0.15 The first obama months

At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before.

—Barack Obama, April 27, 2009 Address at National Academy of Sciences, April 27, 2009.

Recommendations for the next president

In June 2008, reenacting what had become an election year ritual, a small group convened by the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, and released a report containing recommendations for the next president. (External Link) . Entitled OSTP 2.0: Critical Upgrade , it likened the presidential science advisory system to a software package needing refinement and enhanced utility.

The report is based on interviews with over seventy people, including all living former science advisors except for H. Guyford Stever, science advisor to Presidents Nixon and Ford. One of the principal authors of the report had worked with Stever, who was too ill to be interviewed, and also reviewed written materials concerning the issues raised. The key issues it identified for the next presidential science advisor included:

1. Environmental and energy challenges, such as global climate change;
2. Enhancing U.S. global leadership in innovation;
3. Responding to national security challenges;
4. Assuring that the United States has access to the best and brightest science and technology talent in adequate numbers through improved science and technology education at all levels;
5. Improving health and health care delivery on a foundation of world-class biomedical research, prudent and efficient safety review of new drugs and devices, and the application of information technology;
6. Assessing the future of the U.S. space program, including science, earth observation systems, and the balance between human and non-human exploration as well as the benefits for defense and environmental policy;
7. Finding means of ensuring public understanding of scientific issues and advances as well as technological opportunities.

Predictably, the report called for early selection of a presidential science advisor, preferably between the election and the inauguration. Although not referenced by the report, this has occurred only once: when President-elect Clinton had announced his intention of nominating John Gibbons as director of OSTP during the week after Christmas 1992, when he also announced the names of his intended cabinet. It recommended that the science advisor be restored to the quasi-cabinet-level position of Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, as had been the case during the Bush père and Clinton administrations. It also called for restoration of the four presidentially-appointed OSTP associate directors authorized by the OSTP Act of 1976, re-invigoration and more effect use of PCAST and the NSTC, and presidential attendance at PCAST meetings.