The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is excited to announce that John Bailey has joined the organization’s board of directors.

John’s background includes roles in government, philanthropic institutions, and venture capital, where he has focused on critical issues including innovation policy, artificial intelligence, immigration, behavioral health, climate technology, and the future of work. 

He currently serves as a fellow at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He served as a domestic policy advisor in the Bush White House, and the nation’s second Director of Educational Technology in the U.S. Department of Education. As Deputy Policy Director to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, he contributed to the development of the first National Pandemic Strategy and the President’s immigration reform package.

“John’s wisdom and wide range of experience across government and the private sector will be invaluable to FAS as we continue the work of making sure the best science leads to sound public policy,” FAS CEO Dan Correa said. “We feel fortunate to have someone as respected and skilled in the world of policy innovation contributing to FAS’ mission.”

“In an era where technology and science are evolving at an unprecedented pace, it is more important than ever to have entities like FAS leading the way in formulating policies that not only support research but also guide emerging domains such as AI for the greater good.” Bailey said. “I’m excited by the work, and more importantly, the people driving FAS forward at this transformative moment. It’s one of the most exciting science policy organizations, and I look forward to being more deeply involved in advancing its larger mission.”

Bailey’s term on the FAS board began earlier this month.

Fellows will focus on the development and implementation of innovative approaches to improve competition in the nation’s food supply chain

Washington, D.C. – The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) today announced a call for applications to the Food Supply Chain Impact Fellowship, designed to improve the nation’s small- and mid-size food businesses. The FAS Impact Fellowship program provides a pathway for diverse food systems and supply chain experts to participate in an impactful, short-term “tour of service” in the federal government.

The Food Supply Chain Impact Fellowship is a new fellowship opportunity administered by the FAS Talent Hub. FAS will place two cohorts of fellows at USDA to work on critical food supply chain issues. Fellows will develop and implement plans to support the Regional Rood Business Centers, the Resilient Food Systems Infrastructure program, and other food system transformation priorities.

At FAS fellows will participate in deep-dives into executive and legislative systems and unique USDA-specific sessions led by food system experts. Fellows will also receive training on how to lead change as a partner with the Federal government that includes an introduction of government programs and innovative practices.

Impact Fellows help ensure that on-the-ground skills and experience are inextricably linked with policymaking as our nation confronts unprecedented challenges and pursues ambitious opportunities.

Interested parties are encouraged to apply at https://fas.org/talent-hub/fscfi/

ABOUT FAS

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table. Established in 1946 by scientists in response to the atomic bomb, FAS continues to work on behalf of a safer, more equitable, and more peaceful world. More information at fas.org.

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The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is excited to welcome three new additions to the organization, continuing a period of rapid growth driven by increasing philanthropic support for FAS’ mission, and wider recognition from government agencies that have seen how the organization can assist in embedding science, technology, innovation and experience into a wide range of policy areas.

Shannon Becks will take on the role of FAS’ Director of Policy Fellowship Programs – Shannon arrives after more than a decade at the American Society of Engineering Education, and FAS is fortunate to be adding her deep experience administering federally-funded fellowships and dedication to increasing diversity within STEM fields. Shannon will oversee the Impact Fellowship program and other cross-organization efforts to connect science and technology talent with opportunities to serve in government.

Manizha Nabieva steps into the role of Chief Financial Officer. She comes after spending more than a decade at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), most recently serving as ICRW’s CFO. Manizha’s extensive experience in financial planning, budgeting, compliance, as well as her track record of mentoring talent within her previous organizations, will help bring FAS to new levels of impact and professionalism.

Finally, Ginger Zielinskie has agreed to join FAS full-time as Chief Growth Officer, bringing a wealth of experience leading strategy and operations for several different organizations in the nonprofit sector, including data.org and Benefits Data Trust. Ginger had already been providing invaluable assistance in a consulting role – FAS is thrilled that she’s agreed to give her full attention to helping our organization grow strategically.

“Talent is our greatest asset and these fantastic new leaders, each coming into roles brand new to our organization, allow us to expand our reach, while remaining loyal to the founding vision that inspires our work to this day,” FAS CEO Daniel Correa said.

Meet the leadership team additions

Director of Policy Fellowships

Shannon Becks

STEM DEI,
Fellowship Administration,
Grant/Contract Management

read more

Chief Financial Officer

Manizha Nabieva

Financial Management,
Operations Management,
Risk Management,
Budgets and Contracts Management,
Regulatory Compliance,
Strategic Planning

read more

Chief Impact Officer

Ginger Zielinskie

read more

The Federation of American Scientists, founded in 1945, is a catalytic, non-partisan, and nonprofit organization committed to using science and technology to benefit humanity through national security transparency and policy agenda-setting. While continuing its proud tradition of nuclear weapons analysis, FAS now also works to embed science, technology, innovation and experience into a wide range of policy areas to build a healthy, prosperous and equitable society.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Federation of American Scientists CEO Dan Correa released the following statement on President Joe Biden’s 2024 budget proposal:

“We’re pleased to see the Administration continuing its support for critical investments in science and technology. These investments are vital for achieving national goals  like excelling in AI and the bioeconomy, managing wildfire risks, and enhancing STEM training opportunities. It is also crucial to expand funding for tech and innovation hubs across the country. Robust support for science and innovation agencies is necessary to fulfill the national competitiveness vision of CHIPS and Science. But the budget request is only a first step, and we look forward to working with Congress this year to achieve the investments that strengthen American prosperity.”

