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APA Science Presents Advocacy Training Workshop at
SPSP Conference
On January 22, Steve Breckler, APA's Executive Director for Science,
joined Science Policy staff Karen Studwell and Heather Kelly in New
Orleans to offer Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP -
Division 8) conferees training in federal advocacy. The two-hour workshop
was sponsored by SPSP's Training Committee and focused on effective
strategies for communicating with legislators and agency staff about the
importance of social psychological research. Participants received a crash
course in the legislative and appropriations process, including how to
establish relationships with Members of Congress.
IES Board Holds Inaugural Meeting
The National Board for Education Sciences, the new
advisory board for the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), convened its
first meeting on February 2. While the Education Sciences Reform Act of
2002 called for a fifteen-member board, only fourteen slots have been
filled so far. Barbara Foorman, a psychologist and member of the previous
advisory board for the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI),
has also joined IES as the first Commissioner of the Center for Education
Research. President Bush has proposed $479 million in Fiscal Year 2006
(FY06) for IES,
including $164 million in funding for research, development, and
dissemination, which is equal to what it allocated for those same
activities last year. While the budget once again calls for the
elimination of funding for the regional labs, Congress will likely restore
the $66 million in funding, which would increase IES's budget to more than
$500 million. [back to top]
NIMH Advisory Council Meeting
On February 4, the National Mental Advisory Health
Council met at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIMH Director Tom
Insel, MD, discussed several NIH-wide issues, including the new conflict
of interest provisions that may impact staff recruitment and retention.
Council members also discussed the need to improve minority recruitment in
research training as well as clinical trials. Of central concern for the
research community is the low increase proposed by the President for FY06
NIH funding. While the Administration has called for an increase of less
than one percent for the entire NIH, this works out to a $6 million
increase proposed for NIMH to bring its FY06 funding to $1.418 billion.
Coupled with an increase in grant applications, the decreasing increases
for NIMH have led to a decline in the award payline, smaller budgets
provided for investigators and changes in NIMH referral guidelines to
emphasize relevance to mental illness. Investigators are encouraged to
read NIMH's new organizational structure and to discuss their proposals
with program staff before submitting new grant applications.
 More
information about structural
changes at NIMH and staff contact information
View
the NIMH
Council roster [PDF 130K]
Bush Budget? Bummer! Of course it could
have been worse, but we can't find much to sing about. The
Administration's FY06 budget was released last week, and
except for a couple of bright spots, the news for psychological research,
services and education is bleak. Where there are increases, most are too
small to clear the bar for inflation (3 - 3.5 percent last year). If this
budget were enacted, spending for non-defense science and technology would
decline in for the first time in decades, according to long-time
observers. Basic and applied R&D spending would decline by 1%, or $870
million, for the year that begins October 1, 2005. This would result in an
overall science and technology budget of $61 billion.
Read
the full article
[back to top]
Task Force to Examine Ethics and National Security
Shortly after organizing a Capitol Hill briefing "How
Can the Science of Human Behavior Help Us Understand Abu Ghraib?"
in June of 2004, Science Policy staff worked with APA's Director of Ethics
to convene an "Ethics and National Security Forum". The
meeting, held July 20 at APA headquarters, brought together
psychologists and psychiatrists working in various parts of the
intelligence community to discuss a range of issues relevant to the
conduct of national security investigations.
As an outgrowth of those discussions and increasing media
attention on interrogation practices at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and
elsewhere, APA President Ron Levant called for the establishment of a "Task
Force to Explore the Ethical Aspects of Psychologists' Involvement and the
Use of Psychology in National Security-Related Investigations" [PDF
25K]. The APA Board of Directors approved the Task Force at its
February 16-17 meeting, and Dr. Levant is now seeking nominations for
individuals with appropriate expertise to serve on the Task Force. Names
of nominees should be forwarded to Stephen Behnke, director of APA's Ethics
Office, along with a brief statement no longer than 200 words (please do
not send CVs) concerning the individual's qualifications for the Task
Force. Nominations are due March 1.
In anticipation of the announcement of the new Task Force,
Science Policy staffer Heather Kelly and the Director of APA's Ethics
Office, Stephen Behnke, briefed senior staffers from the Senate Armed
Services Committee on the proposed Task Force on February 9. Staff were
very interested in following the progress of the new Task
Force. APA has been engaged in other parallel activities
by offering to serve as a resource to the Office of the General Counsel
within the Department of Defense, which is also reviewing policies that
may pertain to the role of mental health professionals in interrogation
settings. Further, Science Policy staff have contacted both the Institute
of Medicine and senior psychologists in the Army Surgeon Generals Office
to offer APA as a resource should the Army or Congress decide to
commission further study of the subject via an independent scientific
advisory group.
