Science Policy Report

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22 January 2020

In This Issue:

Policy News

Science and Society News

International Corner

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Policy News

Leaders of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee unveiled bipartisan legislation that would require the White House to sketch out a plan for increasing R&D investments in “Industries of the Future,” including the five areas the White House has specifically prioritized: artificial intelligence, quantum information science (QIS), biotechnology, next-generation telecommunications, advanced manufacturing, and synthetic biology. The plan would chart a path for doubling current federal investments in AI and QIS by fiscal year 2022 and for increasing annual spending across research areas tied to industries of the future to $10 billion by fiscal year 2025. Read the full article.
 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has drawn up a list of technologies it may not want agency scientists to share with researchers from a handful of other countries. Appearing before the science committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, Fall shed new light on how the 10 DOE national laboratories he oversees are trying to prevent foreign governments from taking advantage of the traditionally open U.S. scientific enterprise. DOE officials have spoken publicly before about creating a “technology risk matrix” to shape interactions with four countries—China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—deemed to pose a threat to U.S. national security. Read the full article.
 

Appropriators and stakeholders have begun coming to grips with the reality of narrow funding increases under next year’s budget caps. Last summer’s two-year budget deal front-loaded its spending cap increases into the first year, allowing about 4 percent more for discretionary spending in fiscal 2020. In fiscal 2021, increases are capped at less than 0.4 percent, or $5 billion, despite fixed costs for veterans health care that are likely to require substantially more. The very limited room in the FY2021 cap leaves little room for growth in research funding. Read the full article.
 

In recognition of January 2020 as National Biotechnology Month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched a Unified Website for Biotechnology Regulation. The Website streamlines information about the three regulatory agencies charged with overseeing agriculture biotechnology products and is part President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order on Modernizing the Regulatory Framework for Agricultural Biotechnology Products. Read the full article.
 

Science and Society News

The American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America will host approximately 4,000 scientists, professionals, educators, and students at the 2020 Annual Meeting, “Translating Visionary Science to Practice," on November 8-11, 2020, in Phoenix, Arizona. This premier scientific meeting provides unlimited networking opportunities, scientific abstracts, oral and poster sessions, a robust exhibit hall, technical workshops, and professional and destination tours. Plus, there's a career center, graduate and undergraduate programs, distinguished lecturers, awards, continuing education units (CEU's), prizes, and more! We invite you to attend and help create solutions to advance science. Watch for abstract submission and registration to open March 17. View past annual meeting recordings here.
 

The exams for the Certified Professional Soil Scientist certification and state Soil Scientist licensing programs are developed and maintained by the Council of Soil Science Examiners (CSSE).  The certification program, in its entirety, is overseen by the Soils Certifying Board of the Soil Science Society of America. Register by March 6 to take the April exam.
 

The U.S. is a clear leader in the global bioeconomy landscape, but faces challenges from decentralized leadership, inadequate talent development, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, stagnant investment in fundamental research, and international competition, according to Safeguarding the Bioeconomy, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. As a major driver of scientific discoveries, spanning fields from agriculture to pharmaceuticals, a vulnerable bioeconomy puts the country’s economy at risk. The report recommends steps the U.S. should take to mitigate these risks and sustain a strong bioeconomy, including forming a coordinating body within the Executive Office of the President to ensure coordination across the science, economic, regulatory, and security agencies. Read the full article.
 

You don’t have to look far to find news, opinions and studies about our world’s changing climate and its effects on humans. But what is less accessible is how a changing climate impacts beef cattle production. A team of scientists and researchers from across the region set out to answer this and other questions during the Great Plains Grazing project funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA hopes to use the research and findings of this study, to develop decision support tools to help farmers and ranchers learn more about climate effects, plan for and improve future operations, and continue to succeed in the industry. Read the full article.
 

Field, Lab, Earth is the podcast all about past and present advances in the fields of agronomic, crop, soil, and environmental sciences. A joint production of the Tri-Societies, the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America, it features interviews with authors published in our journals, books, and magazines. Listen to the episode here.
 