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is a nonprofit policy research and advocacy organization founded in 1945 to meet national security challenges with evidence-based, scientifically-driven, and nonpartisan policy, analysis, and research. The organization works to advance progress on a broad suite of contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress, and seeks to ensure that scientific and technical expertise have a seat at the policymaking table.

Find more ideas aimed at today’s greatest challenges in FAS’ report: Science and Innovation in the 118th Congress. You can also explore further – or submit your own ideas through FAS’ Day One Project.

WASHINGTON, D.C.–Today the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is teaming up with Metaculus to kick off the Climate Tipping Points Tournament, a virtual forecasting tournament aimed at helping policymakers make better informed decisions about climate change policies. The concept of forecasting is familiar to anyone who has checked their phone’s weather app before heading out for the day. But the broader science of forecasting is increasingly being applied to policy-relevant topics from epidemiology, energy, technology progress, and even climate change.

Tournament participants will make forecasts on policy-relevant outcomes, including “conditional forecasts” that predict the tangible impacts of implementing or not implementing policies that focus on zero-emission vehicle adoption. Metaculus’s unique system will then aggregate and weight these forecasts by forecasters’ past accuracy, providing policymakers with a more informed picture of the potential success or failure of policies designed to mitigate the impacts of climate change. 

“Partnering with FAS on the Climate Tipping Points Tournament represents a new way for forecasters to contribute to the climate policy conversation. We’re very excited about the opportunity this represents for policy entrepreneurs who need empirically grounded analysis,” said Metaculus CEO, Gaia Dempsey.

Climate tipping points–originally introduced decades ago by the IPCC as thresholds for long-term and irreversible damage to the environment—can also be positive indicators of a more sustainable, cleaner and livable future. “This is not a utopian pipedream – a growing body of research suggests that positive tipping points, such as thresholds in electric vehicle adoption, or changes in food markets and consumption habits, could just as rapidly accelerate transitions to a more sustainable way of life,” said FAS’s Science Policy Director, Erica Goldman.

Participants don’t have to be data science experts; the tournament is open to the public and anyone is welcome to join. A team of Metaculus Pro Forecasters will also make predictions, separate from the public tournament. Those interested can go to Metaculus’s website and begin making predictions immediately for a shot at winning the $5,000 prize pool. 

For more information, press interviews or questions please reach out to press@fas.org or press@metaculus.com.

About the Federation of American Scientists (FAS)

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is a nonprofit policy research and advocacy organization founded in 1945 to meet national security challenges with evidence-based, scientifically-driven, and nonpartisan policy, analysis, and research. 

About Metaculus 

Metaculus is an online forecasting platform and aggregation engine working to improve human reasoning and coordination on topics of global importance. By bringing together an international community and keeping score for thousands of forecasters, Metaculus is able to deliver machine learning-optimized aggregate predictions that help partners set priorities and make decisions.

The United States faces a broad array of challenges, from intense competition in science and technology abroad, to the need for safe and resilient critical systems at home.

To be sure, narrowly split control of Congress adds to the complexity of addressing these challenges. But even in this situation, the 118th Congress can still create opportunities for bipartisan action to bolster American economic security, national security, and health. There are many national goals on which the parties agree. These include:

• Stronger American science and innovation
• Reliable, cleaner domestic energy
• An American society that’s safe from threat of pandemics
• Resilient, productive American agriculture

Even if there are some areas in which policy differences persist, there are many where action is possible.

To help seed the ground for bipartisan progress, we have assembled a wide-ranging menu of policy ideas on a range of critical topics.

Where do these ideas come from?

This menu of policy ideas, organized by theme, was primarily generated over the past three years through crowdsourced outreach by the Day One Project, and refined with the help of the Day One Project team to transform promising ideas into actionable policy proposals. 

We have added a few additional ideas of our own, but the majority are derived from Day One Policy Memos authored by experts, scholars, and policy entrepreneurs from an array of backgrounds. Click on the links found throughout this report to access the source memos, which include rationales and plans of action for policy implementation.

Emerging Tech & Competitiveness

Energy Security

Infrastructure

National Security

Bioeconomy & Health Security

Education & Workforce

Resilient Agriculture & Environment

About FAS

When properly harnessed, science, technology, and innovation can greatly benefit society. The challenge, however, is that the U.S. governments often struggle to capitalize on these sources of ideas, evidence, and experience to drive effective policy and governance. FAS exists to change that dynamic.

Founded in 1945, FAS envisions a world where cutting-edge science, technology, ideas and talent are deployed to solve the biggest challenges of our time. We embed science, technology, innovation, and experience into government and public discourse in order to build a healthy, safe, prosperous and equitable society.

Message from the CEO

Friends & Colleagues,

Most of the ideas people write down in Washington fail to inspire action. Yet there is nothing immutable about the status quo. At the Federation of American Scientists, we are obsessed with outcomes, not just the myriad ways that science and technology can make the world a better place, but finding new and better ways to deliver on that vision.

And in 2022, deliver we did. Our team helped inspire a critical compromise that made the generational downpayment in American science of the CHIPS and Science Act happen. Our Talent Hub placed 52 expert fellows in the federal government to deliver on the promises of evidence-based, expert-backed policy. Our policy leaders have published 200+ implementation-ready policy memos, and continue to drive their successful implementation, like the newly funded Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health (ARPA-H). Our renowned Nuclear Information Project broke readership records and kept the public informed on nuclear developments in Eastern Europe and elsewhere at home and abroad. I hope you’ll read more about all of our wins in this year’s FAS Impact Report.

