Could Distributed Peer Review Better Decide Grant Funding?
The landscape of academic grant funding is notoriously competitive and plagued by lengthy, bureaucratic processes, exacerbated by difficulties in finding willing reviewers. Distributed […]
Washington and Social Science: News Bulletin
Starting this month Social Science Space will begin offering monthly updates on U.S. government actions that affect the social and behavioral sciences. In this first edition, we look at reauthorization of funding for the National Science Foundation, the effect of an Obamacare repeal on social science, and concerns for the American Community Survey and GIS data on housing.
And So Power Passes: Whats Next for Federal Role in Social Science?
Our Howard Silver looks over some of the personnel changes and rhetoric coming from the White House to see what lies down the road for U.S. government support of social and behavioral science and data collection.
NSF Policy Bill, Without Budget Authorization, Looks Likely to Pass
UPDATED WITH HOUSE PASSAGE: A bill that was the latest version of the beloved America COMPETES — but which no longer authorizes funding for key federal science research agencies — looks likely to land on the president’s desk. The new version has lost a particularly toxic aspect of earlier versions.
An Engineer at the NSF: Erich Bloch, 1925-2016
Erich Bloch was the first non-academic to serve as director of the NSF. Although a computer engineer by background, he recognized the value of the social and behavioral sciences.
Government Research Funding Falls for Fourth Year in US
For the fourth straight year, federal funding for research and development at institutions of higher education decreased in absolute terms, according to a new brief on the 2015 fiscal year the National Science Foundation released last week. Despite that overall fall, research and development funding for psychology and for fields identified as social science increased from 2014 to 2015.
Senate Appropriators Set Aside $7.5B for NSF
In a hearing before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on science spending Tuesday, the National Science Foundation’s budget was listed as $7.51 billion — $46 million above the same figure for the current fiscal year, but lower than what President Obama had asked for.
Lamar Smith’s National Interest Bill Passes House
Legislation that requires that future grants made by the National Science Foundation meet a test for being in the ‘national interest’ passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
Omnibus US Funding Bill Smiles on Social Science
UPDATED with COSSA analysis: Social and behavioral science funded by the U.S. government appears to have received an early Christmas present as leaders in the House of Representatives unveiled a $1.1 trillion spending bill to keep the federal enterprise funded in 2016.
