Science, Technology, and Public Policy

Breaking up Big Tech companies could trigger unintended, and possibly irreparable, collateral damage to America’s quest to remain the world’s leader in new technologies, write Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Steven C. Currall.

In reshaping the National Science Foundation and other institutions to best support innovation, policymakers should apply evidence-based principles drawn from scholarship and previous experience, write Steven Currall and Venkatesh Narayanamurti.

Over the past decade, there have been consistent alarm signals about U.S. leadership in science and technology. Venkatesh Narayanamurti argues that the remedy is not merely additional funding for R&D, but also more effective funding in technoscientific research, a key engine of innovation.

In The Genesis of Technoscientific Revolutions, Venkatesh Narayanamurti and Jeffrey Tsao propose a new and holistic system, a rethinking of the nature and nurturing of research. They share lessons from their vast research experience in the physical sciences and engineering, as well as from perspectives drawn from the history and philosophy of science and technology, research policy and management, and the evolutionary biological, complexity, physical, and economic sciences.

Joel Clement describes the influence of U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin over the Department of the Interior and advises that a forward-looking legislator in a fossil-fuel state would be wise to fight aggressively for financial commitments to make the people in their state part of the vanguard of the new clean energy economy, rather than set back the U.S. economy by fighting the inevitable energy transition itself.

At the Arctic Frontiers 2021 conference, Joel Clement delivered the keynote address for the "Building the future" panel. His inspirational speech was an ode to empowering youth and building a resilient Arctic — and a reflection on the discussions of the 2020 Arctic Resilience Forum.

In the face of advancing impacts of climate change — fires, smoke, floods, droughts, storms, and heat— Lara Hansen and Joel Clement argue for changing the way the country does business in every facet of the economy, with an eye toward reducing risk, increasing resilience, and ensuring equity and justice.

Joel Clement describes some immediate opportunities—and emphasize specific recommendations—to establish the Interior Department as a purposeful catalyst for a fair and just transition to clean energy, healthy ecosystems, and thriving communities.

John P. Holdren, science advisor to the Obama administration, lists 6 things he thinks Joe Biden would do on climate change.

What can science and science policy do to jointly overcome the pandemic and other crises for a prospective future of the global society? What is the best case scenario for the dialogue between politics and science? How can science succeed as a diplomacy of trust? These are some of the questions this discussion will seek to answer.