The 21st Century Global Innovaton EnvironmentC. D. Mote, President, Natonal Academy of Engineering

“The world is crazy about innovaton,” Mote observed, but we need to fnd a more useful way to discuss it. Innovaton is not a body of knowledge such as art history or German studies; it is a culture. It involves developing the needed systems and interactons—the human mindset—for successful implementaton. And importantly, it is uncontrollable because it must be responsive to its environment. Truly successful innovatve cultures always work with the ebbs and fows of the world around them, not against them.

In the second half of the 20th century—that is, from about 1945 and the publicaton of Vannevar Bush’s Science: The Endless Fronter untl around 1990—the natonal priority for the U.S. science and engineering enterprise was to prevent nuclear annihilaton by “maintaining the [United States] at the forefront of all areas of science and engineering.” To do so, the United States had to recruit the top global talent, build an excellent research infrastructure, and invest in the universites for science and engineering talent and research, and in forefront technology companies for security and economic growth.

Fortunately for the United States, the “course of the world” during this period limited both educaton and employment for highly skilled individuals outside of the United States, so an oversized share of the top global talent migrated to the United States. The three major players during this tme were U.S. industries, the federal and state governments, and the rapidly expanding university system. Each player had a clear, independent, but interconnected role, and with these three relatvely well defned groups and a consistent natonal priority of superiority in all areas of science and engineering, the United States came to dominate science and engineering. Such a confuence of external circumstances and internal policies is highly unusual and is not likely to occur again. As Mote observed, “It doesn’t get any beter than this.”

The innovaton model that formed was entrenched untl 1990 and was a “government-industry-university partnership [based] on a stable natonal platorm that controlled informaton and controlled innovaton for the security, health, and prosperity of the naton.” It is important to stress here that the focus on security provided the stability in

natonal policy for an extended period. The opportunity cost of the inherent control and isolaton paradigm, control of informaton and innovaton (through visa, import, and export regulatons, for example), and isolaton of adversaries was accepted because, although the United States might be moving at a slightly reduced rate, our adversaries were put at an even further disadvantage by not receiving the shared knowledge and ideas. Moreover, this was a very stable paradigm for nearly half a century. Mote categorized this strategy as playing a defensive game: “you score less than you might be able to, but if you can keep your adversary from scoring more than you do, you win the game.”

The game began to change in 1990 and was completely changed by the end of the decade. The end of the Cold War marked the end of the ratonale for U.S. superiority in all areas of science and engineering motvated largely by security concerns. The 1990s also opened public access to informaton through the Internet and open travel; companies such as Google formed with the express purpose of making informaton available to everyone. The ability to control informaton and innovaton, and to isolate people from it, disintegrated. Every day we learn of yet another secure informaton source that is compromised.

If one cannot control the informaton that is available, the only alternatve remaining is to adapt quickly and use the informaton that is available to you before others do to preserve some advantage even for a short period. In the new paradigm, acceleratng innovaton was required. Constant adjustments and changes on short tmescales were needed to stay ahead of the competton. Returning to the sports analogy, Mote said that it became necessary to play a highly ofensive game: “if you cannot stop your adversary from scoring, you have to outscore her to win; if you cannot outscore her, game over.”

Over the 10-year period from the end of the Cold War to the dot-com boom-and-bust, there was a 180-degree paradigm shif in the dominant global innovaton culture. The golden age of U.S. science and technology innovaton arose during a stable period of control of informaton and isolaton of adversaries for security purposes. Relatvely abruptly, the country (and world) faced new model: the “government-industry-university partnerships in innovaton that sit on the adaptable global platorm that creates informaton to accelerate innovaton.”

This new system is more complex, with more opportunites, both good and bad. Top-down, government-guided innovaton structures for large infrastructure and facilites investments, great global problems, or even educaton stll exist, but they need to be addressed in the context of rapidly evolving innovaton culture. The Chinese government has developed many programs this way that appear to have fourished recently. Alternatvely, botom-up approaches to innovaton by individuals, segments of academe, or members of industry could focus on developing individual products or services, becoming successful through inventon and enterprise creaton on a global

level, such as can be found in innovaton clusters like Silicon Valley. However, Mote noted that a “complete, global innovaton environment for a country integrates its top-down and botom-up innovaton environments on the global platorm to accelerate innovaton through partnerships and engagement with global partners.” That is, to be truly successful in the new, ofensive and fuid paradigm, we cannot focus on just top-down programs, or solely botom-up systems, and hope the global market contnues in our favor. Most important, we cannot contnue to focus only on our naton and our policies: we must think globally.

As Mote explained, many current “U.S. policies contnue to refect 20th century thinking: isolaton of adversaries and control of informaton in a stable natonal, innovaton environment rather than partnerships and engagements for creatng informaton for innovaton acceleraton in an adaptable, global innovaton environment.” Simply put, the United States has not recognized fully the global innovaton environment and is stuck playing defense in an ofensive game.

When natonal policy aligns with global trends, as was seen in the United States from 1945 untl 1990, a golden age of innovaton, jobs, and economic prosperity ensues. But Mote laid out a case showing that the major factor stabilizing natonal policy at that tme, a focus of protectng security, is no longer the top natonal priority it was earlier. Instead of isolaton, we now have partnerships and engagement. Instead of informaton control, we have informaton creaton. “Swimming upstream against the course of the world, against developing our global innovaton environment, is exhaustng, depletng, and it will fail.”

