The National Science Board, the governing body for the National Science Foundation, is devoting a large portion of its quarterly meeting on Wednesday and Thursday to reviewing NSF’s response to sexual assault and harassment in Antarctica. The topic has been a priority for the board since an independent audit in 2022 documented widespread harassment within the NSF-led U.S. Antarctic Program. In closed sessions, the board will hear “firsthand accounts of experiences in Antarctica” and receive updates on NSF’s recent actions, including the Office of Inspector General’s investigations in Antarctica. The House Science Committee is also investigating the matter and recently sent a letter to NSF critiquing its response to date. The committee urged the agency to do more to reform the culture of the Antarctic program and improve contractor oversight.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will discuss opportunities and challenges associated with commercializing advanced nuclear reactors at a hearing on Thursday. Senators are likely to bring up the company NuScale’s recent termination of plans to build the first commercial small modular reactor power plant in the United States. The project was backed through a cost-share award by the Department of Energy and would have been built at Idaho National Lab but was abandoned due to diminishing economic viability. The hearing witnesses are John Wagner, director of Idaho National Lab; Jeff Waksman, an official in the Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office; Edward Stones, vice president of energy and climate at the Dow chemical company; and Jeffrey Merrifield, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. DOE is receiving almost $2.5 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to support two advanced reactor demonstration projects, one at a Dow facility in Texas and the other in Wyoming, the home state of Committee Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-WY). Separately, DOD is funding development of a transportable microreactor capable of powering military bases. The effort, called Project Pele, is aiming to start testing its first reactor at Idaho National Lab in 2025 but is facing safety and nonproliferation concerns that may cause delays.

The House Science Committee will hold a hearing Thursday morning on federal research initiatives to strengthen the critical mineral supply chains. The hearing witnesses include Ryan Peay, the head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Resource Sustainability, which is exploring ways to extract critical minerals from byproducts of fossil fuel production. Also appearing are CEOs from supply chain investment and risk management companies and academic experts in critical minerals. On Thursday afternoon, the House Oversight Committee will hold a separate hearing on securing critical mineral supply chains with witnesses from DOE’s Office of International Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Interior.The events follow a slate of actions announced by the White House on Monday that are aimed at improving supply chain resilience, including for critical minerals. Among them, DOE has begun negotiations to award $275 million from its Advanced Energy Manufacturing and Recycling program. The interagency National Science and Technology Council also plans to launch the website criticalminerals.gov in January that will highlight initiatives to strengthen supply chains, and a new White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience will produce its first quadrennial supply chain review by December 2024.

The National Science, Technology, and Security Roundtable organized by the National Academies will meet on Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington, DC. FBI intelligence analyst Priscilla Yeon-Vogelheim will open the meeting with a talk on how the bureau’s engagement with universities on research security has evolved in recent years. The roundtable will then discuss ways of providing due process to university researchers who are accused of wrongdoing, especially in cases where the allegations are adjudicated via administrative procedures rather than criminal proceedings. Subsequent sessions will review the Chinese government’s science and technology ambitions, research security practices at the federal contractor MITRE, and a research security framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The meeting will conclude with a session on “creating a culture of research security in the age of open science” featuring Kelvin Droegemeier, who directed the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy during the Trump administration.

