Howard Silver named Senior Contributing Editor of Social Science Space
Howard Silver named Senior Contributing Editor of Social Science Space
June 20, 2014 (Washington, D.C.) — Howard J. Silver, Political Scientist and former Executive Director of the D.C.-based Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA), has been brought on as a monthly contributing editor for Social Science Space, a website that covers news and analysis about the global social science community. His first post, looking at how a newly elected President Ronald Reagan helped to create the lobbying infrastructure that is currently employed to oppose conservative efforts to defund the social sciences, was published today here.
“Space serves as a one-stop place to understand what is happening in and to the social sciences,” Howard said. “I am delighted to join their distinguished contributors in trying to explain the political situations that affect these sciences.”
Silver joined COSSA in 1983 as associate director for government relations. He was promoted to head the organization as Executive Director in 1988 and served in that position for 25 years.
While at COSSA, Silver testified before Congress, spoke on federal funding of science at many professional meetings, and wrote extensively on executive-legislative relations, the federal budget process, and science policy as it affects the social and behavioral sciences. To celebrate COSSA’s 20th anniversary in 2001, he co-wrote and edited Fostering Human Progress: Social and Behavioral Research Contributions to Public Policy. In 2013, he received the American Political Science Association’s Frank Goodnow Award for lifetime service to the organization. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1998 and currently serves on its Section K Nominating Committee.
Elected by his science policy colleagues, from 1994 to 2000 Silver chaired the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), an ad-hoc advocacy group with membership from scientific and engineering societies, higher education associations, and industrial groups.
“Especially as challenging the legitimacy of social, behavioral and economic research becomes an annual parlor game for the U.S. Congress,” said Michael Todd, Editor of Social Science Space, “we’re inordinately happy to draw on Howard’s years of hard-won experience to help inform Social Science Space’s coverage of those federal-funding battles.”
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Social Science Space was created by SAGE in 2011 to celebrate and champion the value and impact of social science around the world, and at the same time become a clearinghouse for industry/infrastructure issues affecting the disciplines. Silver joins several other prominent social scientists blogging for Social Science Space, such as British medical socialist Robert Dingwall and crime psychologist David Canter, as well as the beloved team behind the Social science Bites podcast series, Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds.