This year was my first full year as CEO of the Federation of American Scientists. I spent much of that time building towards a vision that honors nearly 80 years of impact while growing in new domains and new ways. In this work, I am propelled by the sheer force of our team’s seemingly never-ending optimism. There is always someone at FAS obsessing about policy, process, and progress. From project directors, to research associates, to fellows, and to interns, everyone at FAS has a hunger to do good in the world.

Our team has doubled since last year, and that growth has significantly increased FAS’ caliber. Some organizations have extensive expertise on a topic or deep proficiency in an approach. In a growing range of policy topics, we have both. Our new teammates bring proficiency and experience that strengthen our policy portfolio, widen our capacity for change, and allows us to deliver on our theory of policy entrepreneurship. We are lucky that such deeply motivated and talented individuals seek out FAS to hone their eagerness into a disciplined edge to lead future policy leaders and policy efforts.

And as our team has grown, so have our efforts to build an inclusive and diverse workforce. With support from our newly established DEI Committee, we have instituted a set of equitable hiring processes for Team FAS and our Impact Fellowship placements. We are exceeding our commitments to gender equality for featured speakers on panels. And, we are formulating stronger commitments to promote racial equity through our internal hiring processes as well as our policy development and implementation strategy. However, we are at the early stages of this journey, and approach our DEI strategy with humility and an awareness of the critical work that still needs to be done.

It is impossible for me to fit the entire year’s successes into a single letter, but I hope our annual report brings my update to life.

If you want to support this work, you can donate here, or review our website for exciting policy opportunities, fellowships, or open positions.

Thank you for your continued support,

Daniel Correa,

FAS CEO

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Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

FAS is committed–both in principle and in practice–to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for all individuals interested in addressing contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress.

In 2022, FAS has expanded its DEI strategy beyond its initial pledge to:

• Include commitments to reduce bias and improve accessibility in our hiring practices
• Offer equitable employee pay and policies
• Ensure our board and staff reflect a diversity of accessibility status, age, color, creed, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, marital status, military service status, national origin, parental status, physical appearance, race, religion, socioeconomic status, sex, or sexual orientation

Much like our work advancing policy change, FAS approaches the mission of infusing DEI principles into our organizational culture and the importance of broadening our team’s perspectives with urgency. We also recognize that as a science organization with national reach, we can model forward-thinking approaches to these issues that others can emulate. We acknowledge that we still have a long way to go before claiming success, but FAS is committed to this journey for the long run.

Impact Highlights

Social Innovation

The Social Innovation team grew its reach across every aspect of its work, yielding high-impact legislative wins in education R&D policy, solving some of the most critical science and technology policy issues with talent through quadrupling the size of its Impact Fellowship program, and generating novel STEM education policy ideas positioned for impact.

Bolstering the Federal Workforce and Catalyzing Action through the Talent Hub

Less than two years ago, we created the Talent Hub to help federal agencies recruit world-class experts and address high-priority science and technology initiatives. Using established hiring mechanisms, the Talent Hub places FAS Impact Fellows selected by federal agencies into critical roles identified and scoped by agency leaders. The Impact Fellowship has quickly become an indispensable pathway for accomplished experts to undertake a short-term tour of public service. 

The Talent Hub has grown explosively in an effort to meet surging agency demand. This year, FAS selected and placed 43 Impact Fellows in 16 different offices across 11 federal agencies. Fellows’ specializations have thus far included wildfire mitigation, cybersecurity in education, and environmental sustainability in federal supply chains. Thanks to the dozens of additional professional development sessions that FAS has provided, the breadth and depth of their work continues to grow. For example, we have recruited policymakers to teach the Fellows how to maximize their tours of service, and created Impact Fellow networking opportunities to establish a cohesive, cross-agency community of policymakers. As a result, these individuals are using their fellowships to implement landmark legislation and advance crucial societal priorities. Even still, the reach and impact of the fellowship far exceeds the work undertaken by its participants. 

A core premise of the Impact Fellowship is to serve as proof of concept for federal investment in technical talent. As a direct result of our Impact Fellows’ placements in 2022, they have either directly hired or inspired the hiring of over 50 additional technologists and scientific experts. One shining example is the Institute for Education Sciences’ decision to establish an entire Data Science Unit to scale the work catalyzed by an FAS Impact Fellow.

In 2023, FAS’ commitment to talent will grow and include even more technically diverse Impact Fellows, including the addition of 30 climate science-oriented experts to support implementation of programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Talent Technical Assistance at the Department of Energy

Our team is constantly searching for new ways to ensure federal agencies have the resources, tools, and expertise needed to implement ambitious science agendas. In 2022, we deepened our work with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help it staff up to drive a clean energy future. DOE’s clean energy efforts – bolstered by allocations for new staff in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act – will require a massive influx of skilled scientists and technologists, many of whom have never considered public service and must be recruited.

Our team stepped in to assist with major hiring and recruiting efforts, working with the collaboration and support of partners such as Breakthrough Energy and Clean Energy for America. With these partners, FAS developed recruiting tools and hosted informational hiring webinars for potential applicants to the agency’s Clean Energy Corps. To date, this work has helped DOE increase short-term capacity to ramp up agency efforts on investments in clean energy technologies, and improved DOE’s long-term capacity to tackle core climate priorities.