Read
the APA Board of Directors agenda item establishing the Task Force [PDF
25K]
If You Build It, Will They Fund?
As detailed in the last edition of
SPIN, a report
constructed by the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) entitled
"Combating
Terrorism: Research Priorities in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic
Sciences" [PDF 8MB] was recently
released by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Although slightly delayed, the release of the report was
in fact very timely as the 109th Congress is just settling in to begin
deliberations over the FY06 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) budget.
Seizing an opportunity to highlight the importance of psychological
science to the homeland security research agenda, APA CEO Norman Anderson
sent a letter [PDF
50K]
to the Members of all congressional committees and subcommittees with
funding authority or programmatic oversight of DHS on February 10, the day
the report was released. Thus, 187 members received notification of
the report, and Science Policy staff will be coordinating with OSTP to
ensure that each member receives a hardcopy of this critical document.
Whether or not the report will influence congressionally directed research
priorities remains to be seen, but naturally APA is delighted to see such
a report emerge with the White House stamp of approval.
Read
the NSTC report [PDF 8MB]
Read
Dr. Anderson's letter to committee members [PDF
50K]
[back to top]
House Science Committee Reacts to FY06 Budget Request
for NSF
Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), a physicist and member of the
House Science Committee, gave an impassioned presentation on effective
science advocacy to association and university members of the Coalition
for National Science Funding on February 15. Ehlers has been a long-time
champion of the National Science Foundation (NSF). The following day, he
reiterated his concerns about the lack of sufficient support for NSF
during a Science Committee hearing on the FY06 budget. Ehlers and fellow
committee colleagues - both Republican and Democrat - told a panel which
included John Marburger, the President's science advisor, and Arden Bement,
the new Director of NSF, that Congress would work hard to correct for an
insufficient investment in science in the President's budget proposal.
Making a Name for NIDA on Capitol Hill
The Friends of NIDA coalition continues to gain momentum
with monthly meetings hosted at APA headquarters just off Capitol Hill.
Providing name recognition for the group and augmenting the activities of
several relevant congressional caucuses, Science Policy staff continue to
draft letters in support of groups interested in furthering NIDA's
mission. The most recent letter [PDF
25K], endorsed by 23 organizations, urged
members of congress to join the Congressional Caucus to Fight and Control
Methamphetamine. Science Policy staff will be meeting with staff of the
Caucus at the beginning of March to talk about areas of mutual interest as
the Friends and the Caucus move forward. One goal for the Friends will be
to help policy-makers move toward a better balance of supply and demand
side reduction strategies. And, as at least a small step toward that goal,
an updated Caucus
website will, for the first time, be linked to NIDA's methamphetamine
website.
Read
the letter to Congress [PDF 25K]
View
the Caucus website [back to top]
Scoring a Touchdown for NIDA's Criminal Justice Portfolio
The Friends of NIDA are grateful to Congressman Robert
Portman (R-OH), Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, for
providing a venue for the second in our Capitol Hill briefing series to be
held March 15. The briefing, "Effectively Breaking the Cycle of Drugs
and Crime: Research and Treatment Provide the Answers", will serve to
raise awareness of NIDA's Criminal Justice Addiction Treatment Services (CJDATS)
research portfolio.
The speakers will include Nora Volkow, MD, Director of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, who will provide an overview of the NIDA
criminal justice treatment research portfolio. Dexter Manley, Director of
Community Outreach, Second Genesis, Inc. and a former NFL football player,
will share his journey through addiction, prison, treatment, and recovery.
Dwayne Simpson, PhD, Director of the Institute of Behavioral Research,
Texas Christian University, will detail treatment research results
involving partnerships between scientists, offenders and the criminal
justice system. Early RSVP's suggest this will be a very popular event!
View
the briefing invitation [PDF 16K]
Any questions?
If you have any questions regarding SPIN or specific
science policy issues, please feel free to contact any of APA’s Science
PPO staff.
Geoff
Mumford, Ph.D., Director of Science Policy
Pat
Kobor, Senior Science Policy Analyst
Heather
O'Beirne Kelly, Ph.D., Senior Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer
Karen
Studwell, J.D., Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer
Sara
Robinson, Legislative Assistant
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