The US might be losing out to China in its scientific influence in key countries

This week, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology holds the first of its hearings on the US, China and the fight for global leadership. The martial language is no mistake; to many interested in science and policy, this is a battle.

When he was elected to chair the committee in January, Frank Lucas listed “the threats we face from the Chinese Communist Party” as one of the big issues he wanted to work on, alongside the supply chain for advanced tech, space and clean energy.

The hearing charter notes that the meeting tomorrow will “examine the CCP’s attempts to surpass US scientific leadership and the economic and national security implications that it has for America”.

Of course, fears about China’s meteoric rise as a research power are not new.

Last year, a report from Japan’s science ministry suggested that China had overtaken the US in terms of its number of research papers and most-cited papers. (That report was based on data from Clarivate—Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Clarivate.)

The warnings that China could overtake the US go back well before that.

But while there has been much attention paid to direct US-China ties and competition, there has been far less focus on how China is increasingly winning the hearts and minds of researchers in developing nations.

China has aggressively courted the global south, notably via its Belt and Road development initiative.

It has also sought to entice foreign researchers to move to China via the Thousand Talents Plan. Research unveiled last week suggests some successes in this drive for ties.

Yusuf Ikbal Oldac, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, carried out research comparing how many papers the US and China co-authored with six other countries: Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

While scientists in both the US and China have worked increasingly with their counterparts in those six countries over the years, collaboration with China-based researchers rose at an “astonishing” rate in the past decade, Oldac said as he shared his findings at a seminar hosted by the UK-based Centre for Global Higher Education.

China on the up

The findings look like a sign that China is gaining on the US, which was the world leader in scientific research output for a long time.

There is “a clear pattern of moving away from a single pole in global science. The Chinese system is moving up fast and is gaining increasingly more space from the US science system,” Oldac said.

Using data from the Web of Science and Scopus—the former a Clarivate product—Oldac found that scientific collaboration between the six nations and China was growing at an “exponential” rate compared with a steadier, slower increase in co-authorship with the US.

For 2021, the year of the latest full available data, there were more co-authored publications with China than with the US in total. On average, there were 3,000 co-authored papers between the six countries and the US, compared with 3,440 with China.

Pakistan had just 2,310 co-authored papers with the US in 2021 but a staggering 7,200 with China. There were 1,370 US-Malaysian research collaborations, compared with 2,250 China-Malaysia researcher pairings.

China has invested large amounts in Pakistani scientific and technological infrastructure in particular, Oldac explained, while US investment in the country’s science does not come close.

Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia collaborated more with China, while researchers in Egypt, Iran and Turkey worked more with the US, the study found.

“These results are illuminating in that scientists may not constantly follow the overall policies and geopolitical stances of their countries,” Oldac said. He pointed to Iran, which he found to collaborate more with the US scientifically despite the longstanding geopolitical tensions between the two nations.

“This situation is a potential indication that scientists and scientific endeavours may not always align and follow national-level policies and stances,” Oldac said.

An uncertain future

Although Oldac said his findings confirmed that the US is losing out to China, he believes this may not last.

Oldac thinks the decrease in global American scientific influence may not just be due to China’s “meteoric” rise but equally down to the US’s increasingly domestic focus in recent years.

This may have “deterred” international research collaborations, he believes. If this outlook changes and a more international agenda rules once again, research collaboration patterns could also change.

Meanwhile, China closing itself off to the world due to Covid-19 could have an impact on international research collaboration.

Collaboration networks are often established after initial face-to-face contact, which builds trust. China closing down its borders could therefore strike a blow to its scientists’ international research connections in the medium and long term, Oldac said.

Trust is in short supply everywhere at the moment, it seems.

And finally…

As we reported last week, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, are crowdsourcing support to search for alien life.

The project—Are We Alone in the Universe?—wants members of the public to classify radio signals that might hide signs that some other intelligence is out there.

Some researchers have warned for a while that if there are aliens out there, contacting them might be a bad idea as they could come and destroy humanity.

The team behind this latest project might have some explaining to do to the university if that turns out to be right.

Highlights from Research Professional News this week

Rachael Pells brings us the news that Republicans in the House of Representatives have launched an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 and the use of taxpayer money for coronavirus research.

She also has the story that postdoctoral researchers and people who work with them are being encouraged to give feedback on how the National Institutes of Health could improve its training programmes.

In our US news roundup, a call from the National Science Foundation and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has awarded funding of $4.1 million to accelerate research into the ethical use of artificial intelligence.

In the news

The New York Times reports that challenges to student loan cancellations have reached the Supreme Court, and the Department of Energy says that a lab leak is likely to have caused the Covid-19 pandemic.

In The Washington Post, the president’s student loan forgiveness programme has come before the Supreme Court, and high-skilled visa holders are at risk of deportation amid tech layoffs.

In The Wall Street Journal, Stanford University faculty say that anonymous student bias reports threaten free speech, the student loan forgiveness case at the Supreme Court hinges on ‘harm’, the Supreme Court’s student loan case will test the limits of presidential power, there’s an explainer on how repaying student loans is changing, and the energy department says that a lab leak is the most likely origin of the pandemic.

Reuters says that Nasa and SpaceX have postponed the launch of the next space station crew.

The Associated Press explains the arguments in the Supreme Court student loan case, a judge has written of the ‘crushing weight’ of student loans, and the Rales Foundation has bet big on Carnegie Mellon University science, technology, engineering and maths students.

Science reports that ‘unfair’ medical screening plagues polar research, journals are hammering out policies on artificial intelligence, quantum computers have taken a key step towards curbing errors, a society has backpedalled from actions against scientists who staged a climate protest, and there’s a look at how to fold indigenous ethics into psychedelics studies.

In Nature, the China Initiative’s shadow looms large for US scientists.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports on the Rales Foundation’s support for science, technology, engineering and maths students at Carnegie Mellon University.

The week ahead

Monday

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine hold the first of two national symposia looking at supporting those in science, engineering and medicine with caregiving responsibilities.

Tuesday

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology holds a meeting on the US, China and the fight for global leadership.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs is holding a meeting on ‘combating the generational challenge of Chinese Communist Party aggression’.

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is discussing what can be learned from Covid policy decisions during the pandemic.

The National Academies run a webinar about a report on oil pollution research.

Wednesday

A House subcommittee on consumer protection and commerce discusses innovation and data privacy.

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works looks at the nomination of Joseph Goffman to be an assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Senate Committee on Budget looks at climate change and the economic risks to coastal communities.

The National Academies run a virtual event on implicit bias in publications.

The Playbook would not be possible without Robin Bisson, Rachel Magee, Andrew Silver, Martyn Jones, Craig Nicholson, Daniel Cressey and Sarah Richardson.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

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How the NIH uses the US government’s billions to shape the world of biomedical research

The National Institutes of Health is in many ways in a league of its own as a public research funding agency. With a budget of $45.1 billion in 2022, it is the largest non-military government research spender in the United States and claims to be the largest public funder of biomedical research in the world.

Its history begins in 1887 and the establishment of the US Marine Hospital Service, which was originally tasked with checking passengers arriving at ports for disease. Since then, it has grown into a behemoth that has supported over 150 Nobel prizewinners, along the way becoming first the National Institute of Health in 1930 and then expanding to multiple institutes in 1948.

While the NIH conducts its own in-house research, more than 80 per cent of its funding is awarded externally, largely through competitive grants. These are channelled through 27 separate institutes and centres, covering all areas of medical research and public health.

Rising tide

Except for a moderate decline between 2012 and 2013, the NIH’s budget has steadily risen since the turn of the millennium and has increased more rapidly since around 2015. While external grants are awarded across a variety of categories—including career development fellowships, training awards and business R&D contracts—research project grants consistently account for between 50 and 60 per cent of the NIH budget.

However, the picture of inexorable rise looks somewhat different from the perspective of individual researchers who win grants. When inflation is taken into account, there has been little difference in the average size of research grants since 1998.

Big spenders

The NIH does not spread its spending evenly across its various centres. The five top-spending centres together account for over 50 per cent of spending in recent years. Those centres cover cancer; allergies and infectious diseases; heart, lung and blood; general medical sciences; and ageing.

At the other end of the scale, the institutes with the smallest research budgets are the National Library of Medicine, the National Institute of Nursing Research and the John E Fogarty International Center, which focuses on global health.

The majority of centres spend more than 95 per cent of their budgets on research project grants, but there are some exceptions. The National Institute of General Medical Sciences, for instance, spent nearly 7 per cent of its budget on research training grants in 2020, while the Office of the Director reserves around half of its budget for special awards.

Higher education focus

The NIH is a hugely important funder for the expansive US academic community, with medical schools around the country relying on it hugely. In line with this, higher education institutions win the largest share of NIH grants compared with independent research institutes, hospitals, non-profits and companies.

Higher education institutions won nearly three-quarters of research project grants in 2019, the last year for which data are available. They claimed an even higher proportion of career development fellowships and training grants.

Institutions attracting the most NIH funding are located in the research heartlands of the east and west coasts of the US. The north-east cities of Boston and New York—home to world-leading research institutes including Harvard and Columbia—came out top in geographical concentration of funding in 2020. But when it comes to individual institutions, Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University top the leaderboard.

Most NIH awards go to US institutions, with those overseas winning less than 1 per cent of the total grant funding in 2020. Even so, non-US grant funding amounted to more than $290 million and over 600 grants were parcelled out to 66 countries. Top among these were South Africa, Canada, Australia, Germany and the UK.

Win or lose

Since 2016, success rates for research project grants at the NIH have been fairly static, at about 20 per cent, having fallen from nearer 30 per cent around 2000. When the NIH budget dropped between 2012 and 2013, success rates hit their lowest level—about 17 per cent—but they have since improved moderately.

The gap between men and women, in terms of the proportion of grants won, has shrunk considerably since the turn of the millennium. In 2000, men won around 75 per cent of research project grants and women took around 25 per cent, but in the past three years, men have won around 65 per cent of grants, with women taking around 35 per cent. Success rates, too, have improved, and have mostly been fairly even since around 2003, although it is notable that the success rate for women dropped further than that of men when the NIH budget was restricted in 2013.

In other areas, funding is much more even between genders. For instance, women were awarded at least 50 per cent of career development fellowships from 2016 through to 2020.

Diversity gap

When it comes to race and ethnicity, the NIH has made it clear it wants to see the proportion of non-white award-winners rise, but there has been only a small amount of movement in this area in recent years.

In 2016, the proportion of non-white  winners was 23 per cent, rising to 25 per cent in 2020.

Outside non-white winners, by far the largest proportion of grants are won by people of Asian origin: consistently around 20 per cent since 2016. In contrast, only around 2 per cent of research project grant winners have been Black or African American. Hispanic researchers have consistently made up 5 per cent of research project grant winners in recent years.

Looking forward

The NIH occupies a critical position at the centre of US research—and therefore, to a large extent, at the centre of world research. Even small shifts in how much it has to spend and what it chooses to spend it on can have huge consequences for entire disciplines, let alone individual researchers.

As well as a change in leadership, with former director Francis Collins stepping down in late 2021 after 22 years at the helm, another major change on the horizon is that the NIH will be housing the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, a new funder geared to deliver medical breakthroughs.

While lawmakers have set aside an extra $1bn for the agency, known as Arpa-H, in 2022, it remains to be seen whether its creation could put pressure on core NIH funding in the long term.

Originally published as part of Research Professional News’ Special Report: Research Funding’s Big Players in April 2022

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Velux Stiftung offers project grants in an eclectic range of subjects linked to daylight

Velux Stiftung is a grant-giving foundation that is perhaps less well known than it should be, especially by researchers in fields linked to light, vision and healthy ageing whose interdisciplinary ideas may not easily find favour with national funders. Ophthalmology researchers with ideas for projects in low- and middle-income countries should also be aware of this funder.