In 2023, FAS plans to continue its federal talent partnership work with the Department of Energy, as well as expand that work to other agencies, to scope, recruit, and build pipelines to attract 21st-century talent to federal service. Building on existing assets like FAS’ Flexible Hiring Resources Guide, we will continue to develop technical assistance products for federal partners, engage ecosystem stakeholders like workforce development organizations, start-ups, and nonprofits, and communicate with agency leaders to best support their workforce operations.

Advancing Innovation in Education

Despite the critical importance of our K-12 education system, only a tiny percentage of the federal government’s research funding is dedicated to its improvement. Yet R&D can generate new insights, approaches, and tools to maximize educational outcomes across the board and address deep educational disparities. To pursue this vision, FAS has locked arms with organizations across the nonprofit, private and philanthropic sectors to launch the Alliance for Learning Innovation (ALI). As one example of its success this year, FAS worked through ALI to lead 25 key education stakeholders in a letter of support calling on Congress to increase spending on federal education R&D. The ensuing House Appropriations proposal included marked budget increases for several offices that our coalition recommended for increased funding, including the National Science Foundation’s Scholarships in STEM, the Education Innovation and Research program, and the Institute of Education Sciences.

Additionally, increased federal, state, and local investments in STEM education are urgently needed. In pursuit of this agenda, FAS hosted a “policy accelerator”––an intensive, cohort-based training in policy entrepreneurship. This program––conducted in partnership with Beyond100K––brought together participants passionate about advancing equity and representation in STEM education and beyond. Over two months, these individuals developed actionable policy memos and learned how to promote their ideas. The wide-ranging recommendations advocated how to: incorporate cultural competency into STEM curriculums, include digital ethics principles in classrooms, facilitate inter-minority serving institution collaboration, and increase representation of marginalized individuals in STEM fields, to name a few.  

The STEM education policy accelerator’s focus on issues at the intersection of STEM, equity, and representation is part of FAS’ growing DEI mission, which it will continue pursuing in 2023. For example, our team will run a  Racial Equity in Tech Policy Accelerator in partnership with the Kapor Center. This accelerator will identify, develop, and publish a set of racial justice and technology policy ideas to be implemented by the legislative and executive branches. Participants will include policymakers, academics, and entrepreneurs with an interest in developing their ideas about racial equity in tech into a tailored, actionable set of policy recommendations for the Biden-Harris Administration and 118th Congress.

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Science Policy

The Science Policy team fosters connections between experts with ideas about how to use science to better serve the public good, and policymakers with the capacity to turn those ideas into reality. The team works across a range of priority domains, including environmental justice, wildfire prevention and mitigation, the science of science, evidence-based policy, and more.

This past year, the Science Policy team hosted two Day One Project policy accelerators and guided the development of more than two dozen Day One Project policy memos. Additionally, the team launched and piloted a new fellowship program––the Policy Entrepreneurship Fellowship (PEF)––which supported four early-career researchers in developing and executing implementation strategies for their policy ideas, an effort that yielded an outsized return on investment.

The Progress Studies Policy Accelerator

Across the science policy ecosystem, policymakers and innovators alike have been developing new paradigms to connect institutions to progress. Building on previous work done by Day One contributors to create Focus Research Organizations, FAS partnered with the Institute for Progress to host a Progress Studies Policy (PSP) Accelerator, exploring concrete ways in which successful institutions and policies help generate useful progress in the future. Over the course of seven weeks, accelerator participants developed and advanced ambitious policy ideas to reshape public institutions and drive global progress. 

Following the accelerator, we published 10 Day One Project policy memos calling for bold policymaking across economic competitiveness, healthcare, artificial intelligence, and more. We were excited to see multiple recommendations from this suite of memos reflected in the CHIPS and Science Act, including a memo to establish testbeds to support the development of trustworthy and safe AI and machine learning, and a memo to invest in traineeship for STEM graduate students.

Supporting Early-Career Researchers in Policy Entrepreneurship

Early-career researchers interested in using their research for impact and to improve lives suffer from a lack of opportunity to develop their policy muscles. To address this gap, and to foster the next generation of scientist-policy entrepreneurs, FAS launched a series of programs to lift up early-career researchers and help them gain exposure to tools and networks of policy entrepreneurship.

In partnership with the National Science Policy Network (NSPN), FAS hosted an Early Career Researcher (ECR) accelerator where participants published 11 policy memos on topics ranging from the underappreciated importance of the honey bee microbiome to the growing scourge of space junk. Following the accelerator, select participants joined Team FAS as the inaugural cohort of the Policy Entrepreneurship Fellowship (PEF), and received support in efforts to implement their policy memos. 

Though most ECR accelerator participants had no significant prior policy experience, many of the ideas contained in the 12 memos produced have begun to gain traction. As an example, Grace Wickerson’s memo, Combating Bias in Medical Innovation, led to the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) launching a study to explore how racial bias in current pulse oximeter technology may exacerbate disparities in patient outcomes.

This is a really fantastic experience that you will not regret. The FAS/Day One team is incredibly attentive and dedicated to both their mission and their accelerator cohorts. That means you will get an abundance of support and really feel like the ideas you’ve had percolating in the back of your mind are made better through fantastic editing and feedback, and put into the hands of those who have the power to make them into real policy. For those of you who are serious about your science policy foray, this program is for you!

