog; Food Tank; RNRF; Tehran Times; Science Business; All Africa; FFAR; NSF; DOE-Office of Science

Vision: The Societies Washington, DC Science Policy Office (SPO) will advocate the importance and value of the agronomic, crop and soil sciences in developing national science policy and ensuring the necessary public-sector investment in the continued health of the environment for the well being of humanity. The SPO will assimilate, interpret, and disseminate in a timely manner to Society members information about relevant agricultural, natural resources and environmental legislation, rules and regulations under consideration by Congress and the Administration.

This page of the ASA-CSSA-SSSA web site will highlight current news items relevant to Science Policy. It is not an endorsement of any position.