Delegates from 199 countries will converge in Dubai this week for the start of COP28, the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference. This year’s conference will mark the conclusion of the first-ever “global stocktake,” an assessment of countries’ progress toward meeting the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. A technical report released in September as part of the stocktake found that the world will not meet the Paris target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius unless countries accelerate their mitigation efforts. COP28 will provide an opportunity for governments to renegotiate targets for their next round of climate action plans, which are due by 2025. Unlike the previous two years, President Joe Biden is not expected to attend this year’s conference, though Special Envoy on Climate Change John Kerry and other senior administration officials will participate. Kerry told reporters he plans to unveil the first international strategy for commercializing fusion energy during the conference. Earlier this month, the U.S. and UK announced a new partnership built around advancing the U.S. Bold Decadal Vision for Commercial Fusion Energy and the UK’s Fusion Strategy.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy published a report on Nov. 22 that explores the impact of different mechanisms for covering the cost of openly publishing federally-funded research. The report outlines multiple challenges in calculating total article processing fees (APCs) borne by federal grantees and intramural researchers, but estimates that in 2021 the cost was roughly $378 million. Congress requested the report through its appropriations legislation for fiscal year 2023, citing concerns that some open access publishing financing mechanisms, particularly APCs and transformative agreements, may “present growing barriers to knowledge generation and sharing.” Congress specifically asked OSTP to estimate how much of the costs of both APCs and transformative agreements were borne by federal grantees. OSTP states it is unable to offer an accurate estimate of the costs of transformative agreements, citing complexities in how they are financed. The report builds on an economic analysis OSTP released in August 2022 alongside a directive that requires federally funded research publications to be free to read immediately upon publication, starting in 2026.

The CHIPS R&D Office published a 10-page document last week that offers its vision for the National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program, which will build U.S. capabilities for placing semiconductor chips in densely interconnected groupings. The office stated the program will support “an advanced packaging piloting facility for validating and transitioning new technologies to U.S. manufacturers [and] workforce training programs to ensure that new processes and tools are capably staffed.” The program will also fund projects focused on “materials and substrates, equipment, tools and processes, power delivery and thermal management, photonics and connectors, a chiplet ecosystem, and co-design for test, repair, security, interoperability and reliability.” The program will receive roughly $3 billion over five years from the CHIPS and Science Act as part of the $11 billion in R&D-focused semiconductor programs created by the law, with the first funding opportunity expected in early 2024. In a speech at Morgan State University announcing the vision document, National Institute of Standards and Technology Director Laurie Locascio noted that as of 2021 the U.S. was estimated to only have 3% of the global capabilities for semiconductor packaging.

A bipartisan group of six California lawmakers led by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) sent a letter to NASA last week urging the agency to reverse its instruction to slow down work on the Mars Sample Return mission. The group expresses concern the move will make it impossible to meet a launch window in 2030, jeopardize billions of dollars in contracts, and cost California hundreds of jobs. They also assert it breaches the law, stating, “NASA’s deeply short-sighted and misguided decision to unilaterally adjust the funding allocation granted to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to carry out the MSR mission violates Congress’ appropriations authority.” MSR has recently faced stiff headwinds, with an independent review board report finding the mission will require billions of dollars more than previously anticipated and NASA now considering new changes to its architecture. NASA’s slowdown of work on MSR is a response to a proposal for steep cuts in the Senate’s fiscal year 2024 spending legislation, which is in tension with the House’s proposal to meet NASA’s requested amount. Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA) and Reps. Judy Chu (D-CA), Mike Garcia (R-CA), and Young Kim (R-CA) also signed the letter.

All times are Eastern Daylight Time, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement. Events beyond this week are listed on our website.

National Academies: “Advancing Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM Organizations,” dissemination event
12:00 - 1:30 pm

National Academies: “Understanding the Implications of the SCOTUS Affirmative Action Decision: A Symposium”
10:30 am - 1:30 pm

Atlantic Council: “A Conversation on AUKUS with Under Secretary of State Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins”
1:00 pm

EESI: “COP28 Briefing: The First Global Stocktake”
2:00 - 3:30 pm

NIST: Briefing on the CHIPS National Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program
3:00 - 4:00 pm

National Academies: National Science, Technology, and Security Roundtable meeting
(continues Wednesday)

NASA: Outer Planets Assessment Group meeting
(continues Wednesday)

National Academies: “NASA Mission Critical Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology,” meeting 15
(continues Wednesday)

NSF: Commission on Merit Review teleconference
9:00 am - 11:15 am

National Academies: “Global Microelectronics Models for the Department of Defense in Semiconductor Public-Private Partnerships,” meeting
12:00 - 1:00 pm