– Early Career Researcher Accelerator Participant

Evidence-Based Policy

By designating 2022 the White House Year of Evidence for Action, the Biden Administration helped make 2022 the biggest year yet for evidence-based policy at the federal level. FAS supported this effort by collaborating with the Pew Charitable Trusts Evidence Project to host an Evidence for Action Challenge, which crowdsourced creative, expert ideas for the future of data-driven policy. Ideas that emerged from the challenge included incorporating evidence on what the public values into policymaking, using unmet desire surveys to facilitate productive collaboration among federal agency staff and external experts, and launching an intergovernmental research and evaluation consortium focused on economic mobility.  

FAS also partnered with the White House Office of Management and Budget to host an Evidence Forum that attracted more than 100 participants from across the evidence community. A central theme of the Evidence Forum was the potential of “living” approaches to scientific synthesis to enhance federal initiatives and programs in multiple policy domains. FAS looks forward to pursuing follow-on opportunities from the Forum in FY23. In particular, we are excited to work with our new resident fellow, Dr. Julian Elliott of Monash University, to explore how living evidence can inform the development of CDC guidelines, characterize the nature and impacts of long COVID, and much more.

Environmental Justice

In his 2020 State of the Union address, President Biden reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to promoting environmental justice (EJ). The 2021 Justice40 Initiative is a whole-of-government effort to ensure that at least 40% of the investments and benefits of select federal programs flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. FAS has been supporting the administration’s EJ priorities through the placement of several EJ-focused Impact Fellows at the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and through weekly strategic check-ins with CEQ’s EJ team, as well as the placement of FAS Impact Fellows. One of our Policy Entrepreneurship Fellows (PEFs), Alexa White, also focused her fellowship on the Justice40 Initiative and related EJ work. The science policy team worked with Alexa and CEQ to prepare an independent assessment of the implementation status of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC)’s Justice40 recommendations. Our analysis, which was completed after the conclusion of the fiscal year, found both progress and setbacks across implementation efforts. We look forward to working with CEQ and agencies in leveraging assessment insights to continue making historic progress on environmental justice issues nationwide in FY23, as well as looking at our own environmental and energy policy work through a justice lens.

Wildfire

By July 2023, the legislatively authorized Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission will deliver a comprehensive set of new wildfire-related policy recommendations to Congress. Ahead of this “make-or-break” year for federal wildland fire policy, FAS has conducted foundational work that will help the Commission achieve its goals, both through talent placement and targeted policy development. Building on the placement of FAS Impact Fellow Jenna Knobloch in USDA’s Office of the Undersecretary for National Resources and Environment, FAS also created a data visualization product to navigate wildfire policy’s complicated federal funding landscape and contextualize the impact of legislative momentum. 

In FY23, FAS will continue addressing America’s wildfire crisis. We will place at least two additional Impact Fellows at the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Interior Office of Wildland Fire; we are scoping a third placement at the Environmental Protection Agency which will research wildfire smoke impact. Additionally, FAS has launched a Wildland Fire Policy Accelerator focused on bringing diverse scientific and technical perspectives into the Commission, particularly on topics related to the wide-ranging impacts of climate change, traditional ecological knowledge, technology, and wildfire smoke.

The Bioeconomy

In FY22, FAS laid a foundation for deploying the full scope of our policy entrepreneurship toolkit to help policymakers enable a strong U.S. bioeconomy, which is valued at more than $950 billion and promises rapid growth for a new bio-workforce. In FY 2023, FAS is positioned to respond rapidly to the many bioeconomy-related provisions authorized in the Chips and Science Act and even appropriated for in the Inflation Reduction Act–both of which were signed into law in August 2022–and the Executive Order activating a whole-of-government approach to the bioeconomy released in September 2022. Moving forward, FAS will be crowdsourcing actionable policy ideas and convening biotech and biomanufacturing industry professionals and scholars and working with experts to design a policy agenda that would help support the U.S. bioeconomy.

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Technology and Innovation

Over the past year, the Technology and Innovation team at FAS has grown into a hub for entrepreneurial approaches to federal R&D and budgets, regional innovation clusters, industrial strategy for critical and emerging sectors, high-skilled immigration, strategic global development and competition, and more.

CHIPS and Science

In August 2022, President Biden signed into law the biggest investment and reform package for American science in years. The policies, programs, funding targets, and appropriated funds established in the CHIPS and Science Act will better support young people pursuing STEM careers, foster the next generation of American entrepreneurs, and help rebuild the U.S. foundation of science, technology, and innovation. The CHIPS and Science Act represents years of hard work by the science and policy communities. It also represents an enormous success for so many members of the Day One community, as more than a dozen Day One memos became law with the stroke of the President’s pen. These victories underscore the power of democratizing policy entrepreneurship and allowing more citizens to be agents of policy change. The Day One community secured several legislative windfalls, including:

