May 2, 2014 - This Week's Consolidation of Advocacy News
News
Why Animal Researchers Are Ending Their Silence
May 1, 2014 | Times Higher Education
Extremists silenced institutions and scientists for years, but researchers are now willing to speak up for good practice and valuable results.
- Read the new BrainFacts.org article “Why Animals Are Vital to Brain Research”
UK Proposes Greater Transparency on Animal Research
May 1, 2014 | Nature
The government of the United Kingdom wants to jettison rules that prevent it releasing any confidential information it holds about animal research, as part of a continuing push towards openness about such work.
U.S. Science Chiefs Field Questions, Hard and Soft, at Innovation Hearing
April 30, 2014 | Science Insider
The Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing which featured the directors of OSTP, DOE, NIH, NSF, and DOD discussing the importance of federal investment in research. Members of Congress voiced strong, bipartisan support for increasing the federal investment in basic research.
Science Investment by State 'Can Increase Private Spending'
April 30, 2014 | Times Higher Education
A new report argues that there is a strong correlation between public research funding and private sector involvement in research. It says universities with higher levels of public funding generate more research income from non-public sources, while research council-funded scientists are more likely to be involved in the commercial application of their research.
- Check out the Q&A with members of the Interagency Working Group on Neuroscience where they discuss their new report on “concrete actions the federal government can take to enable acceleration of progress.”
House Spending Panel Backs NSF, NASA Science
April 29, 2014 | Science Insider
House Commerce, Justice, Science Committee marked up its appropriations bill. The legislation funds the National Science Foundation (NSF) at $7.4 billion, an increase of $237 million above the fiscal year 2014 enacted level.
NSF's Science Board Criticizes Bill to Alter Agency's Programs
April 24, 2014 | Science Insider
The presidentially appointed oversight body to the National Science Foundation (NSF) has taken the unprecedented step of publicly criticizing pending legislation that it feels would be harmful to the research agency. The National Science Board said that the "budget allocations to each NSF directorate would significantly impede NSF's flexibility to deploy its funds to support the best ideas."
Articles of Interest
Male Researchers Stress Out Rodents
April 28, 2014 | Nature
In a paper published in Nature Methods, male but not female experimenters induce intense stress in rodents that can dampen pain responses. Such reactions affect the rodents' behavior and may be confounding the results of animal studies.
Opinion
Federal Funding Drives Innovation
April 29, 2014 | The Baltimore Sun
In anticipation of the Senate Appropriations hearing about how research drives innovation, Wallace Loh, President of the University of Maryland, College Park, wrote this opinion piece about the "innovation deficit." He writes that even the best collaborations with the private sector are “no substitute for a robust federal investment in our nation's future.”
- Write an op-ed about how your research drives innovation. Ask the SfN team for additional resources at advocacy@sfn.org.
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