National Academies: “Development of a Plan to Promote Defense Research at HBCUs, TCUs, and HSIs,” meeting
1:00 - 3:00 pm

NSB: National Science Board meeting
(continues Thursday)

NASA: NAC Aeronautics Committee meeting
(continues Thursday)

National Academies: Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space meeting
(continues Thursday)

Senate: “Examining the Security of Federal Facilities”
10:00 am, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

House: “America Leads the Way: Our History as the Global Leader Reducing Emissions”
10:00 am, Energy and Commerce Committee

House: “The High North: How US Arctic Strategy Impacts Homeland Security”
10:00 am, Homeland Security Committee

House: “Understanding How AI is Changing Health Care”
10:30 am, Energy and Commerce Committee

House: Meeting to advance the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act and the Commercial Space Act
1:00 pm, Science Committee

Federation of American Scientists: “State of the Federal Clean Energy Workforce: Perspectives on DOE’s Talent Pipeline”
1:00 pm

UN: 2023 Climate Change Conference (COP28)
(continues through Dec. 12)

NASA: NAC Technology, Innovation, and Engineering Committee meeting
8:30 am - 5:00 pm

Senate: “Opportunities and Challenges Associated with Advanced Nuclear Reactor Commercialization”
10:00 am, Energy and Natural Resources Committee

House: “The Role of Federal Research in Establishing a Robust U.S. Supply Chain of Critical Minerals and Materials”
10:00 am, Science Committee

House: “Unmasking Challenges CDC Faces in Rebuilding Public Trust Amid Respiratory Illness Season”
10:00 am, Energy and Commerce Committee

House: “Oversight of President Biden’s Broadband Takeover”
10:30 am, Energy and Commerce Committee

EPA: Science Advisory Board meeting
1:30 - 5:30 pm

House: “Digging Deeper: Ensuring Safety and Security in the Critical Mineral Supply Chain”
2:00 pm, Oversight and Accountability Committee

House: “Missing the Target: CEQ’s Meritless Selection of SBTi”
2:00 pm, Science Committee

Heritage Foundation: “The Strategic Posture Commission: Defending America in a Modern World”
2:00 - 3:00 pm

NASA: National Space Council Users’ Advisory Group meeting
11:00 am - 2:00 pm

White House: President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology meeting
11:10 am - 12:20 pm

National Academies: “Development of a Plan to Promote Defense Research at HBCUs, TCUs, and HSIs,” DOD assessment gathering meeting one
1:00 - 3:00 pm

LPI: International Orbital Debris Conference
(continues through Thursday)

National Academies: “Equitable and Effective Teaching in Undergraduate STEM Education A Framework for Institutions, Educators, and Disciplines,” meeting five
(continues through Wednesday)

NOAA: U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System Advisory Committee meeting
(continues Tuesday)

National Academies: “On Leading a Lab: Strengthening Scientific Leadership in Responsible Research”
(continues Tuesday)

National Academies: “NASA Mission Critical Workforce, Infrastructure, and Technology,” meeting
11:00 am - 2:00 pm

National Academies: “Review of Progress Toward Implementing the Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space,” meeting three
11:00 am - 2:30 pm

USGS: National Geospatial Advisory Committee meeting
11:00 am - 5:00 pm

National Academies: “The Current Status and Future Direction of High Magnetic Field Science in the United States, Phase II,” meeting
1:00 - 2:00 pm

Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.

Deadlines indicated in parentheses.

FYI is accepting applications for our new science policy internship. This part-time internship will run in the spring of 2024 for 14 weeks and is open to current undergraduate and graduate students. FYI interns are provided a stipend and gain hands-on experience reporting on federal policy developments. Interns must reside in the Washington, D.C. area during the internship.