The Academies’ Response to the Naton’s Challenges: The Presidents’ View

Since 1863, when President Lincoln and Congress created the Natonal Academy of Sciences (NAS), communicatng about the value of science, the values of science, and the importance of using evidence to guide public policy has been part of the Academies’ mission, said NAS President Ralph Cicerone. He discussed NAS eforts to share science with the general public.

Although research shows that Americans’ attudes and perceptons about science and scientsts are generally highly favorable, “the support for science in the United States is

very broad but it’s extremely shallow,” Cicerone noted. For example, the average American has never met a scientst and cannot name any living scientsts.

The Science & Entertainment Exchange was formed a few years ago to put Hollywood producers, directors, and writers in touch with scientsts to form collaboratons and more accurately portray science and scientsts in popular flms and television shows. Since its formaton, the Exchange has facilitated more than 800 consultatons between Hollywood creatve talent and scientsts, and many new relatonships have been formed. One of these—between astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and Hollywood producer, director, and actor Seth McFarlane—resulted in the new documentary series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a remake of Carl Sagan’s 1980s documentary series “Cosmos.” The new Cosmos is a 13-part series that airs every week on Fox and Natonal Geographic channels, reaching some 500 million households worldwide.

Cicerone mentoned several other initatves to engage the public, including the Academies’ involvement in the annual USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C., the Science and Engineering Ambassadors Program in Pitsburgh, and the Keck Futures Initatve Communication Awards. One of the winners in the book category a few years ago was Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5 Billion Year History of the Human Body by NAS member Neil Shubin, which has since been developed into a three-episode documentary series that aired on PBS.

Natonal Academy of Engineering (NAE) President C. D. “Dan” Mote spoke next about the importance for ensuring that the United States has the engineering talent it needs in an increasingly technological world. Mote pointed out that engineering talent encompasses many more people than those who describe themselves as engineers. More than 25 percent of NAE members do not have engineering degrees, and some have no degrees at all. But the caliber of their work was sufcient to warrant electon. Many who do great engineering work are not engineers. He noted that projects such as the Large Hadron Collider and the Mars Rover Curiosity are among the greatest engineering projects of this century. Yet, many of the people who worked on them would not classify themselves as engineers. And the public does not see instruments as engineering projects.

Mote pointed to several troubling trends for the United States in producing and atractng engineering talent. The percentage of bachelor’s degrees awarded in engineering in the United States annually is around 4 percent, among the lowest in the world, on a level with Cameroon and Swaziland. The world average percentage of degrees awarded in engineering is around 13 percent. This comes at a tme when virtually every country in the world is short of engineers and is “recruitng like mad” to get the talent, Mote said. In additon, for decades the United States was able to atract the greatest talent in the world, but the competton is now much fercer. For example, the number of students who graduated from the most highly compettve India Insttutes of Technology who came to the United States for further study dropped from

80 percent in 1997 to just 16 percent in 2008. The top two undergraduate universites whose graduates earned largest number of U.S. Ph.D.s in 2006 in engineering and science were Tsinghua University and Peking University, but by 2010 the U.S. Ph.D. degrees earned by students from these universites dropped to 40 and 25 percent, respectvely, indicatng the top students from China are not coming to the United States as before. And the total number of students entering undergraduate insttutons in the United States, Europe, and Japan combined is less than the total number of entering students in China. “This is a changing dynamic that we have to worry about,” said Mote. “We need to recognize that we are in a competton for this talent.”

Mote said that going forward, the Academies is taking a leadership role in afectng the public percepton of engineering, both in the United States and globally. “Engineering creates solutons for people in society. Every discipline in engineering does that. And anybody who does that is doing engineering,” Mote said, notng that polls show only 9 percent of the public thinks engineering is about people. “The NAE’s 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering for this century are all about this idea, about raising awareness of the solutons needed for people and society in this century.” NAE is raising awareness about these issues both in the United States and abroad at forums such as the Global Engineering Dean’s Council.

Insttute of Medicine (IOM) President Harvey Fineberg discussed how essental the Academies’ work is in the current politcal climate. Rather than think of the three branches of government as "the separaton of powers," politcal scientst Richard Neustadt observed it was more accurate to consider them "separate branches sharing powers." Neustadt taught that the power of the president was essentally the power to persuade. He noted that each branch of government—executve, legislatve, and judicial—separately shares power, and the only way to get things done in Washington is through persuasion. “Today,” said Fineberg, “politcal polarizaton mitgates against cooperaton, reaching across the aisle, or seeking solutons to problems in ways that are not distorted by politcs. In this environment, what is the place of science, and evidence, and the argument of the type that the Natonal Academies can ofer? I would submit that it’s more important than ever.” Fineberg noted several recent examples of how IOM reports were able to help inform policy on contentous issues. For example, as the Afordable Care Act was being drafed and debated, the administraton asked the IOM to examine geographic variaton in Medicare and Medicaid spending and health outcomes and to recommend whether and in what ways payments should be adjusted accordingly. Fineberg noted that the commitee that worked on the report found that although there is a lot of geographic variaton in both cost and quality of care, this variaton occurs within every geographic cluster no mater how small. In high-performing regions, there were some poorly performing individual insttutons, and in low-performing regions, there were some highly efectve and efcient insttutons. The commitee concluded that it would be

beter to focus incentves at the insttutonal level where decisions could be made, and that these recommendatons are being followed.

