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Keith’s note: this OSTP report “Science A New Golden Age” just dropped online around 7:00 pm EDT on Tuesday in advance of the House Science Committee hearing with OSTP Director Kratsios on Wednesday. At a time when the Administration is gutting science they seem to think that this will result in a new, shiny Golden age.
“First, the U.S. research system should prioritize the individual scientist over legacy institutions. If we are serious about expanding what our scientists can do, we must invest directly in American researchers and the bold ideas that drive them. Too much of our research enterprise has come to serve itself rather than the scientists within it. Federal funding agencies should support a broader range of performers, including a new generation of mission-driven research organizations, to expand our scientific horizons. And these agencies should organize themselves around the interdisciplinary frontiers of science today, rather than the academic silos of the last century.
Second, the Federal Government should fundamentally change how research dollars are allocated, distributed, and assessed. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, the government should fund more flexible types of grants, including fasttrack grants, long-horizon grants, and new mechanisms that allow reviewers to champion radically unconventional proposals. Federal research agencies should evaluate their own performance as capital allocators, test new ways of making grants, and construct portfolios with the intentionality of a serious investor.
Third, the Federal Government should set clear scientific goals and build the industrial muscle to translate scientific discovery into technological strength. The greatest technical achievements of the last century came about because leaders in government identified national priorities and marshaled the resources to accomplish them. As our competitors race us to capture the value chain of strategic technologies, including with tactics we would never countenance, we can no longer assume that the fruits of American science will accrue to our own people. Government must mobilize the full force of our enterprise around national challenges, clear the ground for American builders, and reunite the work of discovery and manufacturing across the country
Fourth, we must prepare our research enterprise for the AI revolution. AI will accelerate and radically transform the way we do science. But even the most capable AI models will be slowed down in the bottleneck of institutions and systems built for the last century. As we renew the infrastructure that powers American science, we must reengineer it for the AI age. And even as AI compresses the time from question to answer, we will still need human hands to build the instrument or prototype. We must build that capacity, too, investing in advanced manufacturing, the skilled trades, and the vast pools of talent and tacit knowledge outside the traditional academic pipeline.”
Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member… More by Keith Cowing
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NASA Watch
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