The geosciences — which include the study of planet Earth, its oceans, its atmosphere and its interactions with human society — are among the least diverse across all fields of science. Nearly 90 percent of doctoral-degree recipients are white. In the country’s top 100 geoscience departments, people of color hold under 4 percent of tenured or tenure-track positions. A 2016 survey from the National Science Foundation showed that representation of people of color in geosciences has barely budged in the past four decades, although significant gains have been made in terms of gender balance. In a commentary last week in Nature Geoscience, Kuheli Dutt, Lamont-Doherty’s assistant director for academic affairs and diversity, wrote that “a lack of diversity and inclusion is the single largest cultural problem facing the geosciences today.” Read the full article.
 

With a global footprint and presence in major food and ag supply chains around the globe, Cargill is committed to protecting the earth’s vital natural resources and reducing its environmental impact. In alignment with its climate commitment, Cargill has adopted a Scope 3 target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in its global supply chains by 30% per ton of product by 2030. Cargill has reinforced its intent to prioritize climate through three recent activities aligned with companies around the globe, including pledging to the CEO climate statement, signing on to the We Are Still In coalition to continue supporting the Paris Climate Accord and convening at this week’s UN Climate Change Conference COP 25 in Madrid. Read the full article.
 

In Channel’s 4 documentary Apocalypse Cow, which aired in the U.K. earlier this month, journalist and environmental activist George Monbiot takes on the farming industry, arguing it’s an inefficient extravagance that it’s destroying the planet. Conversely, Monbiot hails cultured meat as one of the technologies that may potentially revolutionize our global food production system, providing high-quality proteins at an affordable price, but consuming a fraction of the natural resources required by animal farming. Apocalypse Cow is a compelling documentary about the necessity to revolutionize our meat production systems, but the “farmfree” label attached to this vision isn’t probably going to stick. Farmers may actually turn out to be crucial albeit unlikely allies for cultured meat startups. Read the full article.
 

The New Innovator in Food and Agriculture Research Award is designed to provide the early investment needed to launch new faculty members into successful scientific careers in food and agriculture. Investing a substantial amount in faculty members within the first three years of their careers will allow them to pursue innovative and transformational ideas uninhibited by the pressure of identifying their next grant. The New Innovator Award seeks to promote career advancement of highly creative and promising new scientists who intend to make a long-term career commitment to research in food and agriculture and bring innovative, ground-breaking research initiatives and thinking to bear on problems facing food and agriculture. Nominations due March 4. Read the full announcement.
 

The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) is pleased to announce the launch of its new Geoscience Women in STEM website, providing Earth science teaching and learning resources inspired by the work of leading women geoscientists, with generous support from Lyda Hill Philanthropies. AGI is unveiling the site, in cooperation with its publishing partner Nautilus, to strengthen geoscience education through the stories of women in geoscience, including some recently selected as AAAS IF/THEN Ambassadors by IF/THEN, an initiative created by Lyda Hill Philanthropies to encourage and elevate the participation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. The site offers curriculum connections that focus on the Next Generation Science Standards in Earth and Space Science and illuminate ways that STEM topics can be explored across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Read the full article.
 

International Corner

After the United Kingdom leaves the European Union at the end of the month, it will sever ties with Europe’s farm subsidy policies—and to many researchers, that is a good thing. This week, the U.K. government proposed radical changes to £3 billion a year in agricultural spending that will focus the money on benefits to climate, ecosystems, and the public. Under the bill, introduced to Parliament this week and expected to become law within a few months, farmers will be given subsidies not simply for cultivating land—the current EU system—but for delivering “public goods.” These include sequestering carbon in trees or soil, enhancing habitat with pollinator-friendly flowers, and improving public access to the countryside. Read the full article.
 

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Apply for up to $20,000 in ASF-supported travel grants for grad students post-docs, and early career members to attend the 2020 Kirkham Conference September 14-17 at the Kruger National Park (Skukuza Rest Camp), South Africa. Deadline January 31. Read the full announcement.
 

