Cutting NSF Is Like Liquidating Your Finest Investment
Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using […]
The National Interest and the NSF
Current legislation calls for federally funded science to be in the ‘national interest.’ What does that even mean, and why do scientists fear this Republican-led effort?
Shutdowns: The Misfire Next Time
Although a U.S. government shutdown has apparently been kicked down the road just a little bit longer, but a potential new shutdown — and its ruinous consequences for grant-funded science –always seems to be just around the corner.
Behavior Routinely on Biomedicine’s Back Burner
The challenge of infusing the social sciences into what are generally viewed as biomedical issues has been a long and difficult one, as the recent WHO report on Ebola demonstrates. Oddly, this lesson has been learned many times before, but keeps getting forgotten.
Funding Social Science: A Primer on US Budgeting Process
Howard Silver examines the process in which federal research funding is arrived at — and points out how the process is, or isn’t, working in this Congress.
Data, Democracy, and Janet Norwood
Making decisions without data soils the public policy process with ideology, partisan politics, and misinformation, all things the late Janet Norwood abhorred. Her voice, commitment, and professionalism will be sorely missed.
So It Goes – Travails of Science in Latest Congress
The latest re-authorization of the America COMPETES bill that dramatically reduces funding for social science (and geoscience) may very well pass Congress. Will the president be willing to veto an important bill that contains these unwelcome provisions?
Two Mentors and a Senate Legacy
Howard Silver looks back over the career of the longest-serving woman in the U.S. Congress and how her role as appropriator influenced policy decisions on social science wants and needs.
Change in the Caribbean?
Our Washington-based correspondent Howard Silver reflects on his recent trip to Cuba, a place where professors turn to driving taxis to make ends meet.