The 2023 round of the foundation’s Research Grants schemes is open now, with up to CHF100,000 (€101,000) for applicants to the daylight and healthy ageing stream, and up to CHF400,000 available in the ophthalmology stream. Projects in both can last for up to four years. The deadline for daylight and healthy ageing applicants is 30 April and for ophthalmology 7 May.

In April 2021, the foundation’s senior scientific officer Kirstin Kopp shone a light on these grant programmes.

Top tips

• Connecting different fields is strongly encouraged in bids, especially when this isn’t supported by other funders
• Velux Stiftung likes to see the transfer of results from previous research
• Grants applications in ophthalmology should focus on low- and middle-income countries

For researchers with ideas for projects a little different from the norm, Velux Stiftung might provide a welcome ray of light. The Swiss funder, founded by the inventor of Velux windows, awards grants on an annual basis for projects lasting up to four years. It specifically asks applicants to explain why their project is not eligible for funding by other sources.

Velux Stiftung awards grants in three specific areas: ophthalmology, daylight research and healthy ageing.

The funder recently held a strategic review that led to some important changes in its grants programme. Senior scientific officer Kirstin Kopp tells us more.

How long has Velux Stiftung had a research grants programme?

Velux Stiftung was founded in 1980 and it’s been giving out grants ever since. From the early 2000s it really took off. The Danish engineer Villum Kann Rasmussen had the idea that people needed to have more light and air within built environments. With his Velux roof windows, he made a fortune and founded several foundations.

Tell me a bit more about the three funding areas.

First, there is daylight research, as we call it, which brings together many different disciplines, including chronobiology, psychiatry and architecture—considering the built environments where we spend 90 per cent of our time—but also topics in daylight and nature as well as daylight technology. Second, there is healthy ageing, where we also try to focus on this interdisciplinary approach. The third area is ophthalmology.

Are you open to applications from any country?

We give out international grants but I should point out that as a charitable Swiss foundation, we are tax exempt and that requires us to spend 50 per cent of our money in Switzerland. So 50 per cent of our funding is open to international research grants. Broadly, we receive more applications from within Europe, but we have also been getting applications from overseas.

How many grants do you award each year and what are your success rates?

In the past five years, it’s been around 20, with an average success rate of 23 per cent. It does vary. In 2019, we had over 100 applications, so the funding rate was below 20 per cent, but usually it’s around 20 to 25 per cent.

Is there a total budget?

In the past couple of years we gave out around CHF7 million in total, but it depends on the financial markets.

Do you tend to fund more projects in any one of the three main areas?

No, it’s actually quite variable. When you look at our funding history, in some years there is more money going to healthy ageing and in other years there is more into daylight research. There is no fixed quota, and it’s not split into equal parts for the three different funding areas—it really depends where the best ideas come in.

Are all three areas distinct or do you like to see some crossover?

We are genuinely quite fond of interdisciplinary approaches. This might be within one of these areas but reaching out to another discipline which is not in our funding portfolio, but it also might be an interdisciplinary project at the intersection of the three areas we fund, and these projects are of particular interest.

You ask for applications not to be eligible for funding by other sources. How should applicants show this?

Not all national funding agencies have programmes for proof-of-concept studies, for example. So that’s something where you could demonstrate that you’re not eligible for funding. Another example would be interdisciplinary projects that fall between categories. And some funding agencies continuously fund a certain research stream but once you start to reach out and want to try something new or apply your work to a different field, it becomes more difficult to find funding.

Can people apply with proposals that have been turned down by their national funders?

Well, you need to be within our funding areas and your research question should be relevant but also neglected in that nobody else wants to fund it. And then scientific quality is important, of course. It’s not like if you have fallen through your national funding agency’s selection procedure then we will cover you—that’s not the case.

Could you give an example of a project that would be the right fit for Velux Stiftung?

It could be that you have a great idea and a great research partner, but this partner is in a country that is not supported by other funding sources. We’re also interested in how much applicants are invested in transferring research results. Obviously, if you’re doing basic research, the next level might not be developing a product, but you might want to go on and see who else is interested and who you could collaborate with. I think that this kind of transfer step is very important.

Velux Stiftung has recently had a strategic review—has this changed your funding priorities in any way?

When we did a bit of background research on where funding for ophthalmology went in general, we saw that there was a lot of funding for diseases that were common in high-income countries but that the majority of visual impairment was actually in low-income and middle-income countries and was due to diseases for which solutions existed. Often these solutions work well in high-income countries but are not adapted to the local situation in low-income and middle-income countries. As we are a rather small foundation, we wanted to know where we could make a difference, so the focus is now set on ophthalmology research in the context of low-income and middle-income countries where there is less funding available.

And are there any other changes to your funding programmes on the horizon?

As a sneak peek I can tell you that the foundation is actually looking at starting a funding programme in forestry and climate change. But we’re still at the very beginning and at the moment we are considering what we should focus on. We’re trying to set it up this year so by next year there should be some more details.

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This week: AI ethics, therapeutics production and the search for alien life

In depth: Republicans in the House of Representatives have launched an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 and the use of taxpayer money for coronavirus research.

Full story: House Republicans launch investigation into Covid origins
 

 
Also this week from Research Professional News

NIH asks for input on its postdoctoral training—Postdocs and people who work with them are encouraged to provide feedback

Uncomfortable truths—Researchers still face struggles against sexual harassment and racial inequality
 

 
Here is the rest of the US news this week…

US and Australia award $4.1m for ethical AI

A call from the National Science Foundation and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has awarded funding of $4.1 million to accelerate research into the ethical use of artificial intelligence. US and Australian researchers were invited to submit collaborative proposals on the use of AI to address major societal problems, including drought resilience and infectious diseases. The winning projects include ideas for mitigation of bias in AI-powered modelling of how diseases spread. The current round allocated $1.8m to US applicants and $2.3m to their Australian counterparts.

Darpa aims to speed up production of therapeutics

A project launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency aims to develop tools for on-demand manufacturing of protein-based drugs such as antibodies and vaccines. Darpa said the slow pace of development and “substantial costs associated with current protein production methods” were limiting the Department of Defense’s access to critical therapies. The Reimagining Protein Manufacturing project will enable research teams to demonstrate rapid production of protein products to better support urgent care needs.

California researchers crowdsource search for alien life

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, are asking citizen scientists to help them find signs of alien life. The project—Are We Alone in the Universe?—is funded by the Planetary Society and Nasa. It invites members of the public to classify radio signals that may have been emitted tens of thousands of light years away. Participants watch a brief online tutorial before answering basic questions about each signal, contributing to a larger dataset for wider analysis.

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Non-governmental organisation included in investigation strongly rebuts Republicans’ assertions

Republicans in the House of Representatives have launched an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 and the use of taxpayer money for coronavirus research.

Brad Wenstrup, chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and James Comer, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, this month accused senior officials of a “cover-up” around what the chairs said was the funnelling of US public funding to China “to conduct risky research”.

They called for information from former chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and from leaders of the EcoHealth Alliance, a US-based non-governmental organisation whose stated aim is to support research into pandemic prevention.

Their move follows an initial request for information sent in December by House Republicans including Comer, with both requests claiming that there is increasing evidence that the virus causing Covid-19 originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

“Understanding the origins of Covid-19 is essential to providing accountability and protecting Americans in the future,” said Comer this month. “We know EcoHealth Alliance acted as a middleman, improperly funnelling thousands of taxpayer dollars to the Wuhan lab to conduct risky gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses which could have started the pandemic.”

“We will continue to follow the facts to determine what could have been done differently…and hold US government officials that took part in any sort of cover-up accountable.”

Strong rebuttal

A spokesperson for the EcoHealth Alliance told Research Professional News that the group had been in contact with the committees to provide the information requested.

They said that “a number of baseless allegations” had been made about the origins of Covid-19.

“Evidence does not ‘continue to mount pointing to the virus leaking from an insecure lab in Wuhan’,” they said. “In fact, expert scientists who have reviewed the evidence have found no data supporting this hypothesis.”

Statements that the EcoHealth Alliance “improperly funnelled thousands of taxpayer dollars” to the Wuhan Institute of Virology “are also untrue”, the spokesperson said.

“EcoHealth Alliance did provide funds to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but this was done as part of a standard sub-award of a National Institutes of Health research grant,” they continued. “Neither EcoHealth Alliance nor the Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted gain-of-function research using National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant funds.”

Gain-of-function research is work that aims to alter viruses in ways that could affect their ability to cause disease, as a way of increasing knowledge. It has been posited by some as a potential source of Covid-19, although the suggestion is highly controversial.

Research Professional News has asked government offices including the National Institutes of Health and Fauci’s office for comment.

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Postdocs and people who work with them are encouraged to provide feedback

Postdoctoral researchers and people who work with them are being encouraged to give feedback on how the National Institutes of Health could improve its training programmes.

In a blogpost published on 14 February, NIH deputy director Mike Lauer said that recent data from the National Science Foundation showed evidence of a substantial decline in the number of US postdocs, which he said had been attributed to financial challenges and uncertainty following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The NIH is asking for input on several aspects of its postdoctoral training programmes, including recruitment challenges, postdocs’ roles and responsibilities and how NIH policies, programmes or resources could be modified or expanded.

The findings will be collated and addressed by a dedicated working group the NIH set up in November last year.

Lauer said: “It is a high priority for the NIH to identify, grow and retain investigators across these critical career stages, because they convey new insights, develop innovative ideas and advance the translation of scientific research into improved health for all.”

The consultation period is open until 14 April.

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“Concrete” support demanded for academics prevented by authoritarian regimes from freely conducting research

European researcher groups have called for “concrete” support for academics persecuted for their research activity by authoritarian regimes.

In a joint statement released on 21 February, the European Council of Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers, the International Consortium of Research Staff Associations, the Marie Curie Alumni Association and the Young Academy of Europe proclaimed their solidarity with researchers they said were facing injustice in countries with authoritarian regimes, with a particular focus on Iran.

“We strongly advocate for concrete support to researchers persecuted for their research activity by any authoritarian regime, and here specifically for concrete support to researchers in Iran,” the statement said.

Detention and torture

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, a large number of researchers have been arrested, detained and tortured by the Iranian authorities because of their research, the groups said. One they named was Iranian-Swedish disaster medicine researcher Ahmadreza Djalali, who has been accused of espionage and sentenced to death.

“We feel the need to highlight our support for the freedom of all scholars to carry out research from their chosen cultural and/or political perspective in a safe and respectful environment,” said the associations.

“This is even more important for those scholars who are based in, or come from, non-Western countries: their perspective can be novel to the majority of the European academic community, and thus they may be more exposed to epistemic violence or injustice. We all need to ensure that this does not happen.”

Double the danger

Since September, there have been ongoing protests in Iran (pictured) following the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly not wearing a hijab. To be a woman and a scholar is “even more dangerous” than being either alone, the joint statement said.

It added that research organisations and individual researchers should “make it their priority to respect and value academic integrity, while actively guaranteeing academic freedom as a human right”.

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Researchers still face struggles against sexual harassment and racial inequality

The research world is facing up to some very uncomfortable truths.

Last week, two reports once again showed that two of the biggest and nastiest problems in research—sexual harassment and deep-rooted inequalities—continue to fester.

First, let’s look at the National Science Foundation.

Last year, an assessment carried out by the flagship US national agency for non-medical research found dreadful levels of sexual assault, sexual harassment and stalking in the US Antarctic Program, which is managed by the NSF.

More than 80 per cent of participants in focus groups of programme staff knew someone who had experienced sexual assault or sexual harassment. Human resource departments at contractors and subcontractors were described as “dismissing, minimising, shaming and blaming victims”.

The assessment led the agency to examine its own policies and put measures in place to protect staff working in isolated research environments. These include creating an NSF office focused on sexual assault and harassment, increasing resources for victims, vetting new personnel, improving training and enhancing physical security measures.