The IOM’s report Chimpanzees and Biomedical and Behavioral Research: Assessing the Necessity was similarly successful in fnding a soluton to a difcult problem. The scientfc community expressed concern that limitng research on chimpanzees would be a slippery slope that could inhibit the use of research animals in general. On the other side was a compelling moral argument about conductng research on chimpanzees—humans’ closest animal relatves. The IOM commitee came back with a set of clear criteria for the appropriate use of chimpanzees in research that both sides could endorse, and the Natonal Insttutes of Health adopted those criteria.

Fineberg said that sometmes the Academies needs to take up policy questons that the government isn’t able to consider. For example, discussing end-of-life care became politcally impossible during debate over the Afordable Care Act. Because of the specter of “death panels,” proposed provision for hospitals to be paid if they had a conversaton with patents about their individual preferences at the end of life was removed from the bill. A later executve proposal for Medicare to pay doctors if they had this voluntary conversaton with patents was also stymied. Every day, thousands of people in America are dying in ways that they wouldn’t have chosen had they been able to openly discuss and choose their optons with their medical care providers. Through the generosity of an anonymous donor, the IOM took up the queston of end-of-life care , and the forthcoming report promises to be a landmark for the Academies and a major contributon to sound social policy. Fineberg, who will stepping down as IOM president in July afer serving 12 years, closed his remarks by saying what a privilege it has been to be part of the Academies enterprise and to work with supporters and colleagues such as Presidents’ Circle members and Academy members and staf. Natonal Research Council in Acton: Historical Highlights Bruce Darling, executve ofcer of the Natonal Academy of Sciences and Natonal Research Council, provided context of the history of the Academies and its contributons to the naton. The overview is intended to provide a

framework for the work we’re doing today and how it might be viewed 50 years from now. The Natonal Academy of Sciences was created 150 years ago. President Lincoln signed the bill creatng the insttuton on the same day that he conscripted 300,000 men into the Union Army. At the tme, Lincoln and his advisers had a truly inspired vision of the United States that transcended the difcultes of the tme. That vision included building the transcontnental railroad and the signing of the Morrill Land Grant Act, which created great public research universites across the United States. At the same tme, the Natonal Academy of Sciences was created. The purpose of the Academy was threefold: frst, to elevate the quality of science and engineering to the levels then prevailing in Europe; second, to honor truly distnguished, original contributons to research by electng people to membership in the Academy; and third, to advise the government on any area where science, engineering, and medicine could contribute a soluton. Darling described the role of the Academy in helping to shape the naton. A number of government agencies originated with the Academy. In 1870, the Academy was asked to conduct a systematc survey of the new territories west of the Mississippi River. Afer a 4-year expediton led by Academy member and geologist John Wesley Powell, which included the frst journey down the Colorado River, the Academy recommended the formaton of the U.S. Geological Survey. Ten years later, the United States was facing a deforestaton crisis because mining and railroad companies and new towns were cutng huge swaths of forest to meet their needs. The government again turned to the Academy, which recommended the creaton of the U.S. Forest Service to ensure the wise use of forest resources at that tme while also conserving the forests for future generatons. Similarly, the Academy recommended the creaton of the Natonal Park Service in 1915. Darling also discussed the Academy’s role in developing a soluton to frequent landslides that were preventng the opening of the Panama Canal, enabling it to open in 1914. The advent of World War I presented tremendous challenges to the United States. Recognizing that the Academy’s membership was too small to address many of these, George Ellery Hale, the Academy’s foreign secretary, and Robert Millikan, one of the naton’s most eminent physical scientsts, took the lead in forming the Natonal Research Council (NRC) in 1916 as part of the Academy. The NRC mobilized the naton’s scientfc, engineering, medical, and business communites on behalf of the war efort, including organizing the manufacturing and producton of munitons, airplanes, and tanks during the war. It also developed the frst detecton systems to locate German submarines.

During the Eisenhower administraton, the Academy assisted in developing the intercontnental highway system. The NRC’s Transportaton Research Board contnues to be the research arm of all 50 states and the U.S. Department of Transportaton, defning on a yearly basis a research agenda for air, marine, and land transportaton. In the mid-1950s the Academy led U.S. planning for the 1957-1958 Internatonal Geophysical Year to beter understand our planet. In 1954, as part of that efort, the Academy recommended the development of the frst satellite program. The Academy was put in charge of the project along with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the U.S. Navy. Unfortunately, the Navy’s Vanguard rocket blew up on takeof, which led the Soviet Union to beat the United States into space with the launch of Sputnik in October 1957. Wernher von Braun and the U.S. Army rushed the development of the Jupiter rocket to launch Voyager I in January of 1958. A press conference was held at the NAS building soon thereafer to announce the launch and the discovery of the Van Allen radiaton belts that surround the Earth. Another landmark was the Asimolar Conference, convened by the Academy in 1975 to examine the promise and potental hazards of recombinant DNA technology. At the tme, the public was concerned that new organisms created by rDNA might escape from the laboratory and cause harm to public health or the environment. The scientsts at Asimolar developed guidelines to govern rDNA research and minimize its potental risks. The Natonal Science Foundaton and Natonal Insttutes of Health adopted these guidelines, the public’s fears were assuaged, and tremendous advances were made in biology and medicine. The United States became a leader in biotechnology, and hundreds of thousands of new jobs were created. Darling also recounted the Academy’s role in assessing the explosion of the space shutle Challenger in the 1980s. And just recently, the Natonal Academy of Engineering and the NRC took a leadership role in assessing the causes of the 2010 Macondo oil well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, which led to one of the biggest accidental oil spills in U.S. history. The Academies produce about 200 reports a year, which are available for free at htp://www.nap.edu. None of this work could be done without the work of the scientfc, medical, and engineering community, Darling noted. About 7,000 of these experts serve on Academy commitees without compensaton and devote countless hours to resolving major challenges facing the naton; they are the power that drives the Academies’ role in shaping the naton. In additon, another 3,000 volunteers serve as independent reviewers of our draf reports to ensure that conclusions and recommendatons are based on sound science. Darling also discussed a recent proposal approved by the Council and membership of the Insttute of Medicine and by the membership of the Natonal Academy of Sciences to change the name of the IOM to the Natonal Academy of Medicine and to move the

