November 20, 2019
On Tuesday, November 5, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hosted a summit to inform the work of the Joint Committee on the Research Environment (JCORE), an effort announced in May of this year.
JCORE consists of four subcommittees with the goals of coordinating administrative requirements for federally-funded research; promoting rigor and integrity in research; fostering safe, inclusive, and equitable research environments; and strengthening the security of America’s S&T research enterprise. This last goal is a particularly challenging one for the scientific community because it includes policies around foreign collaborations. While appreciative of the legitimate concerns about foreign influence, some members of the scientific community have voiced concern that certain federal agencies could go too far and stifle international collaboration in science.
Summit attendees included representatives from across academia, scientific societies, industry and the federal government, including top officials from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, and National Security Agency. Attendees broke up into four breakout sessions to discuss four themes: Transparency, Integrity, Workload, and Coordination. The committee has an aggressive plan for moving forward.
At the summit, attendees learned that OSTP will release a Request for Information to solicit feedback from the broad scientific community.
Before starting at OSTP, Dr. Droegemeier was the vice-president of research at the University of Oklahoma, a valuable perspective to inform this effort.