Ingrained problem

On 16 February, the NSF gave an update on its actions to the National Science Board, the agency’s governing body. Karen Marrongelle, NSF chief operating officer, did not mince her words on the challenges of stamping out sexual assault and harassment.

“Really what we are doing is dismantling decades of culture: the norms, the routines, the expectations and the perceptions that have permeated Antarctica,” Marrongelle said.

Asked about how the agency could have let such a situation occur, Marrongelle highlighted blind spots in “power differentials” and communication channels.

“So much of the harassment that has taken place, and especially in remote locations, happens when someone is isolated from their support network and they don’t have lines of communication,” Marrongelle said. “That’s where these power differentials can really create harm.”

The NSF has hired a victim advocate in Antarctica, set up an email address for submitting complaints and is launching a 24-hour crisis hotline in April.

Despite outlining such efforts to improve communication channels, Marrongelle said “we still have more work to do there”.

Daniel Reed, chair of the National Science Board, said that in January the board had taken part in town hall meetings with the NSF at research stations in Antarctica. “We continue to hear additional concerns about the need to improve communication, concerns about fears of retaliation, and challenges related to research infrastructure,” Reed said.

He added that the NSB and the NSF had worked “with a sense of urgency” to tackle unsafe research environments in Antarctica and more broadly across the research community.

While this may come as welcome news to those impacted by sexual assault and harassment, changing an ingrained culture does not happen quickly.

Racism in Stemm

That problem can be seen clearly in a report last week from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on advancing anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (Stemm) organisations.

The basic conclusion: research still has a racism problem.

“Racism at the individual and interpersonal levels impedes Stemm careers for people from minoritised groups. This racism is often perpetuated by gatekeepers through stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination,” the report notes.

It points out that people from all racial and ethnic backgrounds show equal interest in these research fields when they begin undergraduate degrees. “By graduation, that equality is gone, resulting in a lack of diversity in those who complete both undergraduate and graduate Stemm degrees.”

This feeds through into science careers in academia and industry, entrenching existing inequalities and prejudices.

“The history of systemic racism in the US—both written laws and policies and a culture of practices and beliefs—has harmed Black people, Indigenous people, Latine, Asian American and other people from minoritised racial and ethnic groups, ingrained patterns that continue to this day,” said committee co-chair Susan Fiske in a statement.

As the report notes, discussion of the deeply ingrained racism in institutions has been fuelled by the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks. But, as it also notes, “even as countless organisations have made public statements in support of these efforts, US society as a whole still lacks a concerted approach to bring about needed sustainable, structural change”.

The report is a vast survey of racism in research and what could be done about it.

Research leaders will find much to ponder in its recommendations, which include that funding agencies should increase grants and awards for work to study how Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges and Universities have supported their students and faculty. It also recommends that there should be specific hiring of individuals from underrepresented groups, “especially in positions where minoritised role models are often missing (e.g. leadership and mentorship), with the aim of building a critical mass”.

The stark conclusion: “As this report shows, based on decades of research and analysis, racial disparities in Stemm careers do not rest on individual deficiency in candidates or even primarily on the individual racism of institutional and organisational gatekeepers. Racism is embedded in our society.”

Longstanding problems cannot be solved with the publication of a report. But both these reports show major organisations striving to change things that are clearly wrong and have been left unaddressed for too long.

And finally…

There was another awful shooting on a university campus last week, with three students at Michigan State University losing their lives. The university reopens today.

As has been widely reported, some of those forced to flee the gunman—who went on to take his own life—were survivors of previous shootings that appalled the nation.

That touches on the most truly shocking thing – the frequency of these shootings. At some major news outlets, the day was not even over before this latest tragic event was no longer the top story.

Highlights from Research Professional News this week

Andrew Silver reports that there is “great urgency” for “major improvements” at facilities managed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, according to an independent study.

Rachel Magee brings us the news that the National Science Foundation has launched a $60 million scheme to strengthen universities’ ability to translate research into real-world applications.

In our US news roundup, the Office of Research Integrity has revealed that Sheila Garrity will be its new director.

In the news

An opinion piece in The New York Times says that biology is dangerously outpacing policy.

In The Washington Post, student loan borrowers’ struggles expose flaws in the system, and Georgetown students are pushing for a stronger university response to hate.

A Politico opinion piece says it’s good that Nasa refused to cancel James Webb.

In The Wall Street Journal, the education department is to review deals between colleges and online degree programmes, two Stanford academics helped secure Sam Bankman-Fried’s release on bail, New Mexico State University has fired a basketball coach, students faced a flood of bad information as the Michigan State University shooting unfolded, the gunman had no ties to the university, and the shooting has put the spotlight on campus security efforts.

The Associated Press says that a suspect has been arrested in the slaying of a university police officer, funerals have been held for the victims of the Michigan State University attack, and the Great Backyard Bird Count shows the power of citizen science.

Science reports that Canada has moved to ban funding for ‘risky’ foreign collaborations, US scientific leaders need to address structural racism, and a journal has declined to retract a fish research paper despite a fraud finding.

Nature says that researchers are scrambling as Twitter plans to end free data access, and there’s an outcry as scientists are sanctioned for a climate protest.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy looks at how one university used data to eliminate zombie proposals.

The week ahead

Monday

Today is Washington’s Birthday, a federal holiday.

Tuesday

The National Academies’ Board on Science Education is webcasting a meeting on equity and inclusion in science education.

Wednesday

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy hosts a webinar on the state of research and evidence use in government.

Thursday

The National Academies present findings from a report on challenges for fundamental research in high-energy density science.

The National Institutes of Health is hosting a meeting of the “next generation of Black leaders in genetic science”.

The Playbook would not be possible without Robin Bisson, Andrew Silver, Martyn Jones, Craig Nicholson, Daniel Cressey and Sarah Richardson.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

The post Uncomfortable truths appeared first on Research Professional News.

This year the Zeit-Stiftung Foundation’s Beyond Borders scheme is for PhD students interrogating conflict

Top tips

• These scholarships serve to supplement the work of doctoral researchers by means of joint activities and conferences
• This is a scheme which requires tailored proposals—do not copy and paste
• Having the right language competencies to enable the project to be carried out is important
• Mention what you will gain from the scholarship beyond financial resources

The Zeit-Stiftung Foundation is a private charity based in Hamburg, Germany. The foundation runs several fellowship programmes, conferences and exchanges throughout the year, mostly aimed at PhD students.

One of those programmes is Beyond Borders, a scheme for PhD students that supports research on borders and boundaries within the social sciences and humanities. This year, in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the foundation is looking for projects that cover borders, contestation and conflict.

A total of €500,000 is available through the scheme, and projects will last for up to three years. The foundation expects to award 15 to 20 scholarships. The deadline for applications is 1 March and applications are accepted from any country.

Anna Hofmann, academic director of the programme, tells us more.

What is Beyond Borders?

It is an international PhD scholarship programme that has been running for three years. Every year we focus on a particular aspect of border and boundary studies. We started with a programme on borders, democracy, and security for the first generation of scholars. They were dealing mostly with national borders, and the whole question of negotiating democracy or statehood at the border.

Last year we focused on borders, migration and knowledge, looking at the production of knowledge about boundaries and border-making, and how different perceptions influence the way we learn about borders. This year the focus is much more on conflict and physical borders. We hope to get more projects on history and inter-ethnic relations. What happens in everyday life and everyday border management, and in the everyday experience of borders for different people?

Why was it set up?

The decision to focus more on borders and boundaries came out of our previous research funding programmes, where we noticed more and more emphasis on transnational aspects of research. At the same time, the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe highlighted a rising awareness of borders. We turned away from the process of reducing barriers and having borders dismantled in the process of European integration; for example, with free movement. But with Covid, those borders came back very quickly.

For this call, what type of support is available?

Three types of scholarships are available: Dissertation Completion scholarships for advanced PhD students; PhD scholarships for PhD students at any stage of their studies; and Start Up scholarships for advanced master’s students or PhD students who are at an early stage of their studies.

Are there restrictions on who can apply?

They must be doctoral students, or, for the Start Up fellowships, master’s students. Applicants also must work in social sciences and humanities in a broad sense, and their work has to involve the study of borders or boundaries. In the past we have accepted some people from a law background because their research goes beyond classical law.

Do applicants need to move to Germany for the scholarships?

No. They stay at their home institution and we will bring them together at least twice a year for a conference with everybody on the programme. They will present their project and discuss it with the advisory board and their peers from the programme. During the pandemic we moved communication online, and now that we are back doing physical conferences students still want to keep more regular online communication.

We also try to have one additional workshop or field trip, or another meeting during the year, and this is smaller and the offer is more diversified. For example, we might offer our Start Up scholars a workshop on proposal writing and research design development. For those who are much more advanced, we might propose a workshop on science communication, so going beyond the research work and thinking about how they may have more impact with their research. These are tailor-made to the needs of the individual group and people can register for them and apply if they want to participate.

Do participants work alone on their projects?

Yes and no. Participants work on their own projects, but they will also work with other members of their cohort for group discussions and so on. We try to create diverse groups with an interdisciplinary focus, but to have some kind of framework for productive work in the group discussions, we focus one overall topic or theme so that people can get into discussions with each other.

How many people do you expect to fund?

For this call we estimate we will select between 15 and 20 people. Our overall budget is around €500,000 for all participants, and that includes conferences, travel, workshops and so on. The funding covers the projects for up to three years.

What makes a good application?

The first thing we look at is the research question. Then we look at the candidate and their skills, their preparation for this research. For example, we look at language competencies, which are always a big factor in international projects. Can you access the literature in the archives? Are you prepared in terms of academic qualification? We consider whether this person can deliver on the topic they are proposing.

What advice would you give to applicants?

I would also say that applicants should make their proposals as specific as possible to this programme. In my experience, people often apply with a standardised research proposal that is more suitable to a graduate school. But usually for us it is much too long; we deal with a huge number of applications, so we are looking for a maximum of seven pages. The application for the Start Up fellowships is even smaller at five pages.

It is also very important to explain why you want to join the research programme and how it will be beneficial to you beyond the financial support.

Is Zeit-Stiftung the organisation that runs this scheme?

Financially speaking, we are a classical endowment charity. The founders, Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius, donated their wealth to the foundation after they died in the 1990s. As an institution, we are linked to the Die Zeit newspaper, which Gerd Bucerius founded in 1946.

Do you run any other calls throughout the year?

Yes, several. This is the only fellowship programme for PhD students, but we regularly advertise workshops or summer schools for interdisciplinary exchanges. Currently, the call for our Hamburg Summer School in Social Research is open. We also run a fellowship programme for international postdocs at the HafenCity University Hamburg in Germany which covers urban research.

The post Opportunity profile: Crossing borders, breaking boundaries appeared first on Research Professional News.

Dutch company ASML reports “unauthorised misappropriation of data” as MEPs progress EU legislation on microchips

The head of a Dutch company that plays a leading role in global microchip manufacturing has warned that increasing geopolitical tension could threaten innovation.

“If countries or trade blocks withdraw into their own territories, then innovation will be less effective and more expensive,” said Peter Wennink (pictured), chief executive of ASML, which makes machines that are crucial for manufacturing advanced microchips.

Wennink’s comments came as countries and regions around the world are scrambling to increase their share of microchip production, and protect their manufacturing chains and intellectual property from foreign interference.

In October, the US restricted exports of advanced semiconductor technologies to China, amid increasing concerns of alleged state-backed surveillance and intellectual property theft from the Asian country. Europe is still figuring out exactly how to respond.

In ASML’s 2022 annual report, published on 15 February, Wennink said the “bifurcation of socio-economic blocks…is threatening the development of the global village that contributed so much to a lot of the innovation we have seen in recent years”.

The report also said ASML had suffered an “unauthorised misappropriation of data” by a former employee in China. It said the company did not think the data leak was “material to our business” but added that the incident may have violated export controls.