IOM program into the Natonal Research Council. If NAS members vote in April 2015 to afrm the name change, the organizatonal changes will lead to a more integrated insttuton that will beter serve the needs of the naton, Darling said.

Lauren Alexander AugustneDirector, Program on Risk, Resilience, and Extreme EventsPolicy and Global Afairs Division

[on behalf of Richard Bissell, the Executve Director of the Division on Policy and Global Afairs (PGA).] I’m going to discuss three emerging issues that PGA is working on to make the world a beter place: building science capacity in Africa, an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability, and risk of and resilience toward hazards and natural disasters.

To think of Africa is to think of change and many emerging issues. On the one hand, you have emerging economies, emerging populatons, emerging markets, and emerging technologies. On the other hand, you have increasing urbanizaton, diseases, poverty, under-fve mortality, terrorism and instability, and climate change. This is Africa.

In 2004, the Gates Foundaton gave this insttuton $20 million over 10 years to work with national science academies in African countries. PGA and the Insttute of Medicine collaborated on this project to address the charge to work with Academies of Science in eight countries to build their capacity to provide the kind of services we provide—independent, evidence-based advice—for beter health outcomes.

For the IOM people—and we had very strong leadership from the IOM staf on this project—it was easy. Diseases, immunizatons and vaccines, primary health systems—that’s what they were thinking about. But I’m a hydrologist and an engineer: to improve health outcomes, we need clean water. We need beter access to water. We need beter roads and infrastructure to support ambulatory systems to get people to the clinic or to the hospital. We need power to keep hospital machinery and systems running and patents alive. Water. Infrastructure. Power.

So we’re in a very good positon at the end of this 10-year process. President Obama is hostng an African leadership summit this summer at the NAS building. We’ve been asked, along with the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for Internatonal Development, to hold a side event on what’s needed for science and technology investment in Africa in the 21st century. And so here we have health, power, infrastructure, transportaton, and climate change. What is the role of science and technology as we look at Africa in the 21st century? The NAS had a big role in building the science base in Africa. We’re well positoned to draw from that African science base to provide good advice and guidance to deal with the emerging issues to come. The second issue also involves the nexus of power, energy, and water. PGA’s program of science and technology for sustainability (STS) takes a very interdisciplinary approach to these issues in a changing world. STS works with the Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences (DEPS), the Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS), IOM, and the Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Educaton (DBASSE) to bring together these diferent dimensions and determine how science and technology contribute to sustainability.

These two program areas of PGA are great. I’m very proud of them. And, they nudge us to ask the bigger questons of “why?” or “who cares?” We care because in this changing world, things we value might be at risk. We value lives, we value money, and we value health, our staton in life, power, security, and property. As these emerging trends occur globally, their impacts are putng the things we value at risk. How much risk? We don’t know. We don’t have strong or reliable estmates. And how resilient are the assets we have to those risks? A new program being developed in PGA on risk and resilience asks these questons: How do you understand risk? How do you communicate those risks? How resilient are we to these risks and how resilient do we need to be? How close are we to that desired state?

We’re taking this on as a cross-unit approach at the Academies because it involves transportaton, infrastructure, environmental, and climate change issues, issues that arise in the Gulf of Mexico program, and the social sciences. So it all goes back to the queston of whether we are doing good work to make the world a beter place. And I think the answer is yes.

Peter D. BlairExecutve Director, Division on Engineering and Physical SciencesOur theme for this meetng is “surprises ahead.” The efort I’m going to report on is a potental surprise that we hope never happens but many now believe may be inevitable; that is, the vulnerability of the naton’s electric power system to terrorist atacks.

You may recall that a number of years ago, the NAE listed the electrifcaton of modern society at the top of the list of engineering achievements in the 20th century. Today we take it for granted that when we turn on a switch the lights go on. Electricity has become the lifeblood of industry, commerce, health, safety, communicatons, and most features of modern life. That electricity is delivered to us over a massive interconnected network of 10,000 central power plants and increasingly many other distributed sources, 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines, 55,000 substatons, and hundreds of thousands of lower-voltage transmission distributon lines across the naton. The grid is sometmes referred to as the world’s largest interconnected machine.