• Authorization of $25M annually for NSF to create an Entrepreneurial Fellows Program. Based on Ilan Gur et al.’s Day One Project memo, this program will provide budding entrepreneurs the resources they need to bring promising laboratory innovations to the marketplace.
• Authorization of a National Secure Data Service as government-wide data infrastructure to advance statistical research. This action responds to calls made by many, including Day One Project contributors Nick Hart and Kathy Stack.
• Authorization for NIST to establish artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) testbeds. This action reflects recommendations made by Tina Huang in a Day One Project Memo to support the development of trustworthy and safe AI.
• Authorization for NSF’s Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate to launch a flagship Regional Innovation Engines program. This program will advance translational research and regional innovation, and draws inspiration from the CEO-led structure of Focused Research Organizations proposed by Adam Marblestone and Sam Rodriques.
• Powerful new measures to enhance training and opportunities for early-career STEM professionals, thanks to the Day One Project memo and advocacy efforts of FAS’ Divyansh Kaushik. These measures include requiring federal research-funding proposals to include individual development plans for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.
• Expansion of NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program by 3,000 fellows, echoing recommendations for expansion made in Andrew Sosanya’s Day One Project memo.
• Stronger U.S. engagement in international technical standards bodies and standards-setting processes through a variety of measures, directly aligning with recommendations made by Natalie Thompson and Mark Montgomery in a Day One Project memo.

The FAS team also convened a coalition of leading science organizations urging the successful completion of negotiations, and provided the blueprint for a deal on expanding EPSCoR funding, a key sticking point in the final stages. FAS also continues to call for appropriations to back up the science vision established in CHIPS.

The Build Back Better Regional Challenge

In September 2022, the Economic Development Administration announced a $1 billion grant competition to:

• Provide transformational investments to regions across the country 
• Grow new regional industry clusters, or 
• Scale existing ones

To support this investment in national development, FAS joined a technical assistance coalition to support the implementation of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC). Through this partnership, FAS supported the 60 Phase 1 finalist regions with their R&D innovation and cluster-building strategy, securing specific, actionable, and high-impact commitments from their coalition, and laying the groundwork for forthcoming substantive partnerships between EDA applicants and other federal R&D and regional innovation efforts.

Reaching Global Development Moonshots

To meet the ambitious benchmarks set by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to provide an opportunity for visionaries across the world to develop and publish policy memos, FAS launched the Global Development Moonshot Accelerator in partnership with UnlockAid. Selected applicants, whose submissions covered a range of development solutions to improve human development and overcome threats to extinction, were invited to an in-person workshop in Mexico City. 

Following the in-person workshop, participants continued to refine their memos, which we published during the COP27 conference to emphasize the interconnectedness of issues across a changing climate, poverty, and other global issues. Through these memos and strategic global development recommendations, we aim to support the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and other global development-focused agencies in becoming more evidence-based, science-based, innovative, and effective.

Day One Project Director Joshua Schoop workshopping in Mexico City

Advanced Research at the Department of Transportation

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law in November 2021, authorized the creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Infrastructure (ARPA-I). The ARPA-I authorization presents a generational opportunity for the Department of Transportation to tackle monumental challenges across transportation and infrastructure–including in the domains of safety, digital infrastructure, resilient and climate-prepared infrastructure, and many more–that are ready for breakthrough innovation. To meet the moment, FAS is supporting the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology (OST-R) in scoping advanced research priorities across a range of infrastructure topics where targeted research can yield innovative new infrastructure technologies, materials, systems, capabilities, or processes. FAS’ approach relies on a proven methodology for research program design—drawn from practitioners at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) —that begins with defining a bold goal and a rigorous plan to achieve it.

The Day One Institute

Although many state and federal programs intend to provide Americans with vital support and resources, they often fall short of their goals. These initiatives neither treat beneficiaries as customers, nor place them at the center of the design of the program and experience. As a result, they frequently suffer from low take-up, poor retention, and inadequate outcomes. The President’s Management Agenda, as well as a December 2021 Executive Order on “Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government,” have created a mandate for government agencies to adopt more human-centered approaches to policy, products, and service design.

To meet this moment, FAS is expanding the Day One Institute in 2023. This initiative will scale successful human-centered design and innovation programming, which has been delivered by our team to over 450 civil servants since 2017. In the year ahead, the Day One Institute will pilot workshops in novel professional settings, train new instructors, and create a blended learning model to familiarize 500 public servants with human-centered design and innovation methods, tools, and practices. Over the next two years, our goal is to improve social service delivery across state and federal agencies and to enhance civil servants’ ability to foster and deliver social service programs that meet the needs of diverse customers.

National Security

Over the past year, the National Security team at FAS has worked at the forefront of addressing the emerging threats and risks of an ever-changing security environment, both domestically and internationally: 

• FAS’ Nuclear Information Project served as the authoritative voice on the status and trends of nuclear weapons worldwide. 
• The Project on the Defense Budget cut through the noise of the U.S. government’s industrial-age budgeting process and broke down barriers to adopting emerging technology solutions in the era of the digitally-defined battlefield. 
• The Defense Posture Project laid the groundwork for a U.S. defense posture that is capable and credible, sufficiently restrained to maintain strategic stability, and fiscally sustainable. 

Together, these projects contributed smart and innovative solutions to complex challenges facing our world today–––with the goal of making it a safer and more secure place.