Step towards EU legislation

On the same day, the European Parliament said it is ready for talks with EU member state governments on proposed legislation to boost Europe’s semiconductor industry.

Laying the groundwork for those discussions, the Parliament adopted a negotiating position on the draft European Chips Act, with an emphasis on strengthening European innovation.

As part of proposals to boost the EU’s microchip production from below 10 per cent to 20 per cent of global capacity, the bloc is hoping to pool around €11 billion from EU funding, member states, partner countries and the private sector.

MEPs want to encourage European production of next-generation semiconductors and quantum chips, including by “creating a network of centres to address the skills shortage and attract new talent on research, design and production”.

A separate vote saw overwhelming support for creating a Chips Joint Undertaking—a public-private R&D partnership focused on microchip production. This would build on an existing partnership for Key Digital Technologies, upping EU funding from €1.8bn to €4.2bn.

MEP Dan Nica said the legislation should provide “fresh money” and that “the EU should lead in research and innovation, have a business-friendly environment, a fast-permitting process, and invest in a skilled workforce for the semiconductor sector”.

The post Microchip leader warns of geopolitical threat to innovation appeared first on Research Professional News.

This week: new energy foundation, research integrity chief named and Republicans challenge student loan forgiveness

In depth: There is “great urgency” for “major improvements” at facilities managed by the US’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, according to an independent study it commissioned.

Full story: ‘Great urgency’ for major improvements in Nist facilities
 

 
Also this week from Research Professional News

New US scheme to boost university research translation—National Science Foundation providing $60 million to build capacity and infrastructure

Learning lessons in engagement—As NIH leaders report on their pandemic experiences, some say the learning has just begun
 

 
Here is the rest of the US news this week…

DoE consults on energy foundation

The US Department of Energy is seeking input on plans for its new Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation. The foundation will be tasked with raising and investing money from the private sector and philanthropic organisations to accelerate the commercialisation of new and existing energy technologies. It will be the department’s first agency-related foundation. Energy secretary Jennifer Granholm said the foundation “will serve as a critical new partner to the department in our efforts to strengthen American ingenuity and deliver the technologies of the future [that are] so critical to an equitable clean energy economy”.

New research integrity chief named

The Office of Research Integrity, which oversees integrity in public health research, has revealed that Sheila Garrity will become its new director. Garrity previously worked as associate vice-president for research integrity at George Washington University, where she led policy development and education in research ethics. Before that, Garrity spent more than 20 years at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she rose through the ranks to become director of its Division of Research Integrity. She is also a founding member and served as the first president of the Association for Research Integrity Officers. She is set to start the role on 26 March.

Republicans take aim at student loan forgiveness

A group of Republican senators have taken aim at US president Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness scheme. Bill Cassidy, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, joined 42 other senators in filing a statement to two ongoing Supreme Court cases challenging the federal programme. The senators are arguing that the scheme is an overreach of Biden’s authority. Cassidy said the scheme “do[es] not ‘forgive’ student debt, but transfers it onto Americans who chose not to go to college or worked hard to pay off their loans”.

The post US news roundup: 10-16 February appeared first on Research Professional News.

National Science Foundation providing $60 million to build capacity and infrastructure

The US National Science Foundation has launched a $60 million scheme to strengthen universities’ ability to translate research into real-world applications.

Through the Accelerating Research Translation (ART) programme, announced on 9 February, the NSF will award universities up to $6 million each over four years to build their capacity and the required infrastructure for research translation. 

“NSF aspires to help academic institutions build the pathways and support structures to create societal and economic impacts at speed and scale,” said NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan.

“The ART programme will directly support this objective by growing capacity to accelerate the translation of research results to practice.”

As well as developing institutional infrastructure for research translation, the NSF said the scheme is looking for proposals that provide training opportunities to enable students and researchers to become entrepreneurs.

Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the scheme “directly addresses a long-standing gap between academic research and the solutions our country needs”.

“This programme is an important part of advancing the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to accelerate science and technology innovation in every part of America,” she added.

The post New US scheme to boost university research translation appeared first on Research Professional News.

Water leaks have damaged equipment and labs, finds study of US standards institute

There is “great urgency” for “major improvements” at facilities managed by the US’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, according to an independent study it commissioned.

The study by an ad-hoc committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine was designed to investigate the facilities and utilities infrastructure of Nist, which provides scientific calibrations and references for laboratories and industry.

The committee’s chair, emeritus professor Ross Corotis of the University of Colorado Boulder, said in a study report published on 7 February that “as [the committee] learned more and more about the benefits Nist provides” and “the unsatisfactory physical condition and functionality of much of its facilities”, there was a “shared sentiment of the great urgency for major improvements in those facilities”.

Facility problems

One of the problems identified was that 63 per cent of the research facilities and 69 per cent of non-research facilities at Nist campuses in Maryland and Colorado did not meet Commerce Department standards for acceptable building conditions.

The study found cases of unreliable power and climate control, as well as leaking roofs or plumbing. Leaks and floods, it noted, destroyed a microscope supporting research into semiconductors. They also caused Nist to abandon a lab supporting quantum computing.

Another problem identified was that technical staff have reduced productivity because of increasing repair or workaround efforts. Researchers at one electron microscopy lab reported spending 30 per cent of their time cleaning and shielding samples from airborne particulates.

Funding needed

The study committee endorsed a draft infrastructure plan from Nist that would improve its labs and infrastructure and require Congress to provide between $420 million and $550 million in funding annually over 12 years.

Corotis said: “The findings and recommendations resulting from this study will likely influence the strategies and approaches for the implementation of a Nist capital strategy for buildings and infrastructure across its portfolio of facilities.

“The funding for improving the condition of Nist’s facilities depends mostly on money from congressional appropriations and priorities, though internal Nist budget allocation decisions also play a role in the current situation.”

He added that “only with such an infusion will Nist be able to remain among the best metrology institutes at the forefront of the civilised world”.

A Nist spokesperson told Research Professional News: “We appreciate the time and effort the committee dedicated to reviewing our facilities and the negative impact their current conditions have on Nist’s work. Modern facilities are vital to Nist achieving its mission to ensure the global competitiveness of US companies, as well as the health and safety of Americans.”

A version of this article appeared in Research Europe

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Africa’s turn will come in 2025 as global gatherings aim to improve access and equity

The International Aids Society has announced that it will start to rotate of its global conferences geographically to help people from different regions around the world to attend.

The 14 February announcement comes after the society’s 2022 conference in Canada saw several people who planned to attend—especially from the African continent—unable to secure visas.

The announcement includes the two most influential conferences organised by IAS: the International Aids Conference and the IAS Conference on HIV Science, which take place in alternating years. It will also affect the HIV Research for Prevention Conferences organised by the IAS.

This year, the IAS Conference on HIV Science will be held in Australia in July. In 2024, the International Aids Conference will be held in Germany. The IAS is inviting bids from African hosts for the IAS Conference on HIV Science in 2025 and from Latin America and the Caribbean for the International Aids Conference in 2026.

Looking ahead, the conferences will rotate between five world regions—Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America—and no region will be awarded a conference consecutively, the IAS says.

Previously, conferences have been held in nearby cities in consecutive years, usually in wealthy nations that delegates from poor countries struggle to travel to. For example, in 2017 and 2018 the main conferences were held in France and the Netherlands, respectively. In 2010 and 2011 they were held in Austria and Italy.

“The global rotation will help to ensure that people from around the world have an opportunity to participate in our conferences in person. It will also allow us to shine a spotlight on critical HIV issues in every region,” said IAS president Sharon Lewin in a statement.

Cities that wish to host the meetings will be judged on six criteria, including the safety of delegates, especially so-called “key populations”, which includes sex workers and men who have sex with men.

The post Aids society to rotate conference regions from 2024 appeared first on Research Professional News.

Agreement between agencies aims to support Earth observation and education projects

The European Space Agency has signed a deal with Mexico’s space agency to support new joint activities in areas such as Earth observation, in a strengthening of ties.

Past joint projects between Esa and the Agencia Espacial Mexicana (AEM) have included monitoring harmful algae around Mexico’s coast and using space-based technologies to enforce the “value and credibility” of certified seafood products.

Esa announced on 15 February that the new agreement would allow the agencies to “create a framework for more intensive cooperation”.

It said Esa representatives have identified potential collaborative projects in education, Earth observation and “integrated applications”.

“Mexico and AEM are playing an important role for the development of space activities in the region,” Esa said.

The post European Space Agency strengthens ties with Mexico appeared first on Research Professional News.

As NIH leaders report on their pandemic experiences, some say the learning has just begun

An article published this month by National Institutes of Health officials has reopened the often bitter discussion about why Covid-19 hit some ethnic and racial groups harder than others, and what researchers could have done differently to address this problem.

NIH officials including Francis Collins, Tony Fauci and Lawrence Tabak and other researchers set out more than a dozen lessons that should be learned from the pandemic response, but the approach to engagement is perhaps the most contentious area.

As the authors outline in Science, during the Covid pandemic, the burden of disease fell heavily on Black, Hispanic and American Indian people. But at the start of phase three vaccine trials, individuals “most likely” to participate, they wrote, were white.

Despite this disparity, the authors praise efforts by the NIH to advance diversity. As examples, they cite an “innovative” partnership with CVS Health Corporation, where those who tested negative for Covid received vaccine trial information, and they note that NIH leaders and others “convened weekly to identify ways to ensure diversity”.

Some medical experts familiar with the rollout of NIH initiatives have described them as a “historic accomplishment” and backed the paper’s almost celebratory tone. Other researchers say the NIH moves were “successful mostly on paper” and argue that the publication “downplays” the problems encountered.

The NIH told Research Professional News in an emailed statement that it “supported significant efforts through the Covid-19 Prevention Trials Network and the Community Engagement Alliance Against Covid-19 to reach underserved communities and groups hardest hit by the pandemic”.

It added that efforts had been “successfully employed” to enrol Black and Indigenous people and people of colour in vaccine trials and to leverage “the expertise of community members on the concepts, language and images that resonate with their community to ‘translate’ the science of the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccines to successfully reach communities” and “change minds”.

‘Historic accomplishment’

Historically, the NIH has its roots in laboratory-based science. The agency, which traces its start back to a single room in 1887, did not traditionally put a strong focus on community engagement and social movements. Researchers say that while it has funded projects in this area in the past, it has had difficulty altering study design to accommodate community engagement, and often would not provide extra funding for it.

According to a meta-analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine in December of 122 US-based trials for Covid-19 vaccines or treatments, Black and Asian individuals were underrepresented in those for prevention, compared with a US reference population.

But Joe Unger, one of the authors of that paper and a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, says that “the success of federally sponsored clinical trials for Covid-19 in enrolling diverse populations was affirmed by our study and is consistent with patterns for federally sponsored trials that have been previously observed in other disease settings”.

The NIH team behind the latest paper says that “for scientific credibility and public acceptance, it was critical to include volunteers in vaccine and therapeutic clinical trials who represented the diversity of the US population”.

To some medical professionals, this was not something that had been emphasised before in most US trials.

Benjamin Linas, medical director of a community research network at Boston Medical Center, said that during the early stages of the Community Engagement Alliance Against Covid-19 he ran into problems as the NIH initially struggled to be flexible enough to allow proper community engagement.

But then Linas, who was not involved in the Science paper, saw funding streams became more flexible, with extensions on deadlines so partners could expend resources. Change had arrived.

“I became convinced that the Community Engagement Alliance Against Covid-19 represents an unprecedented and real effort by the NIH to begin to engage with community in order to rebuild trust in science and medicine,” he said. “I believe that when we look back on this pandemic, the alliance will be a historic accomplishment and the beginning of a new era of diverse and inclusive science.”

‘Successful mostly on paper’

The NIH officials’ article has not been universally well received.

At a clinical research lab in New York City that used the NIH resources discussed in the paper, trial volunteers came from all five boroughs and about 90 per cent of them were white or Caucasian, according to María Verónica Sánchez, a consultant who worked there. She says she observed multiple problems.

