How do new energy technologies get from the lab to the market?
That’s a tough question, especially when it comes to federal research at the Department of Energy. Transferring technologies from the DOE to private companies isn’t always easy. Barriers such as the “valley of death”—a gap between the end of public funding and the start of private funding—can stop a transfer.
The DOE has taken steps to address barriers, such as providing training on transferring technologies. But according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), it could better measure the progress of its technology transfer efforts.
GAO recommended developing performance goals and measures for technology transition.
On January 15, 2021, U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden nominated geneticist Dr. Eric Lander to be his Science Advisor and head of the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). Concurrently, the President-Elect also announced he would elevate OSTP to cabinet-level, a first since the position was created in the early-1970’s.
In a letter to Dr. Lander [PDF] released at the time of his announcement, President-Elect Biden asked five specific questions on how science can and should benefit the nation. Citing the questions posed by Franklin Roosevelt to his science advisor, Vannevar Bush in 1944 that resulted in Bush’s landmark report, Science: The Endless Frontier, Biden asked five specific questions on how science can meet the challenges of the 21st Century. Biden asked that Dr. Lander should call on the entire U.S. science enterprise to make recommendations “on the general strategies, specific actions, and new structures that the federal government should adopt to ensure that our nation can continue to harness the full power of science and technology on behalf of the American people“.
The five specific questions put forward by the President-Elect are:
What can we learn from the pandemic about what is possible—or what ought to be possible—to address the widest range of needs related to our public health?
How can breakthroughs in science and technology create powerful new solutions to address climate change—propelling market-driven change, jump-starting economic growth, improving health, and growing jobs, especially in communities that have been left behind?
How can the United States ensure that it is the world leader in the technologies and industries of the future that will be critical to our economic prosperity and national security, especially in competition with China?
How can we guarantee that the fruits of science and technology are fully shared across America and among all Americans?
How can we ensure the long-term health of science and technology in our nation?
The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine will host a webinar on the AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems (AIFS), which aims to meet growing demands in the food supply by increasing efficiencies using AI and bioinformatics across food production and distribution systems. The Institute, launched in October 2020, brings together researchers from six institutions – UC Davis; UC Berkeley; Cornell University; the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; UC Agriculture and Natural Resources; and the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. Through the integration of digital and biological technologies, AIFS research will pursue multidisciplinary science, industry engagement, and workforce development to address challenges across the U.S. food system.
Ilias Tagkopoulos, the director of AIFS and professor in the UC Davis Department of Computer Science and Genome Center, will discuss the collaborative mission of the new institute.
We Robot is a top conference at the confluence of robotics law, policy and technology. The next session of We Robot at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, USA, on September 23-25, 2021. The call for scholarly papers, demonstrations and posters is open until February 1, 2021. For more info see: We Robot 2021 Call for Papers, Demos & Posters
A roll-out of a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States is possibly less than a month away. In this light, a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released in October is especially pertinent. It is a final report of a consensus study recommending a four-phased equitable allocation framework that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) authorities should adopt in the development of national and local guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine allocation.
Investments in science and technology are critical for job and wealth creation as well as broader economic growth across all regions of the United States. The biennial State Technology and Science Index (STSI) developed by the Miliken Institute provides a benchmark for evaluating the knowledge economies of all 50 US states. The index compares each state’s capacity for achieving prosperity through scientific discovery and technological innovation.
The index uses 105 metrics in five areas (research and development inputs, risk capital and entrepreneurial infrastructure, human capital investment, technology and science workforce, and technology concentration and dynamism) to evaluate states.
Massachusetts, Colorado, California, Maryland, Washington and Utah top the list.
The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable will hold a free webinar on Oct 27 at 1pm ET to discuss NSF’s Convergence Accelerator, which designed to transition leading-edge research toward high-impact, real-world solutions using a convergence approach.
The Air Force Research Laboratory is teaming up with academia, industry and government agencies to ensure the trustworthiness of future Artificial Intelligence.
The series is designed to cultivate, define and fund creative solutions to a set of challenge problems in trustworthy AI and will focus on dynamic, autonomous systems that learn and adapt behaviors. The series will kick off Oct. 14, 2020 with a half-day webinar at 12 Noon EDT. Click here to register.
On October 15, 2020, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) will host a webinar to provide university researchers with an opportunity to learn about the funding and partnership opportunities with AFRL. The focus of the upcoming webinar will be international research opportunities through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research International Office.
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 for their discovery of a method of editing genetic code known as CRISPR/Cas9.
In just eight short years, this discovery has had a profound impact on science and on humanity. Using CRISPR, researchers can change the DNA of animals, plants and microorganisms with extremely high precision. This technology has revolutionized the life sciences, is contributing to new cancer therapies and may make the dream of curing inherited diseases come true.
