Remarks by OSTP Dorector John Marburger to the Consortium of Social Science Associations
November 18, 2002
Thank you for inviting me here this morning to speak of the role of the social sciences in the nation’s science policy. Society being the context in which all governmental actions occur, you would think the social sciences would provide essential input to many of those actions. And indeed they do. Washington is full of economists, political scientists, psychologists, historians, and sociologists. The training you and your colleagues provide them is essential for the roles they play in every branch of government.
And yet we have this nagging feeling that the social sciences themselves, as subjects of research and scholarship are undervalued. Most of those in government trained as social scientists are not functioning as social scientists per se. They are lawyers, administrators, regulators, agents, officials and staffers, among others. Few lobbyists, even those hired by your own universities, clamor for earmarks for social science research, or for new buildings to house social science programs.
You probably are aware that I think we can take more advantage of the social sciences, and that the challenges of our times can be engaged more effectively if we use the knowledge and the techniques developed in the fields that are collected under this designation. Why we are not exploiting these fields to a greater extent is a complicated issue to which you have no doubt devoted more attention than I have. What I do know is that the public image of the social sciences is neither as crisp as that of the other sciences, nor as confident of their value. The social sciences, collectively, have an image problem that seems to have grown up with the fields comprising them.
Images, of course, lag reality. In my view, the social sciences are participating in a broad transformation affecting all of science that is changing the tools, the methods, and the sociology of every field. It seems to me that this very fact provides an opportunity to bring the image of these fields more quickly into alignment with the reality, and to lay a more effective claim to the resources that have produced this transformation.
The transformation I am referring to — and it is truly revolutionary — is driven by extraordinary changes in our ability to gather, store, analyze, visualize, and communicate vast quantities of information. In other fields this ability is complemented by dramatic increases in the power and resolution of instruments of observation. The difficulty of empirical methods applied to issues of human behavior has always been the immense quantity and diversity of data potentially available, and the weakness of our powers of abstraction to discern stable patterns among them. The result has been a reliance upon insights by brilliant investigators around whom schools have formed which to some extent have projected an image of fragmentation and subjectivity of method. The new capabilities of computing and information technology are directly relevant to these difficulties. I know the new technology is dramatically affecting your fields, and I wish I knew more about the details than I do. I have not been close to the social sciences since the most profound changes have occurred — the internet, huge databases widely available, access to powerful computing, new forms of collaboration and of communication among researchers — but I know what should be happening: there should be a sense of change, of excitement, of entire new landscapes of opportunity opening out before you. It is a time for speaking out with optimism, for vigorous public education, for coming together within and among disciplines to forge new boundaries and new forms of organization to take advantage of the new tools.
SBE in OSTP
I have organized the Office of Science and Technology Policy to increase the presence and importance of the social sciences. Let me remind you that I have attempted to eliminate what I perceived as a vertically fragmented organization by reducing the number of Associate Directors to two, and enhancing the roles of Assistant Directors who head up eight disciplinary departments, one of which is devoted to Social and Behavioral Sciences and Education.
My Associate Director for Science, Kathie Olsen, received training in both psychology and biology, and conducted her research in the area of psychoendocronology.
Jim Griffin, my Assistant Director for the SBE sciences, is a psychologist by training, and has over the past two years worked to expand the range and depth of scientific, education and security issues addressed by his Department.
Russ Neuman, a Senior Policy Analyst in our Technology Division, is a Sociologist by training, and has lead our efforts in establishing common information-sharing and biometric protocols for homeland security data systems.
Last week the President announced the nomination of Dr. Elizabeth Hoffman, the President of the University of Colorado and a social scientist, to the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation.
As opportunities arise, I will continue to recommend social scientists for key advisory boards, and to expand the presence of social sciences within OSTP.
OSTP and Homeland Security
OSTP has been playing a vital role in fighting terrorism and helping to enhance our homeland security. OSTP literally houses many of the staff who are currently planning S&T activities for the anxiously awaited Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and we plan to continue to support efforts to make sure that our best scientific knowledge is applied to efforts to enhance our homeland security.