One was the language barrier. Staff engaged in mobile outreach did not have NIH-approved printed materials available in non-English languages or speak them, she said, while social media advertising focused on English speakers. Clinical staff were also unable to translate the initial screening and consent when non-English-speaking potential participants called or came into the lab.

“I think the initiatives were successful mostly on paper,” she said. “[They provided] robust networking opportunities among research labs to collaborate and share ideas.”

She added that “I do not find that it was very successful in achieving the stated goals”, and recruiting efforts “failed in many aspects and for many reasons”.

Other groups struggled with access to technology and the training to use it, according to Dara Sorkin, director of the Community Engagement Unit at the Institute for Clinical and Translational Science at the University of California, Irvine. “In Orange County, California, for example, vaccination sign-ups were initially done through an app,” Sorkin said. “People with limited access to devices or low digital literacy were blocked from these early opportunities.”

Katherine Tossas, an epidemiologist at Virginia Commonwealth University involved in community engagement, said that “while [the Science paper] results suggest that these initiatives have contributed to progress in increasing diversity among trial participants, I do think the paper downplays the challenges that were faced during the implementation of these initiatives”.

Tossas said that the initiatives highlighted in Science “are a step in the right direction”.

But there is still a pressing need, she says, “to continue critically examining and addressing systemic barriers to diversity and inclusion in clinical trials”.

In response to concerns, the NIH said that the Science article had “a 2,000-word limit, so it’s only a snapshot of the NIH research response on Covid specifically”, and that the agency has “longstanding programmes” focused on increasing diversity in clinical trials or the workforce, as well as “offices specifically focused on women, tribal and sexual and gender minority health”.

NIH defends progress

The agency noted that in some instances “translation of materials without cultural or contextual adaptation was not sufficient to truly address valid community concerns and decades of strained community relationships”, and “engaging diverse communities as clinical trial participants has proven difficult, especially when potential participants speak languages other than English”.

But it also defended the success of Covid-19 initiatives. It said that across four trials with data as part of the Covid-19 Prevention Trials Network, 47 per cent of participants enrolled were Black, Indigenous or people of colour. This included 2 per cent American Indian or Alaska Native, 15 per cent Black or African American, 0.36 per cent Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 7 per cent Asian. 22 per cent identified as Hispanic or Latino.

“The proportions of [Black, Indigenous and people of colour] participants in the trials closely matched their percentages of the US population,” it said. “The proportion of white participants in the trials ranged from 44 per cent in the Moderna trial to 56 per cent in the AstraZeneca trial.” It added that 21 Community Engagement Alliance Against Covid-19 teams collaborated with nearly 1,000 organisations.

These teams, it said, reached close to 91 million people. One team hosted nine community events in Spanish in the past year, and another is developing a training programme for medical interpreters. Others are “continuing to provide needed interpretation and translations and sharing resources and services or having conversations in community settings”, it said.

The NIH believes this is impressive. There is still much progress to be made, though, in bringing historically underrepresented groups inside the tent.

Donald Nease, vice-chair for community at the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s Department of Family Medicine, told Research Professional News that “broadly speaking, I think the NIH’s efforts have been laudable but have yet to fully bear fruit”.

He added: “Building and sustaining infrastructure to equitably and authentically engage with diverse communities is a long-term process.”

The question now facing the research world is: can these links be built and sustained before the next pandemic arrives?

And finally…

A fourth flying object has been shot down over North America in recent days. After an initial incident over what China says was a research balloon and nearly everyone else seems to think was some kind of spy mission, another three UFOs have been blown out of the sky.

As yet, who owned and operated them is unclear.

This seems a good moment to point out that Georgetown University hosts the Jack Womack Flying Saucer Library, described by the institution as “an astounding collection of popular and fringe thought dedicated to the flying saucer phenomenon that gripped the US during the second half of the 20th century”.

“The onslaught of flying saucer sightings, beginning in the summer of 1947, is remarkable not only because sightings were reported so widely, but because so many people felt compelled to publish books explaining what these saucers might be. The more books that were published, the wilder grew the imaginings and the broader grew the conspiracy theories,” the university says.

A catalogue of the collection was published some years ago, called Flying Saucers are Real!

Womack is a celebrated science fiction writer whose most famous book is Random Acts of Senseless Violence. Let us hope that current events are not heading in that direction.

Highlights from Research Professional News this week

Andrew Silver reports on how officials at the National Institutes of Health have set out more than a dozen lessons for biomedical research they say should be learned from the Covid-19 pandemic, including that more behavioural research is needed and clinical trials should be shortened.

Rachel Magee brings us the news that two Republican chairs of House of Representatives committees have called for the release of documents relating to reported Russian hacking attempts on three national laboratories over the summer.

In our US news roundup, the National Science Foundation has signed a deal with India to streamline the funding and selection process for joint research projects.

In the news

The New York Times reports that a university investigated a murder suspect’s behaviour around the time of the killings, disinformation researchers have raised alarms about artificial intelligence chatbots, the road to a Supreme Court clerkship starts at three Ivy League colleges, the College Board has stripped down its advanced placement curriculum for African American studies, and there’s a feature about a specialist who helped unlock the science of the Covid vaccine.

In The Washington Post, someone is demanding $3.6 billion after his family’s name was removed from a university building, and the College Board has accused Florida’s education department of slander.

Politico says that Twitter owner Elon Musk has gone to war with researchers, the College Board has slammed comments on African American studies, and researchers say a cancer cure is a long way off.

The Associated Press reports that several universities are to experiment with micro nuclear power.

Science reports that critics of risky virus studies have launched a not-for-profit organisation to push for tighter safety rules, a US measurement institute’s labs are said to need a major upgrade, and Twitter’s plan to cut off free data access has evoked panic among scientists.

Nature says that highly cited genetics studies have been found to contain sequence errors, academia needs to take faculty mental health more seriously, journal editors are struggling to find willing peer reviewers, four researchers offer tips on how to wrap up research projects gracefully, and there’s a look at what ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence mean for science.

The week ahead

Monday

A House subcommittee on energy and mineral resources heads to the University of Texas Permian Basin for a hearing on how federal energy production supports local communities.

Tuesday

The co-chairs behind a National Academies report on advancing anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering and maths organisations will discuss their work in a webcast.

The National Committee for the International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry and other groups are holding a virtual networking event for “scientists at all career stages interested in the issue of breaking barriers for women and building toward sustainability”.

Wednesday

The Senate Committee on the Budget begins hearings to examine climate-related economic risks and their costs.

Thursday

Department of Energy experts will discuss fusion energy and support for this area in a webinar.

The Playbook would not be possible without Robin Bisson, Andrew Silver, Martyn Jones, Craig Nicholson, Daniel Cressey and Sarah Richardson.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

The post Learning lessons in engagement appeared first on Research Professional News.

Leo Foundation offers skin disease grants with enviable success rates and is increasing its funding

Top tips

• Read and check eligibility requirements and requests for supporting documentation—this often catches people out.
• Familiarise yourself with the Leo Foundation’s philanthropic scope and show how your bid is in tune with that.
• Feasibility is an important criterion; partner with other groups if you do not have the necessary experience in-house.
• Skin cancer is out of scope for applications, but skin cancer models can be used in methodology.

For dermatology researchers, the Denmark-based Leo Foundation is a particularly valuable funder. The philanthropic organisation manages financial assets of around €2.3 billion and is accelerating its annual funding upwards of €20 million.

The Leo Foundation owns the pharmaceutical company Leo Pharma, which focuses on dermatology.

As part of its funding portfolio, the foundation offers Research Grants of around €270,000 to €540,000, lasting one to three years. The grants are available to researchers in any country and there are three funding rounds per year. The next deadline is on 28 February, followed by 23 June and 31 August.

Projects in basic, translational or clinical dermatology are welcomed but the Leo Foundation does not fund projects on skin cancer.

Chief scientific officer Anne-Marie Engel says the Leo Foundation is upping its funding and planning new options for clinical and translational researchers. Engel explains more about the Research Grants scheme and its encouraging success rates.

How much funding is the Leo Foundation expecting to award this year?

For this year, we expect to give altogether around €27m, and our aspiration and ambition is that by 2025, it will be €33.5m. We are also increasing the number of different grant-making instruments.

What is the aim of the Research Grant scheme for the foundation?

The idea behind a scheme like this is to give an opportunity to as many researchers as possible. The grants are not very large, but they are there to help and support researchers with excellent ideas and innovative ideas within dermatology research, in a very broad sense, going from basic to clinical.

How many grants are you expecting to award this year?

Somewhere between 25 and 30 grants. That, of course, depends on how many excellent applications we get.

Is there a fixed amount of funding or does it depend on the quality of applications?

We have an agreement with our board about how we expect to distribute funding across the different grant-making instruments we have. But it also depends on the applications we get, so for this particular instrument we can agree with the board of directors that if there’s more quality than expected, we can add a bit to the budget. And if there’s not enough quality, we won’t award as many grants. We usually get around 30 applications per round.

With three rounds a year and an estimated 25 to 30 grants, that’s a pretty good success rate.

Yes, although the success rate was quite high in 2022, but it may vary. The average success rate over the past five years is 19 per cent. But our scope in the foundation is very clear: it’s dermatology research, from basic to clinical, so it’s important for us to see that we are still getting a fairly high number of highly qualified applications within this field.

Is it possible to apply more than once, potentially in the same year?

If you do not get funding for your application, you can reapply once, and you’ll have to add a page or two explaining how you have worked on the project since you first applied. If it still doesn’t get funded, you can apply to the foundation again but with a different project.

Do you give feedback on applications that aren’t successful?

Regrettably not. We do give an indication to people of whether they were in the top, middle or bottom third of the applications when it came to ranking by our international expert committee.

Why are projects about skin cancer not eligible for funding?

As it’s easier to get funding from other agencies for cancer research than for other kinds of skin disease-related research, it’s been decided here to focus on the other skin diseases to give them a chance of getting funding for good projects. However, we do permit applications where skin cancer is used as a model to look into other mechanistic hypotheses and ideas for other skin diseases. So you can use skin cancer models in your skin research applications, but if it’s fully focused on skin cancer, you will have to apply elsewhere.

Grants are open to researchers worldwide, but do you get more applications from any particular country or region?

We do get most of our applications from Europe and from North America, but we’re seeing increasing numbers of applications from the Asia-Pacific, specifically Australia, which we’re thrilled about.

What proportion of grants awarded are for basic research against clinical research?

It’s not level, let me put it like that. We get more applications for basic research and thus we’ve also given out more grants for basic research, but we very much invite applications from people who do translational research and clinical research as well. In the future, as we increase our grant amounts, we will also have some thematic grants that invite, in a more focused way, researchers within translational and clinical research.

What level of ambition are you expecting to see in applications?

We’re really looking for excellence, and whether a project is something that can potentially jump to a whole new stage of knowledge within an area. Our board asks us about the potential for leaps forward every time we meet with them. At the same time, it’s also important to make sure that really good research groups and research environments can continue on course towards new knowledge and, hopefully, new treatments.

Are there any common mistakes that applicants should avoid?

A common mistake is that people fail to read the small print in the instructions to applicants. They sometimes forget to attach some of the mandatory documents so that when we screen the applications for eligibility, we have to reject them for administrative reasons, which is really a pity because there can still be a great idea in there. Also, we have a very clear scope for our philanthropic activities, so if people are very far away from that scope in what they’re applying for, the likelihood that they’re getting funding is close to zero.

Is there a minimum level of experience required to apply?

People must have PhDs or equivalent experience, and what we see is that we mostly award grants to people who are assistant professors and above that. Your experience as a research leader is, of course, something that is part of the evaluation.

Are there any elements that would make an application stand out?