Nuclear Information Project

After decades of declining nuclear arsenals and cooperative relations, the nuclear weapons landscape is evolving rapidly for the worse. Additionally, Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and President Putin’s overt nuclear threats have brought the world closer to wartime nuclear use than at any time since the Cold War ended. This new era of nuclear tensions has underscored the critical importance of the Nuclear Information Project (NIP). FAS’ history and well-established reputation as the go-to source for factual information and analysis on nuclear weapons issues makes it uniquely positioned to inform and advise U.S. policymakers, the news media, other organizations, as well as the general public about the status and future of nuclear weapons. In this context, this year, the project had unprecedented reach into key constituencies involved in the policy debate:

• On average, the data generated by the Nuclear Information Project was cited in external analysis every other day.
• The Nuclear Notebook on Russia’s nuclear forces in 2022 broke all previous Nuclear Notebook records by a significant margin, with over 300,000 unique reads within the first three months of publication.
• Nuclear Information Project data in the SIPRI Yearbook was covered in over 4,500 distinct online news articles within the first five days of its publication, including notable international outlets like CNN, Reuters, the Associated Press, the Guardian, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, Le Monde, and many others.
• Additionally, data in the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor was used extensively to track treaty implementation during the First Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

The team is initiating several exciting new projects in 2023, including a pilot fellowship program to address the lack of diversity in the nuclear field and to support aspiring nuclear weapons experts committed to rethinking nuclear deterrence.

Next-Generation Defense Budgeting Project

The United States risks losing its military advantage over rapidly advancing adversaries, in no small part because the Department of Defense (DoD) and the national security community are unable to make effective and timely investment decisions. At the heart of these challenges are industrial-age resource allocation processes, namely the Department’s Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) system, which allocates resources years in advance, establishes categories for the use of funds, sets the lens for congressional oversight, and has limited execution-year flexibility.

The Next-Generation Defense Budgeting Project at FAS worked to broker Congressional consensus to establish a commission focused on generating actionable, bipartisan recommendations that will result in the most comprehensive reform of the PPBE system since the President’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management and the resulting Goldwaters-Nichols Act of 1986. The benefit to the nation will be a modern military capable of fielding new combat capabilities at pace with the speed of commercial innovation and within the decision cycles of our most determined advisories. This independent commission was authorized as part of the FY22 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Fiscal Sponsorships

The FAS Fiscal Sponsorship Program seeks to support burgeoning entrepreneurs in science and technology policy. Through this program, FAS provides sponsorship and support for philanthropic endeavors in an effort to forge partnerships and expand our impact in the science community. This year, we sought to grow our fiscal sponsorships not only in number but in the structure and offerings we provide to partners.

The Organs Initiative

Led by Jennifer Erickson

In FY22, the Organs Initiative continued to deliver on its mission to drive data-driven solutions to the organ shortage that sees 33 Americans die every day for lack of an available organ transplant. Key to success was working with partners including Day One Project co-authors from Organize, the Global Liver Institute, the American Society of Nephrology, and bipartisan issue leads from the Obama and Trump administrations, as well as data/technology partners from MIT and alumni of the United States Digital Service (USDS). Over the last year, FAS collaborations delivered high-profile publications that drove Congressional oversight as well as media coverage about the need to accelerate reform of the federal government’s own organ contractors. Following bipartisan, bicameral Congressional calls for acceleration of organ donation reform as an “urgent health equity issue” in July 2021, the Biden administration issued two Requests for Information (RFI) related to accountability for organ contractors.

In response, a wide range of stakeholders echoed FAS calls for open data for evidence of effectiveness and equitable service by organ procurement organizations (OPOs) across the country. Supporters of organ donation open data include leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, the House Oversight Committee, the ACLU, public health physicians, leading data scientists, alumni of the previous four administrations (Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump), all five past Chief Technology Officers of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the National Kidney Foundation, the American Society of Nephrology, Organize, and the Global Liver Institute.

Following a high-profile bipartisan Senate Finance hearing into organ contractor failures in August 2022, and ongoing national media coverage (e.g., two front pages in the Washington Post – one on technology failures and a second on deadly patient safety lapses), the Organs Initiative will continue to work with partners to deliver on bipartisan recommendations for accountability.

Improving America’s Foster Care System

Led by Marina Nitze

One of our major projects is increasing the percentage of children in foster care who live with kin (adults they already know and trust) from 34% to 80% nationwide. Our approach is to understand more about how to find kin through our Resource Family Working Group (which has grown to 20 states representing 137,700 foster youth), where state child welfare leaders come together once a month to surface and scale promising practices and shared challenges. We have collected over 150 promising practices through the group, which are published in the Child Welfare Playbook so other states can easily copy successful strategies from one another. We published a Kin-Finding Progress Dashboard to highlight the progress each state is making toward our identified seven-point kin-finding plan.

Today, every state suffers a dearth of the foster homes their children need most—families who speak their language, live in their school districts, and share their community. Traditional recruitment tactics center around billboard ads and farmers’ market booths, and have no underlying data. In partnership with The Center for Radical Innovation for Social Change (RISC) at the University of Chicago, we are conducting gap analyses in seven states to create a real-time, data-driven recruitment “to-do” list. We have signed up Michigan, Indiana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Arkansas, Indiana, and Oregon. New Mexico is furthest along—we have completed the gap analysis there and are in the process of rolling out data-driven recruitment dashboards across the state, with the other six states following closely behind. We have partnership agreements with the 3 major IT vendors in the child welfare space to incorporate these dashboards into their IT systems, scaling to over 40 states.