NASA: Associate director for flight programs, Planetary Science Division (Nov. 30)
NSF: Branch chief for government affairs (Nov. 30)
West Virginia University: Science policy fellowship (Dec. 1)
AIP: Congressional fellowship (Dec. 1)
APS: Congressional fellowship (Dec. 1)
NASA: Associate director for flight programs, Earth Science Division (Dec. 6)
Science|Business: EU news reporter (Dec. 8)
NOAA: Climate Prediction Center deputy director (Dec. 11)
AAAS: Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellowship (Jan. 1)
NSF: Chemistry Division director (Jan. 3)
Optica: Congressional fellowship (Jan. 5)
SPS: Science policy internship (Jan. 15)

OSTP: RFI on developing a federal environmental justice science, data, and research plan (Dec. 12)
NIST: RFI on the National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology (Dec. 22)
OSTP: RFI on the draft National Plan for Civil Earth Observations (Dec. 31)
NSF: RFI on NSF’s public access plan (Jan. 2)
USGCRP: Request for nominations for authors and scientific/technical Inputs for the First National Nature Assessment (Jan. 4)
NSF: RFI on technologies to enable observations in remote-extreme environments (Jan. 8)
DOE: RFI regarding challenges and opportunities at the interface of wind turbines and radar technology (Jan. 12)

Know of an opportunity for scientists to engage in science policy? Email us at fyi@aip.org.

News and views currently in circulation. Links do not imply endorsement.

OSTP: Draft national plan for civil earth observations (report)
OSTP: Remarks on AI by OSTP Director Arati Prabhakar
White House: Biden announces new actions to strengthen America’s supply chains, lower costs for families, and secure key sectors

Politico: For the first time in ages, Congress isn’t facing a Christmastime shutdown threat. But the 2024 fight is going to be even worse than usual
Sen. James Risch (R-ID): 10 Republican senators raise alarm over DOE counterintelligence report and suspicious reassignment of the director
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI): Gallagher and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) introduce bill to advance development of AI within Five Eyes countries
Dayton Daily News: To compete with China, we must fund the ‘science’ portion of the CHIPS and Science Act (perspective by Barbara Snyder and Steve Stivers)

NBER: The effect of public science on corporate R&D (paper by Ashish Arora, et al.)
New York Times: The White House may condemn Musk, but the government is addicted to him
ScienceInsider: Brought up in a creationist home, new director of the National Center for Science Education fights for evolution
Wall Street Journal: Voters will show up in droves for Democrats once climate becomes an issue this winter (perspective by Bill Nye)
Wall Street Journal: Bill Nye still isn’t the Science Guy (perspective by Jim FitzGerald)
Wall Street Journal: Why we don’t trust science anymore (perspectives)

PNAS: The high price of overzealously defending the US research enterprise against theft by China (perspective by Steven Kivelson and Peter Michelson)
Brookings: How America lost the heart of China’s top talent (perspective by Yingyi Ma)
Science: How an Australian astrophysics center achieved gender parity
Nature: Chemistry is inaccessible: How to reduce barriers for disabled scientists (perspective by Blaine Fiss, et al.)
Technology and Culture: Do microscopes have politics? Gendering the electron microscope in laboratory biological research (paper by Nicola Williams)
Science: A new philosophy of STEM work (book review)
Inside Higher Education: The need for federal support of STEM training (perspective by Adriana Bankston)

The Economist: To supercharge science, first experiment with how it is funded
Federation of American Scientists: Expected utility forecasting for science funding (perspective by Alice Wu and Jordan Dworkin)
GAO: Small business research programs: Agencies are implementing programs to manage foreign risks and plan further refinement (report)
NIH: Clarification of implementation of the NIH SBIR and STTR foreign disclosure pre-award and post-award requirements
DHS: Notice of establishment of advisory subcommittee on foreign malign influence in higher education
NIH: Case study in research integrity: This application feels familiar
Financial Times: There is a scientific fraud epidemic — and we are ignoring the cure (perspective by Anjana Ahuja)
Science: As scientists face a flood of papers, AI developers aim to help
Nature: ChatGPT generates fake data set to support scientific hypothesis