What’s important for us is that when people apply they have some kind of feasibility analysis of the project that they are suggesting. So if they don’t have all the expertise and infrastructure in-house, within their group, it’s important for us to see in an application who they are teaming up with, to make sure that they cover all the expertise needed.

What would your top advice be to applicants?

The main advice would be: read the application guidelines carefully, then ask us if there’s something you think is unclear. It’s a pity if people think they are a fit for the Leo Foundation and it turns out that they are not, and that kind of question can very easily be clarified by an email or a phone call.

The post Opportunity profile: Danish funder delivers for dermatology appeared first on Research Professional News.

This week: US-India ties, Nasa funding for HBCUs and a Darpa ‘food from air’ scheme

In depth: Officials at the US National Institutes of Health have set out more than a dozen lessons for biomedical research they say should be learned from the Covid-19 pandemic, including that more behavioural research is needed and clinical trials should be shortened.

Full story: US National Institutes of Health sets out lessons from Covid-19 
 

 
Also this week from Research Professional News

Committee chairs seek info on Russian attempts to hack US labs—Hackers targeted research critical to national security, Republican chairs say

Progress by degrees—Minority groups are earning more Stem degrees, but parity is a distant dream
 

 
Here is the rest of the US news this week…

NSF strengthens ties with India

The National Science Foundation has signed a deal with India to streamline the funding and selection process for joint research projects. In the past five years, the NSF has invested over $146 million in collaborative research activities with scientists, engineers and educators across India. The agreement covers a range of opportunities for researchers that can be adjusted to the interests of different disciplines, the NSF said. Its director Sethuraman Panchanathan said the agreement would “open up new vistas for strategic collaborations at speed and scale and leverage the strong scientific and cultural connections between the US and India”.

Nasa funds HBCUs

The US space agency Nasa has awarded $11.7 million to eight Historically Black Colleges and Universities through its new Data Science Equity, Access and Priority in Research and Education scheme. The scheme aims to enable HBCU students and staff to conduct data science research that contributes to Nasa missions. Deputy administrator Pam Melroy said it was “fitting during Black History Month that we make this tangible step to build on the talent pool at HBCUs in our ongoing work to bring to the table all the talents and perspectives we’ll need to send humans to the moon, Mars and beyond, and do amazing science throughout the solar system”.

Darpa seeks food from air

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a scheme that seeks to create food from air, water and electricity. If the Cornucopia programme is successful, troops will be able to carry a system with them that makes food on demand in remote locations, Darpa said. Three teams have been selected by Darpa to make food containing all four dietary macronutrients that humans require—protein, carbohydrates, fats and dietary fibre. The food will be made in different formats including shakes, bars, gels and jerky.

The post US news roundup: 3-9 February appeared first on Research Professional News.

Hackers targeted research critical to national security, Republican chairs say

Two Republican chairs of House of Representatives committees have called for the release of documents relating to reported Russian hacking attempts on three national laboratories over the summer.

According to reports, a hacking team known to support Russian government operations created false login pages and sent emails to researchers at three Department of Energy national laboratories, in an effort to access their passwords. It is not known whether the hackers were successful.

Frank Lucas (pictured), chair of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and James Comer, chair of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, have written to the Department of Energy to request information and documents on the attempted hacking.

“Although it is unclear whether the attempted intrusions were successful, it is alarming that a hostile foreign adversary targeted government labs working on scientific research critical to the national security and competitiveness of the US.

“The committees request documents and information related to these incidents to determine the impact of the attempted intrusions, and evaluate what the Department of Energy is doing to ensure the continued security of sensitive scientific R&D at its national laboratories,” Lucas and Comer said in the letter to energy secretary Jennifer Granholm.

The labs reportedly targeted were Brookhaven National Laboratory in the state of New York, which studies nuclear and particle physics; Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, which is a multidisciplinary research centre; and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which is responsible for ensuring the safety and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons.

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Lessons include need for investment in behavioural research and faster clinical trials

Officials at the US National Institutes of Health have set out more than a dozen lessons for biomedical research they say should be learned from the Covid-19 pandemic, including that more behavioural research is needed and clinical trials should be shortened.

Writing in a paper published in the journal Science this month, authors including former NIH director Francis Collins said that an overarching theme of the lessons learned was the need to “resist the temptation to slip back into complacency” around pandemic threats.

“We must sustain our current focus on pandemic preparedness,” Collins and co-authors urged. There is a need for ongoing global surveillance of disease-causing pathogenic organisms, requiring “substantial resources” for improvements, they said.

In addition, they said that research organisations and policymakers “must invest…now” in the development of vaccines against, and tests for, future pandemic-causing pathogens.

Lessons for science

The authors suggested 17 specific lessons for biomedical research, under the headings “supporting science”, “responding when a pandemic pathogen emerges” and “moving research findings into the clinic”.

Lessons for science included the need to “invest broadly” in basic research in fields including virology and immunology to build up knowledge.

The authors also said there was a need for the immediate public release of research results, better engagement between researchers and communities, and “major investment” in the behavioural and social sciences to improve crisis management and reduce vaccine hesitancy.

This latter point echoed one made last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos by speakers including European Research Council president Maria Leptin.

Pathogen response

Among their lessons for responding when pandemic-causing pathogens emerge, the authors flagged a need to engage partners from all R&D sectors from the very start, to enable the rapid and large-scale development of treatments and other technologies.

Also required are agreements among research organisations on making research data open rather than prioritising the allocation of credit for discoveries, as well as ensuring that advanced purchase agreements with biotechnology companies give researchers access to data, specimens and products.

Several of the lessons relate to clinical trials. The authors called for the development of template trial protocols that could be adopted worldwide, shorter timetables for trials, and a diversity of participants to ensure that trial results are equitable and convincing for all parts of society.

In the US, the burden of Covid-19 fell heavily on Black, Hispanic and American Indian people, but these people were underrepresented in early vaccine trials, the authors said.

Translational research

On moving research from the laboratory to the clinic, the authors suggested three lessons.

One was the need to closely involve regulators in such translational research, “to avoid missteps that can cost months” in the development of treatments and other technologies.

The other two lessons were a need for trustworthy guidelines for using research results in clinical settings and a need for rapid communication to clarify the provisional nature of research findings, “especially to underserved communities”.

Concluding their paper, the authors stressed: “Perhaps the most valuable lesson that Covid-19 has taught the research community—and hopefully society more broadly—is the importance of collective effort and continuous investment in basic and applied research.”

The post US National Institutes of Health sets out lessons from Covid-19 appeared first on Research Professional News.

Working groups set to discuss clean-tech research and critical industrial components

The EU and India have set up a Trade and Technology Council to “deepen strategic engagement” on topics of joint interest.

On 6 February, the European Commission announced that the council would have three working groups focused on “strategic technologies, digital governance and digital connectivity”, “green and clean energy technologies” and “trade, investment and resilient value chains”.

Meeting for the first time in the coming weeks, the groups will discuss issues such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing; green technologies “with emphasis on research and innovation”; and access to critical industrial components.

“The EU and India have strengthened their relationship as strategic partners,” the Commission said. It added that the bloc’s partnership with India was “one of the most important relationships for the upcoming decade” and that strengthening it was a priority.

It said cooperation should focus on “key issues of shared strategic importance” and that, in particular, working together on research and innovation was “important to unlock potential”.

The EU-India TTC is the second such forum for the bloc, after a similar council was launched with the United States in 2021. 

EU-India ministerial meetings organised under the council are expected to take place at least once a year, with the first to be held this spring.

The post EU and India launch trade and technology council appeared first on Research Professional News.

Minority groups are earning more Stem degrees, but parity is a distant dream

In recent years, myriad efforts to advance diversity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics have been implemented in the US.

Data published last week by the National Science Foundation (NSF) suggest these Stem efforts may be having some positive impact, but the speed of progress is still worrying some experts.

“The growth with women has been great,” Ansley Abraham, director of the Southern Regional Education Board’s doctoral scholars programme, told Research Professional News. “The number of especially Black and Hispanic males earning degrees and American Indian males who are earning degrees is just woefully behind, and that is symptomatic of a lot of ills.”

Since 1977, the NSF has tracked underrepresented groups in Stem. Since 1994, it has also tracked representation of people with disabilities.

Its reports on these trends, published every two years since 1980, show how far things have come in making the research world a place where all are welcome. And how far there is to go.

Pain and gains

The latest report, published by the NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, does not reveal what is causing the changes it tracks. But it shows that between 2011 and 2020, the number of degrees in science and engineering fields awarded to women of any race or ethnicity increased by 34 per cent at bachelor’s level, 45 per cent at master’s level and 18 per cent at doctorate level.

There were also increases in degrees awarded to men from underrepresented minority groups. The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded to Hispanic or Latino men increased by 120 per cent, with an increase of 89 per cent at the master’s level and 53 per cent at doctorate level.

But the picture is less rosy for Black or African American men. At bachelor’s level, there was an increase of 33 per cent for this group, and rises were similar for higher degrees: 46 per cent at the master’s level and 36 per cent at doctorate level.

But at least this was an increase. Degrees at bachelor’s level and above awarded to American Indian or Alaska Native men declined across the board.

The slow pace of growth in degree earning alarms Abraham and others.

“The advancements aren’t at the level we need them if diversity and parity is what we’re trying to get to,” he said. “Yes, the good news is it’s trending in the right direction—we are seeing gains. But are we seeing enough gains to really impact the representation within the Stem disciplines?”

And underlying the positives of the increases, there is a stark fact: those from minority groups are still nowhere near parity.

In total, Hispanic, Black and American Indian or Alaska Native persons made up 37 per cent of the population aged between 18 and 34 in 2021. But they claimed only 26 per cent of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees, only 24 per cent of master’s degrees and only 16 per cent of doctorates.

Data driven

The data may not be surprising to those who study diversity in research. But it is helpful to have numbers for future planning or study.

What stood out to Johnna Frierson, associate dean of equity, diversity and inclusion for the basic sciences at Duke University, is that Hispanic students have seen representation increases in many data points collected.

“Among racial and ethnic groups, those with a Hispanic background have seen the highest rate of increase over the 10-year period, so I think it would be really interesting to dig deeper and understand what the differences are with those rates and what is underlying the difference in those rates of increase,” Frierson said.

She added that she thinks universities should take the report’s findings and “go back and say: ‘Does this change our approach to how we’re trying to increase representation at our universities? Does this change our approach with who we’re collaborating and partnering with in order to help make that change?’”

More work needed

Some academics warn against drawing too many conclusions from the data.

“It is hard to say from this report whether past efforts are or are not working,” said Neil Lewis, a behavioural scientist at Cornell University who co-directs a programme working to address issues concerning equity in society.

Lewis notes that “they are reporting large-scale descriptive statistics; additional data would be necessary to make inferences about why we are seeing these patterns”.

“To figure out whether particular programmes or initiatives are working to change the makeup of the Stem workforce, we need more evaluations of programmes,” he added.

A committee of the National Academy of Sciences is currently working on a report that will include recommendations for “actionable anti-racist mechanisms to advance diversity, equity and inclusion” in Stem organisations. A spokesperson declined to make committee members available for an interview on the NSF report, but they said that work would be available on 14 February.

Advancing diversity in Stem, research has suggested, might require significant changes. Lewis and others, in a study published in Nature Human Behaviour in December, analysed three federal databases and determined that at the current rate, parity in faculty representation will never be reached.

They estimated that efforts would need to be 3.5 times faster to reach parity by 2050.

Some fear diversity could also be further reduced by upcoming political decisions, such as if the Supreme Court ends affirmative action in higher education. “How will that affect recruitment of underrepresented minorities in Stem fields in institutions of higher education?” asked Natalie Milman, chair of the department of educational leadership at George Washington University.

Abraham said further work would have to tackle parts of an interconnected system.

“Diversifying the faculty is connected to PhD production and baccalaureate production,” he said. “All these elements are connected, and I think a lot of it just depends on which element in the equation you’re focused on trying to do something about.”

