U.S. President Barack Obama has appointed Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson to serve on the President’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology. PCAST is a 20-member private sector advisory group drawn from industry, education, research institutions, and other nongovernmental organizations and chaired by John Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the office of science and technology policy.
The announcement was made on Monday, when Obama addressed the National Academies of Science in Washington, D.C. The council will assist Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in forming economic policy where it relates to science and technology. The council will only meet about three times a year, and Jackson will be serving on the council while retaining her position as president of RPI.
The council is part of the Executive Office of the president and is administered by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. “This council represents leaders from many scientific disciplines who will bring a diversity of experience and views,” Obama said in a press release. “I will charge PCAST with advising me about national strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation.”
“This PCAST is a group of exceptional caliber as well as diversity, covering a wide range of expertise and backgrounds across the relevant science, engineering, and innovation fields and sectors,” Holdren said. “The president and I expect to make major use of this extraordinary group as we work to strengthen our country’s capabilities in science and technology and bring them more effectively to bear on the national challenges we face.”
Obama has already put much effort into ensuring science and technology are a top priority; the Recovery Act includes $21.5 billion for research and development as well as major investments in broadband networks, clean energy technologies, and health information technology. His Fiscal Year 2010 budget includes sustained increases in basic research, $75 billion to make the research and experimentation tax credit permanent, and funding to triple the number of National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships.
“The agenda President Obama outlined in his remarks today at the National Academies demonstrates, in a profound way, his commitment to and enthusiasm for the power of science and technology to transform our society,” Jackson said. “Across a broad front—from reinvigorating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education, to support for the propagation of the results of scientific research into the public policy arena and into commerce—he is renewing our national commitment to scientific discovery and technological innovation. I am honored to join this effort.”
