Obama good for science, experts say

| 2 min read

Science groups are welcoming Senator linkurl:Barack Obama's;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54995/ landslide victory as the 44th President of the United States. Throughout his campaign, Obama made several promises regarding American science, including linkurl:doubling the budgets;http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/FactSheetScience.pdf of key research agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Energy's Office of Science, over a decade. "We're looking forward to working with Obama as well as the Congress to make these promises come true," linkurl:Richard Marchase,;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/54829/ president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), told __The Scientist__. But what actions must Obama undertake to buoy US science? "We would like to see a cabinet-level science advisor," linkurl:Stacie Propst,;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55137/ vice president of policy and outreach at science advocacy group Research!America, told __The Scientist__. Though outgoing President George W. Bush linkurl:relegated his science advisor to a somewhat diminished role,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54983/ Propst said that Obama is likely to restore the role to real prominence. "We are confident that President-elect Obama will have a science advisor who is highly engaged in decision-making and policy-making." Marchase, agreed. He told __The Scientist__ that appointing a strong science advisor will get "the theme that science matters off to a good start in this administration." "We are looking forward to science becoming an important part of a wide variety of policy decisions," Marchase continued. Obama also needs to focus on fulfilling his pledge to increase funding for federal science agencies, Marchase said. To accomplish his goal of doubling the budgets of science agencies in ten years, Obama must increase spending at these agencies by seven or eight percent per year, according to Marchase. "We certainly are very much expecting the increase for the linkurl:NIH;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53858/ budget to be closer to 10% than 5% [per year]," Marchase said. Marchase also said that he is confident that Obama's appreciation of science will change science policy in positive ways. Policy concerning linkurl:global climate change,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54049/ environmental issues, and linkurl:embryonic stem cell;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/12948/ research, are likely to improve in an Obama administration, Marchase said. "There's clearly a commitment to encouraging embryonic stem cell research," he said. "We expect that will be a policy change." Propst also said that Obama is likely to encourage a more healthy respect for science; a sentiment that withered within the Bush administration. "We're happy to get out of this era of blocking science for ideological reasons," she said. "We want to get the investment [in science] restarted so we can innovate our way out of a very sick healthcare system." __Correction (posted November 5): When originally posted, this article omitted the affiliation of Stacie Propst. __The Scientist__ regrets the error.

Obama good for science, experts say

The Scientist ARCHIVES

Become a Member of

Meet the Author

Bob Grant

Related Research Resources

Study Confirms Safety of Genetically Modified T Cells

Research Resources

Podcasts

Webinars

Videos

Infographics

eBooks

TaqMan Probe & Assays: Unveil What's Possible Together

Meet Aunty and Tackle Protein Stability Questions in Research and Development

Detecting Residual Cell Line-Derived DNA with Droplet Digital PCR

Making Real-Time PCR More Straightforward

Products

Product News

Biotium Launches New Phalloidin Conjugates with Extended F-actin Staining Stability for Greater Imaging Flexibility

Latest AI software simplifies image analysis and speeds up insights for scientists

BioSkryb Genomics and Tecan introduce a single-cell multiomics workflow for sequencing-ready libraries in under ten hours

Agilent BioTek Cytation C10 Confocal Imaging Reader