Federal R&D Investment as a Tool for Global Competition

Federal policy discussions about global competition increasingly include the importance of basic research. China’s continued emergence as an economic and military power in the world has generated bipartisan interest in revitalizing the United States’ federal research and development investments as a tool to ensure American global competitiveness in the years ahead. Two recent meetings brought experts together to discuss opportunities for such a policy response.

Task Force on American

Bridging the Socio-Economic Divide in the Era of Covid

We’ve been told for eons that to get ahead you need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Not really, according to new research in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

Data show, and 83 percent of Americans agree, that higher education is essential and “one of the most robust routes out of poverty,” Wendy R. Williams and Harmony A Reppond write in “More Than Just Hard Work: Educational Policies to Facilitate Economic Mobility.”

Yet in the world of

American Rescue Plan Heads to the President’s Desk

COVID Relief

On Wednesday, March 10, the House passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, to incorporate amendments added by the Senate last week. The bill now heads to the White House for President Biden’s signature, successfully meeting the March 14 deadline, when expanded unemployment benefits will run dry.

Of note for FABBS members, the bill includes $600 million for the National Science Foundation to fund new and existing research to respond to COVID-19, and $100 million for

New Legislation Would Create National Gun Violence Research Program

Last week, Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30), Chair of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, reintroduced the National Gun Violence Research Act that would create a comprehensive approach to gun violence research involving multiple agencies. The bill would authorize additional funding for the National Science Foundation ($15M), the National Institute of Standards and Technology ($1M), the Department of Health and Human Services ($25M), and the Department of Justice ($3M)