Sometmes we forget the pace at which our dependence on electricity and the grid has developed over tme. Back in the 1930s one of the major New Deal programs was the electrifcaton of the Tennessee Valley. A spider web of power lines was installed throughout the valley—so quickly that it was ahead of the

installers of light bulbs and appliances who arrived sometme later. So when the installers arrived, they discovered corn cobs were stufed into light sockets throughout the valley. When they asked why, the residents quite reasonably responded they didn’t want the electricity to leak out.

Today, a power outage of even minutes is an inconvenience, of hours an irritaton, of days a major disrupton, and beyond that it becomes a really signifcant societal risk. Events over the past few years in partcular have underscored the vulnerability of the power system to a variety of disruptons. These events include natural disasters like the 2012 Super Derecho storm that wreaked such havoc across the mid-Atlantc, or, in that same year, Hurricane Sandy.

But in additon to natural disasters is the vulnerability of the power grid to atack or intrusions. That includes control of the electric power system, since the grid is managed by industrial control systems that are subject to cyber atacks. This new type of cyber vulnerability is added to the vulnerability of those thousands of modes of the power system that are subject to physical atack, which, if done in a sophistcated way, could be partcularly destructve.

These atacks are no longer speculatve, as illustrated by the atack of an electric substaton in Metcalfe, California, last year. In some ways it was both a sophistcated cyber atack and a physical atack. The atackers slipped into an underground vault and expertly severed the fber-optc cables in a way that would make the subsequent atack much more difcult to detect and repair. They then began fring at the substaton with high power rifes, damaging major transformers. The substaton was down for 27 days. It was only because of the tme of day, and the fact that the snipers missed much of what they were shootng at, that the grid could survive this atack. Power was rerouted from other sources to Silicon Valley.

Because of its scale, and complexity, the U.S. power grid causes many security challenges in maintaining reliable operaton. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) came to the Academies in 2004 to organize an expert commitee to evaluate the vulnerability of the grid. The principal focus of the study was to characterize the distnctve features that pose challenges in deciding how to assess and mitgate the grid’s vulnerability to disrupton. These features in short are its scale, the interdependence of its components, and its interdependence on other kinds of infrastructure.

This interdependence in partcular poses a risk of cascading failure for seemingly minor incidents relatve to the scale of the system—such as tree limbs falling, lightning strikes, cyber intrusions, or rife atacks—that could become major disasters. Another important challenge is that most of the U.S. power grid is privately owned and regulated by the states, making it challenging for the federal government to unilaterally address vulnerabilites to its operaton.

Our commitee completed its work in 2007 with the intenton of releasing the report by the end of that year. Months passed following protracted discussions with DHS about what would be suitable for public disseminaton. Finally DHS classifed the whole report in 2008. But because the commitee believed the report was so important and should be made available to industry, the NRC contested this decision. It wasn’t untl 5 years afer the report was completed that the full report was approved for public release.

At the end of the day, this report has generated a public policy discourse out in the open that’s been important. Its fndings and recommendatons have all been confrmed in many other venues since, both classifed and unclassifed. As the result there’s been a reframing of the issues that can be addressed by both private interests and natonal security agencies.

Congress has also proposed legislaton to have the NRC examine all of the forces shaping the naton’s future power grid—economic, regulatory, and technical—and assess the threats and opportunites for expanding the grid and improving its capabilites, capacity, efciency, reliability, and resilience.

Chris ElfringExecutve Director, Gulf Research Program

The new Gulf Research Program is an incredible opportunity, one that comes to us from a terrible tragedy. In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon explosion and fre killed 11 people and injured 17, and some 200 million gallons of oil were released in the Gulf of Mexico. There are incalculable physical, human, and economic

impacts from this disaster, and many court cases. The civil trial is stll ongoing; when resolved, that could dedicate between $10 billion and $20 billion to restore damage caused by the spill.

But the reason I’m here today is as a result of how the criminal case was setled. The government decided, in setling the criminal cases with BP and Transocean, that the money should go to community good. It directed that the penalty munites be conveyed to three private, nonproft organizatons, the North American Wetlands Conservaton Fund ($100 million), the Natonal Fish and Wildlife Foundaton ($2.544 billion), and the Natonal Academy of Sciences ($500 million). NAS was directed to use the money to create a new, independent research program in the Gulf region, a program that helps advance our understanding of the Gulf of Mexico and apply what’s been learned in other contnental shelf areas.

The $500 million coming to the NAS will accumulate over 5 years, and it is to be spent over 30 years. In that tme we’re supposed to do work in three realms: human health, environmental resources, and oil system safety. And we are directed to use the funds for three kinds of actvites: research and development, educaton and training, and environmental monitoring. Startng something new at this scale, and knowing it is supposed to have real impact over tme, is an incredible, wide-ranging challenge. What do we actually do, within the spirit of the setlement agreement, to make the Gulf of Mexico and the world a beter place?

To get started fnding our focus, we formed an advisory group. The 25 members are the most engaged group of volunteers that I have ever worked with. Our chair is Barbara Schaal. We have three members each from the IOM, NAE, and NAS, as well as people

from each of the Gulf states and a diversity of expertse. We’ve tried to take a thoughtul approach, looking for opportunites that best suit our insttutonal strengths and contribute something unique to what is a very complicated environment. And while the Academy has done a number of important studies around the Macondo accident—technical work, health assessment work, and ecosystem services work—this new program is going to be very diferent. We’re going to actually fund things and make things happen. So we’re atypical in terms of the Academy’s work. We have some models in PGA and TRB, but not one big program where our responsibility is so outwardly focused.