CyberScoop: Detailed data on employees of Idaho National Lab leak online
SLAC: Meet the new instruments that will take advantage of SLAC’s upgraded X-ray laser
PPPL: Cross-Atlantic partnership reinforced as UK minister for nuclear and networks visits PPPL
CERN: Presidents of France and Switzerland visit CERN
Science: Extremely large telescopes at risk (perspective by Michael Turner)
NRAO: New US and Japan partnership will make ALMA even more sensitive
NOIRLab: NSF’s NOIRLab on track to reduce carbon emissions by half
American Nuclear Society: The design and legacy of Experimental Breeder Reactor-II

New York Times: Sam Altman is reinstated as OpenAI’s chief executive
MIT Technology Review: Unpacking the hype around OpenAI’s rumored new Q* model
New York Times: Inside US efforts to untangle an AI giant’s ties to China
HPCwire: China’s HPC Iron Curtain creating a Top500 problem
HPCwire: What’s next for EuroHPC? (interview with Anders Dam Jensen)
Bloomberg: Telecom innovation threatened by Congress inaction on spectrum
SpaceNews: Battle of the bands: What’s at stake for space at WRC-23

Scientific American: NASA may pay $1 billion to destroy the International Space Station. Here’s why
Ars Technica: With budget cuts and an aging station, can NASA learn to love a gap in orbit?
Nature: Bright satellites are disrupting astronomy research worldwide
New York Times: Big explosions and major progress in SpaceX’s second starship launch
Reuters: North Korea’s space launch program and long-range missile projects
South China Morning Post: US team says Chinese rocket booster hit the moon with secret payload, leaving ‘very unusual’ crater

Science: World’s fastest supercomputers are helping to sharpen climate forecasts and design new materials
Brookhaven National Lab: DOE to deploy advanced environmental observatory to Alabama
Nature: Is it too late to keep global warming below 1.5 °C? The challenge in seven charts
Bloomberg: ECB threatens 20 banks with fines after climate-risk warning
Inside Climate News: As New York officials push clean hydrogen project, indigenous nation sees a threat to its land

DOE: DOE announces actions to strengthen clean energy supply chains and accelerate manufacturing in energy and industrial communities
New York Times: Former coal towns get money for clean-energy factories
DOE: Management challenges at DOE for fiscal year 2024 (report)
Physics World: Fusion industry outlines ambitious plans to deliver electricity to the grid by 2035
NRC: NRC opens hearing opportunity for Hermes 2 test reactor facility construction permit application
American Nuclear Society: Plans for TerraPower’s ‘test and fill’ sodium facility covered in draft environmental assessment

Defense Science Board: Summer study on technology superiority (report)
National Defense: Q&A on AUKUS with Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Bonnie Jenkins
LANL: Los Alamos National Lab making significant progress shipping radiological and hazardous waste off-site
DOD: DOD mobilizes manufacturing innovation institutes to support military industrial base
SpaceNews: As military weather satellites near end of life, DOD turns to partners for data

WHO: Global Observatory on Health R&D: Bridging the gap in global health R&D
Vanity Fair: Secret warnings about Wuhan research predated the pandemic
Stat: House Republicans call CDC director to testify
NSF: FY24 Global Centers Program Competition will focus on ‘addressing social challenges through the bioeconomy’

Nature: Science Cities 2023 (special issue)
NSF: NSF signs collaboration arrangement with Canada
Science|Business: Canada to sign Horizon Europe association deal next year
Research Professional: Talks to start on Swiss association to Horizon Europe
Nature: ‘Politicians don’t understand science’: Advisers give evidence at UK COVID inquiry
Financial Times: AI and quantum research at center of UK science and tech announcements
Science|Business: Europe still working with China on military and surveillance uses of artificial intelligence, report finds
Research Professional: Report says Australian research integrity investigations ‘need to improve’
Science: Saudi universities lose highly cited researchers after payment schemes raise ethics concerns