Soon after the 9/11 attacks, OSTP launched an Antiterrorism Task Force through the National Science and Technology Council to focus on research and technology within the federal government. The Task Force began to assemble a better inventory of current work within agencies relevant to homeland security to determine what gaps and opportunities exist. We have formed four interagency working groups under the Antiterrorism Task Force that focus on specific R&D areas:
- Biological and Chemical Preparedness;
- Radiological, Nuclear and Conventional Explosives Preparedness;
- Protection of Vital Systems; and
- Social, Behavioral, and Educational Issues.
Jim Griffin from OSTP co-chaired the SBE working group, along with Norman Bradburn from the National Science Foundation and Raynard Kington from the National Institute of Health. Representatives from NSF, NIH, Justice, CDC, NIOSH, Education, DOD and the CIA worked together to analyze the current SBE R&D portfolio and to identify areas that warrant additional investment. Some of areas that have been discussed include:
Information infrastructure development. Support research on developing an infrastructure of distributed, redundant databases for state and local emergency response resources to facilitate rapid access to and analysis of geographic and spatial imaging data using geographical information science techniques;
Behavioral and risk management research. Support behavioral research in a number of areas, including how people assess risks and react to extreme events, terrorist forensics, research and modeling of behavioral and cognitive capabilities and how they relate to the use of new technologies to enhance human performance, and enhancing and sustaining human performance in detecting rare, low-probability-high consequence events;
Research on terrorist-related crime and networks. Support research on how terrorist groups select, recruit and train members, select targets and methods of attack, organize themselves internally, and communicate with each other and with the broader society
Public health and crisis response intervention research. Conduct studies of traumatic stress in survivors, family members and witnesses following terrorist acts, and in personnel assigned to emergency response activities and disaster mitigation and cleanup efforts, as well as the clinical management of post-traumatic stress disorders and early psychological intervention for mitigating adverse consequences and reducing the risk of disorder and disability.
Socioeconomic intervention and international policy research. Conduct research on understanding vulnerabilities in the economy to different types of crises or attacks, increasing economic resiliency to such events, international response to, and foreign policy impact of, terrorist events, and the development of international collaborations for routine information sharing and research on effective antiterrorist interventions.
Education and Workforce Development
While on the campaign trail, then Governor Bush created an education blueprint, entitled “No Child Left Behind”, which he felt was needed to change the way we educate our children. Two years later, I am happy to report that the blueprint is being implemented, with the passage last year of the No Child Left Behind Act and the signing two weeks ago of the Education Sciences Reform Act of 2002.
The NCLB Act provides for the creation of several important reading programs, but the one I am most excited about is the new Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program. This program, which partners school districts with schools of higher education, will provide a focal point for efforts to improve the ways we teach elementary and secondary math and science courses, and will provide new opportunities for teachers to engage in training and professional development activities with science and engineering faculty from our world-class higher education institutions.
The Education Sciences Reform Act is a watershed event in the history of education research, as it provides for the creation of a new Institute of Education Sciences. We cannot fulfill the promises made in the No Child Left Behind Act if we do not have the research, evaluation, statistical and technical assistance activities in place to guide these ambitious education reforms. The new Institute will for the first time house all of these functions under one roof, and is designed to provide the field with the type of rigorous evidence that will provide the foundation for new teaching practices and curriculum.
To improve the coordination among all of the federal programs that promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education in grades preK-12, higher education, and lifelong learning, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on Science (COS) is creating a new standing Subcommittee to address issues on Education and Workforce Development. This Subcommittee will deal with issues ranging from projected shortfalls in the number of highly educated and technically skilled workers we face in the U.S. to the most effective methods for promoting underrepresented groups such as women, minorities and people with disabilities to consider careers in STEM-related fields. As appropriate, we will consult with and learn from the many efforts that the business community has already undertaken in these areas.
OSTP and the S&T Budget
OSTP has worked closely with OMB to craft a science and technology budget that promotes growth in the promising areas while heeding the Presidentís call for fiscal restraint. In this past fiscal year the Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) Directorate had the largest per capita increase of all the NSF Directorates. The President’s pledge to complete the doubling of NIH also has benefited the social and behavioral sciences.
I will continue to preach the importance and the opportunities of the social sciences within the administration. Your job is to make sure the fields you represent continue to evolve to keep up with the tremendous changes taking place in the research environment. I would love to hear more about your visions for the future, especially in forms that can be articulated to a public, and especially to a Congress, that has been supportive of other forms of science, and needs to understand the case for moving forward.