We’ve held many meetngs to gather input from stakeholders and we’re winding down Phase I of our planning. We’re working on a strategic plan that will serve as the foundatonal vision for the program. It should be completed by the end of the summer. We know we need to have a mix of objectves and actvites, but we also want to take advantage of the 30-year tme horizon and do something “big” and have lastng impact.

This fall, we’re going to announce some small inital actvites, including a round of exploratory grants and some fellowship opportunites. And we will move ahead over the next year to work on the larger challenge: What will we do to have lastng impact?

To develop a deeper understanding of the opportunites we have, in 2014 we are hostng three “opportunity analysis” workshops. Hopefully these discussions will bring us many ideas from the communites we serve.

In short, the new Gulf Research Program will act as a science-focused foundaton. We’ll hold calls for applicatons, we’ll judge those applicatons using scientfc peer review, and then we’ll make decisions about what we’ll fund. We’ll develop metrics and evaluaton processes so we can see how we do over tme, and evolve as needed.

The frst challenge we face is deciding on our distnctve role in this environment of many, many actors, with a lot of money fowing toward science or related to science work. Another challenge is contnuing our momentum. Our advisory group only has one term to set the foundaton. Then we’ll form an advisory board that will functon quite diferently from boards in the Academy structure.

Another big challenge is our assignment to include environmental monitoring as part of our work. This is not something we alone can do even if we spent all $500 million on environmental monitoring. We’re working collaboratvely in the community to decide what it means and what our role should be. We’re also thinking about the data dimension. How do you make data most useful to science and decision makers?

What will we do with $500 million to make the world a beter place? To be contnued.

Robert M. HauserExecutve Director, Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Educaton

I just returned from the African Mediterranean and European Associaton for Science Educaton, which includes representatves from 24 countries, all trying to improve implementaton of inquiry-based science educaton. My role was to help introduce them to the Next Generaton Science Standards.

I would like to talk about the report U.S. Health in Internatonal Perspectve: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health. There were two major messages in that report. The frst is that we are amazingly behind almost every other country in the world in almost every measure of health. And the second is the huge role played in that defcit by social, environmental, and behavioral issues in this country. Interestngly, NIH did not like this report at all, but it’s our job to tell people how it really is.

Another report that we just issued is The Growth of Incarceraton in the United States. By sheer luck, it has come out at just the right tme to help inform the natonal debate and has been covered immensely well in the press. One aspect of the report that is surprising is where justce is done in a regime of increasingly long sentences and minimal discreton on the part of judges. Justce is done in negotaton between prosecutors and defense atorneys. Everybody realizes that the system is broken. There are tremendous costs to states and federal government, and costs to communites.

In 2000, we released a report called How People Learn, an immensely infuental report that has been downloaded 55,000 tmes. We’re getng help from Circle member Nancy Conrad to develop support for an update that will beneft from the tremendous advances in cognitve science, and partcularly neuroscience, that have occurred over the past decade.

DBASSE also produced A Framework for K-12 Science Educaton. That has been a big winner for the Academies in more ways than one. It’s been downloaded more than 130,000 tmes. Because Achieve Inc., which developed the Next Generaton Science Standards, adhered so closely to the Framework, we were able to conduct an independent review of the standards, and the Natonal Academies Press published

them. They’ve been adopted by 11 states so far. Some of the states have balked, and we’ve been caught up in the politcal storm over the Common Core Standards, but I remain hopeful that we’ll be able to follow these new science standards through to implementaton in America’s classrooms.

Social and behavioral sciences are in a delicate politcal positon. All of the leaders of the Academy have been very strong supporters of social and behavioral sciences. I’d like to discuss how behavioral and social sciences have benefted society. Science takes tme. In 1974 the proposal was made for a satellite-borne astronomical instrument, Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE). It wasn’t untl 2006 that John Mather and George Smoot received Nobel Prizes for major discoveries about the universe that came from that experiment.

That can also be true of social sciences. The patents for the search algorithms that made it possible to create Google have their roots in social network research that began as early as the 1950s, although most of it occurred in the 1970s with support of the Natonal Science Foundaton. The ability to manage kidney transplants efectvely and efciently has its roots in economic research on marital choice carried out by Alvin Roth. Roth applied this research to kidney transplant donor registries and improved the process of matching patents with donors. It has greatly facilitated the ability of people with serious kidney problems to receive transplants.

We’re going to begin a new initatve called Surprising Payofs, which will be a series of communicatons, well researched in advance, about these kinds of examples. A second is a new roundtable led by my division called Social and Behavioral Sciences in Acton, which will bring together social scientsts, communicatons specialists, and users of the products of social and behavioral sciences to improve our communicaton about these accomplishments. And third, we’re going to take a look across all of the divisions of the Academies at the role of social and behavioral sciences, which are pervasive in the work of the Academies and the Natonal Research Council.