And finally…

Tensions with China have risen again, even as a Chinese balloon went firmly in the opposite direction.

The spy mission or inadvertently off-course research project (delete as per your personal views) was shot out of the sky last week after intruding in US airspace.

China insists that the now ex-balloon “is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes”. A foreign ministry spokesperson said: “We have no intention to violate and have never violated the territory or airspace of any sovereign country.”

If relations were better, the US could tap up many of its university researchers with deep expertise in scientific balloon flights to help their Chinese colleagues avoid similar problems in future.

As it is, expect the issue of Chinese students at universities and research labs to become a talking point again.

Highlights from Research Professional News this week

Rachel Magee reports that a federal taskforce has unveiled its roadmap for creating a US national infrastructure intended to expand access to artificial intelligence R&D.

Andrew Silver has the original news about the subject of this Playbook: that diversity in the US science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce has increased significantly in recent years, according to a study published by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

In our US news roundup, the not-for-profit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has criticised part of a set of model policies the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy released earlier this year for US agencies to strengthen their scientific integrity.

In the news

The New York Times reports that the governor of Florida is taking on the education establishment.

In The Washington Post, Nasa and Darpa are working on a nuclear-powered rocket that could go to Mars.

Politico looks at what’s really in the African American studies class rejected by Florida’s governor.

In The Wall Street Journal, a probe has highlighted deep ties between the president’s family and the University of Pennsylvania, the College Board has released a revised curriculum for African American studies after criticism from Florida’s governor, and the president of the New College of Florida has been fired.

Science says that US scientists are bracing for tighter scrutiny of potentially risky research, a biologist fired for sexual misconduct has landed millions from private donors to start a new lab, and Alondra Nelson is to leave the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Nature reports that a postdoc survey has confirmed widespread dissatisfaction among US researchers.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy covers a donation to the University of Virginia and says that college fundraisers need to think big, use data and innovate.

The week ahead

Tuesday

The National Academies’ Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable is hosting a meeting for members and guests on how to boost economic competitiveness via intellectual property reforms.

Wednesday

The National Science Board’s Committee on Science and Engineering Policy holds an open teleconference on policy focus areas and other issues.

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology holds a meeting to adopt committee rules and take care of other business.

Thursday

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation meets to consider its committee rules.

The Playbook would not be possible without Robin Bisson, Andrew Silver, Martyn Jones, Craig Nicholson, Daniel Cressey and Sarah Richardson.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

The post Progress by degrees appeared first on Research Professional News.

The Human Frontier Science Program is an international funder focused on the new

Top tips

• Novelty and innovation are watchwords for this funder
• Consider how you can leverage novel technology in your project
• Be proactive in networking—strong bids are likely to grow out of organically generated partnerships

The Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) is an international organisation dedicated to boosting collaboration on basic research into fundamental biological problems. Founded in the late 1980s, it comprises the G7 nations and Australia, India, Israel, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, New Zealand and the non-G7 members of the European Union, which are represented by the European Commission.

The HFSP invites research proposals that take novel approaches to problems via interdisciplinary and international projects. It offers two types of research grants: Early Career Grants and Program Grants.

The Early Career Grants were previously known as Young Investigator’s Grants. Candidates must be within five years of recruitment into an independent position in academia, and they must have finished their PhD no more than 10 years ago.

The Program Grants, meanwhile, allow teams of independent researchers to conduct research through new international collaborations. Each project needs two to four members and there are various amounts of funding available depending on the size of the team.

The deadline for submitting letters of intent for both programmes—which were profiled in Funding Insight in 2022—is 30 March (and applicants must obtain a letter of intent ID number by 21 March).

Christine Cheung, an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, won a Young Investigator’s Grant in 2019. She discusses her project and how she won funding through the HFSP.

What is your background as a researcher?

My own research programme is around vascular disease biology. We are biologists trying to address the basic mechanisms of endothelial dysfunction, which underlies vascular abnormalities in many inflammatory conditions or degenerative aging conditions.

What does your HFSP project involve?

For the HFSP, the project actually takes a different flavour. The funder requires us to work with investigators from other continents, and the reason for that is because they want investigators to be funded who would otherwise not be supported by local public funding. They value that creativity and that convergence of different disciplines, so it is not just a continuation of our own research programme.

While I am a vascular disease biologist, my co-principal investigator is from a developmental biology background. The funded project looks into developmental aspects of the brain, and how the intertwined relationship of blood vessels and brain development inform and guide each other’s development during our lives. In the project, we use mice and human pluripotent stem cells as our experimental models.

What’s the overall aim of the research?

Whether it’s for regeneration or as part of disease progression, blood vessels are very plastic. There’s a concept called foetal reprogramming that suggests that even in disease, or when the tissue is stressed or vulnerable to trauma, blood vessels can kickstart regeneration and the cells actually enter a foetus-like programme. They actually go back in development and reactivate to help the tissue rebuild. By understanding the early beginnings of the brain and blood vessel development, it may inform other mechanisms that may interplay during disease as well as regeneration and offer some insights for tissue regeneration.

What is the grant’s duration and size?

Young Investigator’s Grants usually run for three years, but we have a one-year extension because of the pandemic. It finishes at the end of this year. Teams are usually between two and five people; we had two people. In total we won US$750,000 (€690,400).

Would the project be difficult to fund locally without the HFSP?

I can’t speak for other countries but in Singapore, our public funding cannot be used outside of the country. Another funding mechanism that allows both myself and my international collaborators to be funded is usually thematic grant calls co-funded by both institutions—say, if my university had an agreement with another university.

It’s very hard to run an international collaboration where all the principals can be funded appropriately to do the research programme together. This is where the HFSP has been very valuable.

So you found your international collaborators before you applied for the HFSP grant?

Yes. We knew each other beforehand, but this grant facilitated us working together. Without it, we would still try to collaborate within our own means. But we would probably only be able to run a pilot project because of funding restrictions.

Was it the first time you applied to the HFSP?

No, I applied once and failed, but it was several years ago. Then in 2019 we tried again but I went in with no expectations. For a winning proposal, maybe one ingredient is to adopt really advanced or emerging technology. Whether you are the developer of a new platform or not, you should be bold enough to leverage new technology.

How far did you mould your research to fit in with the HFSP grant requirements?

In terms of the research scope they’re broad, as long as it’s in life science or biomedicine. We didn’t feel constrained in what we wanted to research. I didn’t give up my fundamentals—my passion is doing vascular biology, and my colleague is into developmental biology. But the research must be interdisciplinary; they want to see novelty and creativity.

How long did it take you to put together your proposal?

For us, the initial conceptualisation stage was around four months. There were two stages: the letter of intent and the full proposal. The letter of intent is a shorter format; they use that to shortlist candidates for the full proposal. With the letter of intent, they look at the scientific merits of the project and also the idea itself—whether it is a novel idea and whether it adheres to the criteria. If you are shortlisted, you have to write something longer and more detailed with your methodology, your implementation plan.

What advice do you have for people considering an application this year or next?

Be proactive. We need to develop our networks and hone our skills—the more applications we make, the better we get. The pandemic has really made us slow down in networking, so maybe it’s time to start again. Go to conferences, build a network, meet other investigators. Because there are many opportunities, and the opportunities lie with the people who have the will to succeed together.

Would you apply to the HFSP again?

Yes. When this project has finished, we want to go for one of the Program Grants but we are still deliberating whether it should be an extension of this current proposal. We could go in as a brand new proposal altogether, because the science has evolved in the three years since we won the previous grant.

The post My winning proposal: Pushing the frontier appeared first on Research Professional News.

This week: White House scientific integrity policy criticised and Congress member alleges congressional oversight “ignored”

In depth: A federal taskforce has unveiled its roadmap for creating a US national infrastructure intended to expand access to artificial intelligence R&D.

Full story: US taskforce publishes roadmap for AI research infrastructure
 

 
Also this week from Research Professional News

US Stem diversity increasing, but further improvements needed—Black, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native people constitute just a quarter of Stem workforce
 

 
Here is the rest of the US news this week…

Science group criticises federal integrity policy

The non-profit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has criticised part of a set of model policies the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released earlier this year for US agencies to strengthen their scientific integrity. Peer said a recommendation that agency employees “refrain from making or publishing statements that could be construed as being judgments of, or recommendations on, [agency] or any other federal government policy, unless they have secured appropriate prior approval”, could be used to “punish scientists or stifle controversial research”. The OSTP did not respond to a request for comment from Research Professional News.

Lucas blasts OSTP for ‘ignoring congressional oversight’

The chair of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Republican Frank Lucas, has accused the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy of a “pattern of ignoring congressional requests and oversight”, which he said is “alarming, especially in the wake of concerns regarding the leadership and culture of the OSTP”. Lucas made the accusation in a letter to the OSTP, saying that previous letters he had sent the office concerning Jane Lubchenco, the office’s deputy director for climate and environment, had gone unanswered. The OSTP did not respond to a request for comment from Research Professional News.

$100m to head off future pandemics

Seventy scientists have been awarded a total of $100 million to work on preparations for future pandemics. The funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s three-year Emerging Pathogens Initiative will support projects studying the origins, mechanisms and evolution of novel pathogens that could threaten human health. “With this programme, we hope to gain some of the knowledge and tools we need to get a scientific head start on future epidemics,” said HHMI vice president and chief scientific officer Leslie Vosshall.

The post US news roundup: 27 January to 2 February appeared first on Research Professional News.

Roadmap outlines $2.6 billion in spending to expand access to artificial intelligence research

A federal taskforce has unveiled its roadmap for creating a US national infrastructure intended to expand access to artificial intelligence R&D.

The plan, released on 24 January, sets out the steps the government should take to create an “integrated portal” for AI that will provide researchers and students with a range of computational and data resources, including software and support services.

In 2020, Congress directed the National Science Foundation and the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy to create the roadmap to make carrying out R&D on AI easier for researchers at less well-resourced organisations.

Now, their taskforce has estimated that a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource should have a budget of $2.6 billion over an initial six-year period.

The creation of the NAIRR should “begin immediately”, the plan says, directing Congress to authorise the appropriate funds now to establish the infrastructure within four years.

‘Tremendous promise’

“AI advances hold tremendous promise for tackling our hardest problems and achieving our greatest aspirations,” said Arati Prabhakar, director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and assistant on science and technology to president Joe Biden. “We will only realise this potential when many more kinds of researchers have access to the powerful capabilities that underpin AI advances.”

The taskforce’s plan says the infrastructure “must be broadly accessible to a range of users and provide a platform that can be used for educational and community-building activities in order to lower the barriers to participation in the AI research ecosystem and increase the diversity of AI researchers”.

It adds that the NAIRR should be established with four goals in mind: spurring innovation, increasing the diversity of talent, improving R&D capacity and advancing trustworthy AI.

A single federal agency should serve as the administrative home for the infrastructure, according to the roadmap, but with a steering committee composed of representatives from all federal agencies involved with AI research.

The NAIRR must also be “proactive in addressing privacy, civil rights and civil liberties issues by integrating appropriate technical controls, policies and governance mechanisms from its outset”, it adds.

Supporting responsible research

Ensuring that AI R&D is carried out in a responsible way has been a growing concern for academia and government, due to increasing recognition that biased algorithms or data use can have negative consequences for society.

National Science Foundation director Sethuraman Panchanathan said that democratising access to the infrastructure that underpins AI will help support responsible research in the area.

“By creating an equitable cyber infrastructure for cutting-edge AI that builds on-ramps for participation for a wide range of researchers and communities, the NAIRR could build AI capacity across the nation and support responsible AI research and development, thereby driving innovation and ensuring long-term US competitiveness in this critical technology area,” he said.

According to the roadmap, the NAIRR should be divided into an open science zone, which should adopt best practices in open science, and a secure zone, which will comply with a set of security controls for legally protected data.