This year's cycle of Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER) is now open and accepting proposals! PEER Cycle 9 has several new focus areas this year. In addition to the broad call for projects on any development-related research topic, the program welcomes calls in focus areas on advanced digital tools; family planning and reproductive health; the social, economic, and behavioral sciences. There are also several country-specific focus areas: urban WASH and transboundary water in Afghanistan, clean energy in Bangladesh, multiple research sectors in Tunisia, and bioremediation of dioxins and furans in Vietnam. Last year's cycle only supported projects of one year in length, but this year PEER Cycle 9 is once again inviting proposals for projects lasting two or three years, depending on the focus area. Deadline, February 10. Read the full announcement.
 

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR) is once again seeking applications through our Seeding Solutions funding opportunity. FFAR, as a core component of our mission, is putting a call out to the community in an effort to encourage the development of unique partnerships that support innovative and potentially transformative research focused on our newly updated Challenge Areas. For 2020, FFAR anticipates funding at least one meritorious and transformative application in each of FFAR’s six Challenge Areas. FFAR is placing priority on those projects that demonstrate strong partnerships and significant agricultural advancements through innovation. Preapplication deadline, February 26. Read the full announcement.
 

The International Consortium for Antimicrobial Stewardship in Agriculture (ICASA) is issuing a call for Letters of Intent (LOI) to solicit research concepts for potential funding and collaboration. ICASA is one of the largest public-private partnerships focusing on antibiotic stewardship in animal agriculture and has committed to investing in research to accelerate innovation and antibiotic stewardship across the livestock supply chain. ICASA Participants are seeking novel and potentially high-impact projects related to antibiotic stewardship and animal health, that can be conducted in collaboration with commercial livestock producers and processors. There is strong interest in early-stage technologies that may yield new types of data beyond what is currently available via existing technologies, as well as technologies closer to market that would benefit from research in commercial livestock production settings. Letter of intent deadline, February 26. Read the full announcement.
 

The Department of Defense (DoD), through the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP), supports the demonstration of technologies that address priority DoD environmental and installation energy requirements. The goal of ESTCP is to promote the transfer of innovative technologies through demonstrations that collect the data needed for regulatory and DoD end-user acceptance. Projects conduct formal demonstrations at DoD facilities and sites in operational settings to document and validate improved performance and cost savings. ESTCP is seeking proposals for demonstrations of innovative environmental and installation energy technologies as candidates for funding beginning in FY 2021. Preapplication deadline, March 5. Read the full announcement.
 

This program aims to provide all U.S. students with the opportunity to participate in computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education in their schools at the preK-12 levels. With this solicitation, the National Science Foundation (NSF) focuses on both research and researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) that foster the research and development needed to bring CS and CT to all schools. Specifically, this solicitation aims to provide (1) high school teachers with the preparation, professional development (PD) and ongoing support they need to teach rigorous computer science courses; (2) preK-8 teachers with the instructional materials and preparation they need to integrate CS and CT into their teaching; and (3) schools and districts with the resources needed to define and evaluate multi-grade pathways in CS and CT. Deadline, April 13. Read the full announcement.
 

CAREER: The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Activities pursued by early-career faculty should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. Deadline, July 27. Read the full announcement.
 

The AFRI Foundational and Applied Science Program supports grants in six AFRI priority areas to advance knowledge in both fundamental and applied sciences important to agriculture. The six priority areas are: Plant Health and Production and Plant Products; Animal Health and Production and Animal Products; Food Safety, Nutrition, and Health; Bioenergy, Natural Resources, and Environment; Agriculture Systems and Technology; and Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities. Research-only, extension-only, and integrated research, education and/or extension projects are solicited in this Request for Applications (RFA). Deadline, November 18. Read the full announcement.
 

Sources: ScienceInsider; RollCall; National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine; OU News; New York Times; Cargill; Forbes; FFAR; AGI; NSF; DOD; USDA;

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.