Robert SkinnerExecutve Director, Transportaton Research Board

I’d like to discuss four areas of emerging challenges and opportunites that will afect the transportaton system and our lifestyles in the future. The frst relates automated, autonomous vehicles, which were foreseen at the 1939 World’s Fair. The terms can be confusing. Many of us have vehicles that have some automated features now, such as braking. More braking and control automaton could be introduced in vehicles that are connected to each other and connected to the infrastructure. There are 3,000 “connected” vehicles in Ann Arbor engaged in a large-scale trial of this technology. Another vision for the future is the autonomous vehicle, such as Google’s car, which doesn’t have to connect with anything to drive safely. Despite the potental and the

hype, it will take decades to introduce these technologies because the average age of our personal vehicles is nearly 12 years and rising.

TRB is also in the midst of completng a study on intercity travel. Most of us feel like we’re experts on the aviaton system and how it should be improved. TRB has done work over the years on the economics and regulatory aspects and competton within civil and commercial aviaton. My personal view is that we’re going to see more consolidaton and more disciplined pricing to improve proftability, creatng a tension between proftability (for the airliners) and competton (to beneft the traveler).

What about high-speed rail (HSR)? I don’t expect that many of us will be riding on high-speed rail systems in our professional careers or in our lifetme. The most realistc prospect is in California, where funding is in jeopardy and held up in court for a planned HSR line linking northern and southern California. Even if current plans go forward, there wouldn’t be high-speed rail service between Los Angeles and San Francisco untl 2029—quite a while into the future.

Anyone living in dense U.S. urban areas is seeing a number of potentally revolutonary developments, such as Hail-a-Cab, Flywheel, Uber and Uber-X, and Car-to-Go. These are technologies assisted by real-tme communicatons. They involve ride booking, short-term car rentals, peer-to-peer ride sharing, and bike rentals. We’re seeing pushback from the conventonal taxi and black car industry, and the future of some of these services may be in doubt. TRB has a study that is looking at whether these new technologies will be transformatve or just a temporary bubble. Personally, I hope that they will trigger economic reform and more fexibility in the global taxi and black car industries, allowing a more diverse set of urban transportaton services.

The last item I’d like to focus on is how we are going to pay for our transportaton in the future. Economists have argued for years that we should have user-pay mechanisms, which would provide tp-ofs and informaton on where need is greatest and ultmately help modulate demand. For now, a fuel tax is the best mechanism we have, but there is a problem in how well it will work for the future. Economists and other policy analysts see the role of electronically facilitated collecton mechanisms on your car that can vary tolls by tme of day and type of vehicles as the user fee of the future. For example, it

would enable a user to be charged more for driving a big rig during a congested rush hour than for driving a small car on a local road at night. It’s a big challenge, because the reality now is that discussing a gas tax is a third-rail issue politcally in the United States. In fact we’ve been moving away from user fees to cover our transportaton costs, relying more on sales taxes and general fund transfers.

Gregory SymmesExecutve Director of the Division on Earth and Life Studies

DELS is the part of the Academies that carries out studies related to environmental issues such as climate change, nuclear waste safety and disposal, the environmental efects of fracking, water polluton, ecosystems, agriculture, biological and chemical sciences, laboratory animals, and fooding and drought.

Some upcoming reports from DELS include lessons learned from the Fukushima nuclear accident and tsunami, which is expected out this summer. Another report involves geoengineering the climate, which should be released this summer or early fall. Another important topic is reform to the food insurance program; our Water Science and Technology Board is doing a study on the costs and benefts of risk-based flood insurance premiums. Finally is a study that’s just getng launched from our Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources which will be looking at the safety and environmental issues associated with genetcally engineered crops.

But today, because the theme of the meetng is “surprises ahead,” I’d like to talk about the report Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change: Anticipating Surprises. It’s an update of a report we did 12 years ago—Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises. NAS President Ralph Cicerone and a number of agencies asked us to update it and focus on how our understanding has improved. We were also asked to explore opportunites to antcipate and monitor some of these surprising changes or tpping points in the climate system. The Natonal Science Foundaton (NSF), the Natonal Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraton (NOAA), the intelligence community, and the Academies (using funds from our endowment) provided funding to support this important project.

The commitee defned abrupt climate change as change that happens more quickly than antcipated or more quickly than our infrastructure and human systems can react. The report also focused on abrupt impacts of climate change—meaning changes where the impacts could cross a threshold or tpping point. An example in the report is the New York City subway system. A gradual increase in sea level rise might not afect the system at all untl a certain threshold is reached and suddenly the system is fooded.

The commitee then looked at many of the kinds of abrupt climate change issues that have been described in the past. The report classifed them into three main categories. The frst is areas of change that are already happening and that we’re really worried about, such as the rapid meltng of Arctc summertme sea ice or the impacts on ecosystems and species.

The second area is changes that 12 years ago we were quite worried about, but now, because of more research and improved science, we think are unlikely to happen in the near future or abruptly. An example is a change in the Atlantc Meridional Circulaton System. The commitee found that such a change is unlikely to occur over the next 100 years. That’s also true of a very abrupt release of large volumes of methane from the Arctc. That was a big concern 12 years ago, but our commitee said it’s unlikely to happen in a big burp of methane.

The third category is abrupt climate change issues where the level of uncertainty is stll quite high and more research is needed. An example of that category is the West Antarctc ice sheet and the rapidity of its disintegraton. Research is contnuing and it seems possible that there could be very high sea level rise due to contnued meltng of the ice sheet.