The post US taskforce publishes roadmap for AI research infrastructure appeared first on Research Professional News.

Black, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native people constitute just a quarter of Stem workforce

Diversity in the US science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce has increased significantly in recent years, according to a new study published by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

But the results suggest there is still much more work to do to achieve a Stem workforce that reflects the diversity of the general population.

The study, published on 30 January, found that more women, Black, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native people joined the US Stem workforce over the past decade.

Compared with previous years, those groups also earned more degrees in Stem fields. The total number of associate-level Stem degrees awarded to Hispanic students, for example, tripled between 2011 and 2020.

But those groups and people with disabilities remained underrepresented in Stem compared with their overall distribution in the wider US population, the study found.

Black, Hispanic, American Indian and Alaska Native people made up 31 per cent of the US population in 2021 but only 24 per cent of the Stem workforce. They also had lower median earnings than white or Asian Stem workers.

Women represented just 35 per cent of the Stem workforce, and their wages were consistently lower than men’s. This was despite women earning half of all Stem bachelor’s degrees and 49 per cent of associate’s degrees.

“The Diversity and Stem report provides objective, reliable data on where our nation has made progress towards access and equity in Stem education and careers, as well as where we must do more,” said Sethuraman Panchanathan, director of the National Science Foundation, within which the centre sits.

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Eight tips for funding-call information sessions and networking workshops

Major funders, be they national or international, seem to have been pushing towards larger and more strategic grants for a few years now. And these are often attended by town-hall meetings and sometimes networking sessions that aim to inform researchers of what the call is about and, in the latter case, facilitate partnership-building.

In August 2018, Funding Insight columnist Adam Golberg gave potential attendees eight tips on getting the most out of such events. His first is somewhat unlikely, bearing in mind his day job in research management and his having written this article after a UK Research and Innovation call workshop: “Don’t send research development staff.”

Nowadays many major grant calls include workshops or networking events, and this is increasingly true of calls from UK Research and Innovation. These typically aim to do two things: first, to publicise the call and answer questions from potential bidders; and second, to facilitate networking and develop consortia, often including non-academic partners.

Space is often limited. There’s an application process to gauge demand and to allocate or ration places (if required) between disciplines and institutions. These events are different from ‘sandpits’, which have a more rigorous and competitive application process and which may result in direct research funding. They’re also distinct from scoping meetings, which define and shape future calls. The advice below focuses on the call-information day, but could also be applicable for sandpits and scoping meetings.

I recently attended my first UKRI call-information event and have come up with hints and tips that might help other first-time attendees.

1.       Don’t send research development staff

Research managers like me are more experienced at recognising how different calls vary, and understanding the specific focus of each, but we can only go so far when it comes to networking and representing academics. Regardless of how well we are briefed, there will come a point at which we can’t answer further questions because we’re not academics. Send an academic if you possibly can.

2.       Hone your pitch

A part of me dies inside every time I use a phrase like “elevator pitch”, but you’re going to be introducing yourself, your team and your ideas many, many times during the day. Prepare a short version and a long version of what you want to say. It doesn’t have to be crafted word for word, but prepare the structure of a clear, concise introduction that you can comfortably reel off. 

3.       Be clear about what you want and what you’re looking for

If you’re planning on leading a bid, say so. If you’re looking to add your expertise on X to another bid to be confirmed, say so. If you’re not sure yet, say so. I’m not sure what possible advantage could be gained about being coy. You could finesse your starting position by talking of “looking to” or “planning to” lead a bid if you want, but it’s much better to be clear.

4.       Don’t just talk to your friends  

Chances are that you’ll have friends or former colleagues at the event who you may not see as often as you’d like, but resist spending too much time in your comfort zone. It’ll limit your opportunities and will make you appear cliquey. Consider arranging to meet before or after the event, or at another time to catch up properly. 

5.       Be realistic about what’s achievable

Although these events shape the composition and focus of bids, I doubt that any collaboration starting from ground level at one of these events has a realistic chance of success.

6.       Do your homework

Most call meetings invite delegates to submit information in advance, usually a brief biography and a statement of research interests. It’s worth taking time to do this well and to read the information submitted by others. Follow up with web searches about potential partners to find out more about their work and, of course, what they look like. Follow them on Twitter too: it’s not stalking if it’s for research collaboration.

7.       Brush up on your networking skills 

If networking is something you struggle with, have a quick read of some basic networking guides. The best tip I was ever given was to regard networking as a process to identify “how I can help these people” rather than “how I can use these people to my advantage”. Also, I’ve found that saying “I think I follow you on Twitter” is an effective icebreaker.

8.       Don’t expect any new call info

There will be a presentation and a Q&A, but don’t expect major new insights. As not everyone can make these events, funders avoid giving any unfair advantages. Differences in nuance and emphasis can emerge in presentations and through questions, but don’t expect radical additional insights or secret insider knowledge.

If your target call has an event along these lines, you should make every effort to attend. Send your prospective principal investigator if you can, another academic if not, and your research development staff only if you must. Do a bit of homework: be clear about what you want to achieve, prepare your pitch and identify the people you want to talk to. In this way you’ll have a much better chance of achieving your goals.

Adam Golberg is research development manager in the faculty of social sciences at the University of Nottingham. He tweets as Cash4Questions and blogs at www.socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk

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Tracker will hold signatories of last year’s Kigali declaration to account

A tool to track whether signatories of the Kigali Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases are meeting their commitments to fight overlooked illnesses was launched on 30 January.

The Kigali Declaration Commitment Tracker will capture, track and monitor commitments made by countries and organisations towards the declaration, published in June last year. The initiative aims to generate political will, community commitment, resources and action to fight NTDs.

The tracker’s launch, on World NTD Day, coincided with Ghana becoming the 12th NTD-endemic country to sign the declaration. “An Africa free from NTDs is possible. Let us act now, and act together,” said the country’s president, Nana Akufo-Addo, in a statement.

Two more commitments to fight NTDs were made this week. Global pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline extended its commitment to fight soil-transmitted helminthiasis, promising to donate up to 100 million doses of medicine per year from 2026 to 2030.

And Spain-based NGO Anesvad Foundation promised to spend €34 million by 2026 to reduce the burden in sub-Saharan Africa of NTDs that affect the skin, such as Buruli ulcer, cutaneous leishmaniasis and leprosy.

To date, the Kigali declaration’s 61 signatories have generated more than US$1.6 billion and more than 19bn treatment doses, including pills, to fight NTDs. The commitment tracker will hold those who have made these commitments to account, said Thoko Elphick-Pooley, executive director of public-private partnership Uniting to Combat NTDs, which manages the tracker.

“The tracker is providing a new level of transparency that will enable us to hold each other accountable and effectively mobilise new resources that are required to end the suffering caused by these diseases,” he said in a statement. 

More remains to be done, he added. The first year of the pandemic saw a 34 per cent drop in the number of people receiving mass treatments for NTDs, and the rate only recovered slightly in 2021. “There is a financing crisis for NTDs,” Elphick-Pooley said.

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Authorship records bring sobering evidence to debate over goals and approaches, says Gali Halevi

Efforts to increase diversity in research still meet resistance. Some academics argue that considering factors such as ethnicity and gender in hiring and promotion decisions, making efforts to attract under-represented groups to educational programmes, and implementing mandatory diversity statements and policies all introduce politics into decisions that should be solely based on intellectual excellence. 

In 2020, an essay published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie argued that, since the introduction of diversity training, a “candidate’s inclusion in one of the preferred social groups may override his or her qualifications”. It caused an outcry, and has been deleted. Those who support such initiatives believe that politics is already present, that it is essential to redress past inequalities, and that making research more diverse and inclusive will improve its performance.

Policies on conferences, which are crucial to form social networks and collaborations but can also be cliquey, are a particular flashpoint. A recent article in Inside Higher Education looked at this issue in the US mathematical community. It implied that disagreements around messaging and policies on equity, diversity and inclusion—and especially around official statements and action on these topics—had been a factor in ending the agreement between America’s two biggest professional bodies for mathematicians, the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) to organise the Joint Mathematics Meeting, the world’s largest maths conference. 

Mathematical fallout

The AMS, which focuses on mathematical research, is seen as less in favour of mandatory policies—in 2019, an AMS vice-president wrote an article arguing against them—while the MAA, which focuses on mathematical teaching, is in favour. 

As evidence of inequality and bias continues to emerge, bibliographic data can add another layer of evidence to this debate. Scholarly journals have only recently begun collecting diversity data on their authors— an initiative covering 50 publishers and 15,000 journals launched last year. Some countries, such as Germany, have restrictions on collecting such data. But, even when author ethnicity is not known, it can be inferred by comparing bibliographic data with other sources.

By comparing the ethnicity that people report to the US census, for example, with last names, we can work out the proportion of people with a particular name identifying in different ethnic groups. This fraction can then be applied to authorship data to estimate the make-up of different fields.

In a report published last year, the Institute for Scientific Information used this method to analyse publications by US-based authors in several scientific fields, including mathematics, between 2010 and 2020. Depending on the field, we were able to match 75-80 per cent of author names to census data. 

The mathematics dataset contained 48,080 publications and 17,909 unique names. For accuracy, we only analysed papers with solely US authors. 

No change in ethnic diversity

The data show clearly that ethnic diversity in mathematical research has hardly changed in the past decade. There has been a slow increase in authors of Asian and Pacific origin, but other groups are showing stagnation and low rates of participation in mathematical research. 

White mathematicians make up the largest group, estimated at 47 per cent of authors in the field, followed by authors identifying as Asian or Pacific Islander, the proportion of whom rose from 15 to 19 per cent over the decade. 

Black and Hispanic authors are severely under-represented in US mathematics. Respectively, these groups make up 12 and 16 per cent of the US population, but they account for just 4.6 per cent and 3.8 per cent of authorship in mathematics research, a figure that remained static through the decade. The proportion of Native American or Alaska Native authors, at 0.28 per cent, is much lower than this group’s 1 per cent share of the population. 

Debate around policies and statements is legitimate. But the data, in mathematics and in other fields, make a strong case for recognising the lack of diversity and creating opportunities for participation by under-represented groups. 

Diversity is not just a question of equity and social justice, important as these are. It has been shown to lead to accelerated innovation and improved decision-making. Whether through education, mentorships, training or creating advancement opportunities, all academic disciplines should be working to become more diverse and inclusive, to ensure that they produce impactful research. 

Gali Halevi is the director of the Institute for Scientific Information. Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Clarivate, ISI’s owner

This article also appeared in Research Fortnight

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Two powers sign agreement for researchers to collaborate in using AI to address global challenges

The EU and US have signed an agreement to boost their research cooperation on artificial Intelligence and computing.

Under the deal, announced on 27 January, researchers from the EU and US will work together to develop real-world applications of AI, with a focus on addressing global challenges in the fields of climate change, health, energy, agriculture and natural disasters.

The agreement comes after the two powers signed a deal in December to collaborate on research in the area, which had a focus on developing joint approaches to evaluating and measuring the trustworthiness of AI.

“Based on common values and interests, EU and US researchers will join forces to develop societal applications of AI and will work with other international partners for a truly global impact,” said EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton.

The European Commission said the increased collaboration will “help identify and further develop promising AI research results”.

It added that the EU and US will aim to share findings and resources with international partners that “lack relevant capabilities” to help them manage emergencies after the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted both the need for a “truly global approach” to solving major societal challenges and a “divide between countries”.

“Extreme weather and natural disasters such as floods or fires are becoming more common and destructive across the globe, and AI will play an increasingly important role for prediction and simulation, which will help for disaster preparedness and emergency response,” the Commission said.

It added: “AI research and computing also has the potential to greatly improve crop yields, efficiency and sustainability, thanks to analysis and modelling of natural conditions such as soil and atmospheric conditions, bird and insect trends, as well as planting, irrigation, pesticide and fertiliser use and harvesting cycles…[and] AI is already boosting medical research.”

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