The most important message of the report was a call to acton to develop an abrupt-change early warning system. That message has been received quite well by agencies and even some states. We’re in discussion with agencies, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the State of Alaska to do a follow-on actvity to help inform the design of such an early warning system.

The report generated hundreds of news artcles. We also briefed Presidental Science Advisor John Holdren and many commitees in both the House and the Senate on the report’s fndings and recommendatons.

Rapid Response and the NRC: An Oxymoron?

Richard N. Zare, Marguerite Blake Wilber Professor in Natural Science, Stanford University, and Chair, Commitee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy

The Commitee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP) is a joint unit of the Natonal Academy of Sciences, Natonal Academy of Engineering, and Insttute of Medicine. It’s special because it covers the three Academies, and all of its members are members of at least one of the three insttutons. The three Academy presidents are also members of COSEPUP. This is a prety powerful group of people, and one of the few groups that has the ability to try to originate some of its own studies.

Its origins are with President Eisenhower, who wanted his science advisor to be able to turn to an independent source for science, engineering, and health advice. It was started by the Academies to address the concerns and requests of the U.S. president’s science advisor, the director of

the NSF, the chair of the Natonal Science Board, the heads of the other federal research agencies and departments, and chairs of the key science- and technology-related commitees in Congress. We want to speak to everybody, but we serve the needs of leaders making policy.

COSEPUP conducts studies on cross-cutng issues in science and technology policy that span the interests of the three Academies. Recent projects include exploring the innovaton ecosystem. We’re very interested in how one goes from discovery to the marketplace. Innovaton is about a culture, and it’s important to understand the necessary conditons. We’ve held two workshops on trends and directons in the innovaton ecosystem. A summary of those workshops was released in 2013.We also completed a congressionally mandated report on the Experimental Program to Stmulate Compettve Research (ESPCoR). We released the report in November and provided briefngs to two House and two Senate commitees.

Next we did a workshop on the arc of the academic research career. We examined the queston of why researchers may want to step out of academia—for example, to start companies. And we looked at the stress points such as career entry, tenure, retrement, and how demographic trends will afect in the future.

Rising Above the Gathering Storm came out of COSEPUP. That’s one of the great successes. We’re also doing an update to a report on enhancing the postdoctoral experience. We’re going to assess which funding agencies have accepted our original recommendatons and explore how the postdoc experience has changed, how foreign-

born postdocs are experiencing the system, and other topics. Greg Petsko is the chair and the report should be available this fall.

We’re also doing an update to a 1992 report on responsible science. This updated report will be extremely important and it’s about to enter review. The report will provide guidance to researchers, research managers, funders, and compliance ofcers. This is the heart of science and it’s very important for the public to trust scientsts.

The Natonal Research Council has a very thorough vetng system for reports. These are wonderfully thorough and scholarly but can take a year or two or more to complete. In a year, the person or agency who requests a report has probably gone on to something else. It’s hard to be responsive in a tmely mater.

To address this problem, we’re getng permission to start to have our own voice through “acton memos.” These would involve excerptng fndings and recommendatons from existng reports and applying them to today’s issues. We could also decide to speak out on certain current issues through these memos. An example of an issue the commitee might address are the unintended consequences of travel restrictons on federal agencies that support external research programs through contracts and grants.

Science and Popular Culture

Neil deGrasse TysonDirector, Hayden Planetarium, and Astrophysicist, American Museum of Natural History

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is perhaps the most visible scientst in America today, and that’s no accident. His infuence can be found in just about every form of media—whether through recent profles in The New Yorker and the New York Times, his frequent appearances on NPR’s Radiolab, his multple books, or appearances on Comedy Central’s Daily Show. deGrasse Tyson’s name was even the answer to a clue in a New York Times crossword puzzle, and the scientst also made an appearance—complete with illustraton—in a recent Superman comic

book. In additon, he is a frequent presence on social media and his Twiter account has two million followers.

Clearly, deGrasse Tyson is not afraid to bring science into popular culture. “When science can be touched by the public, partcularly creatve people in the public … it enters the culture in ways that you can’t predict,” said deGrasse Tyson during his presentaton to PC members and guests.

deGrasse Tyson’s latest venture is Cosmos: A Spacetme Odyssey, an update of Carl Sagan’s popular 1980s documentary series. deGrasse Tyson recounted the instrumental role that the NAS Science & Entertainment Exchange played in the creaton of the series, which deGrasse Tyson co-wrote with Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan, also a writer of the original series. It was through the Science & Entertainment Exchange that deGrasse Tyson met Seth McFarlane, producer of the animated series Family Guy, who later decided to produce the new series. With McFarlane’s help, the Fox network and Natonal Geographic agreed to fnance and air the series—and give total creatve control to deGrasse Tyson and Druyan, a stpulaton that other networks refused to grant. The show is broadcast to 181 countries in 45 languages.

The goal in communicatng about science should be to ensure that people understand how science works and why it’s important to inform public policy. “The problem is not that we don’t know science,” deGrasse Tyson said. “It’s that we don’t even understand how science works, or why it works.” He measures his success by whether he’s stmulatng people’s curiosity and inspiring them to learn more on their own. And he’s encouraged by how much science has entered the mainstream. “The future of science is bright based on this evidence,” he said.