Next year, we hope to start increasing the number of kinship placements nationally by scaling our plays and dashboards through multiple national partners. For example, we will help the Grandfamilies & Kinship Support Network (which runs the federal government’s technical assistance center on kin) run a learning collaborative where every state will adopt at least one practice from our dashboard. We will also help Washington State completely redesign its kin-finding office, as a reference implementation for the rest of the country. In January 2023, we will launch a statewide data-driven foster parent recruitment campaign with Arkansas to surface and scale successful methods for closing its identified gaps in foster family homes. We expect to roll out in Indiana in June 2023. These will be our first two of seven states to demonstrate the potential impact of a data-driven foster home recruitment methodology.

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Fundraising and Development

The Federation of American Scientists achieved unprecedented fundraising success in FY22, bringing in $35 million to support a growing portfolio of cutting-edge work across its science, technology, innovation, and national security programs. This is a product of the critical strategic thinking implemented daily by the FAS team to solidify the organization’s presence as an indispensable voice for evidence-based, scientifically-driven policy analysis and research.

$35M

in revenue in FY22, an increase of more than 10x over FY21

40+

sources of diversified financial support (a more than 2x increase over FY21), with no single source representing more than 30% of our revenue

$45,085

raised from individual donors

$138

average individual donation amount

The majority of the funding FAS receives (99.83%) is restricted for the use of specific projects and initiatives, while unrestricted funding (which only accounts for 0.17% of funding) bolsters the organization’s operational capacity.

The critical work being done at FAS would not be possible without the generous support of its philanthropic partners who continue to invest in the organization’s vision for the future.

The Federation of American Scientists regrets to share news of the passing of long-time board member Don Lebell at age 95.

Don Lebell was an active voice in national security, working not only with FAS, but with the Ploughshares Fund’s Nuclear-Free Society and the Department of Defense’s Task Force on Globalization and National Security, Amnesty International, and more throughout his life.

Because of Don’s passion for nonproliferation, the world is a safer place today. 

You can read more about Don here

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This morning, Professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins Medicine and Day One contributor Dr. Geoffrey Ling will testify before the House Committee on Energy & Commerce on “ARPA-H: The Next Frontier of Biomedical Research.” 

Two years ago, Dr. Ling first called for the creation of an Advanced Research Project Agency for Health in a Day One Project memo. The memo,  “Creating the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency (HARPA)”,  enumerates how a HARPA or ARPA-H can directly address the massive market failures at the center of American healthcare enterprise. Establishing a new Health Advanced Research Projects Agency modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) can leverage existing basic science research programs supported by taxpayer dollars, and the efforts of the private sector, to develop new capabilities for disease prevention, detection, and treatment and overcome the bottlenecks that have historically limited progress, writes Dr. Ling and collaborator Dr. Michael Stebbins in the memo.

“​​The need for HARPA is twofold. First, developing treatments for disease is difficult and time consuming. HARPA will provide the sustained drive needed to push through challenges and achieve medical breakthroughs by building new platform technologies. Second, the U.S. healthcare system largely relies on the private sector to leverage national investments in basic research and develop commercially available treatments and cures,” the authors write in the memo.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – This evening, Federation of American Scientists CEO Dan Correa released the following statement on the resignation of Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Eric Lander following a White House investigation that confirmed allegations of misconduct:

“There is no place in our community for bullying, harassment, and abuse. It is unacceptable in any form, from anyone, and especially from a member of the President’s Cabinet and the Director of OSTP, which has been a beacon of scientific leadership and a source of inspiration for so many across the community.

At the Federation of American Scientists, we work every day with aspiring science and technology policy entrepreneurs who dream of the opportunity to contribute their ideas, hard work and passion through service at policymaking institutions like OSTP. Our community must stand together in our commitment to building inclusive workplaces that are deserving of their aspirations.”

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The American hallmark has always been its ingenuity, from the creation of the Internet to the rise of Silicon Valley. But for the last few decades, ingenuity has been on the decline: not because of a lack of genius but because of a failure of the marketplace to bring forward those new ideas in scientific knowledge, entrepreneurship, education, and, yes, movies.  

We need more ideas that push the “Endless Frontier” of science and reach wide-scale commercialization, like the mRNA breakthroughs of late. The debates or implementation of once-in-a-generation investments into the U.S. innovation ecosystems — the American Rescue Plan Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and in-conference U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) — should therefore pay attention to three key lessons learned from the last generation. 

First, our nation’s greatest asset is its ability to develop, attract, and retain the world’s most talented individuals. Imagine an America where the development of 21st century science & technology was spread from the coasts to the heartland. Our nation and more importantly our people would be firing on all cylinders, with more people generating new ideas and more launching points for those ideas to take off. Regional innovation endeavors, like the ongoing $1 billion Economic Development Administration’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge and potential Department of Commerce’s Regional Technology Hubs and National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Accelerators, are seeking to expand the geography of innovation but require public buy-in to succeed in the long-term. 

Equally if not more important is supporting immigrants in driving entrepreneurship forward. One quarter of all American startups — and one-half of our nation’s billion-dollar startups — were founded by immigrants. Still in addition to overcoming a host of obstacles in their home countries, foreign-born entrepreneurs must endure a long, convoluted, and highly politicized immigration process in the United States. As rivalry partners like China have aimed to do, the United States would do well to secure its position as a beacon for the world’s talent by making it easier on immigrants to arrive on our shores. 

Second, America must experiment with new, more risk-oriented approaches to R&D and market failures. In record time, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency created stealth tech, the Internet, and other applied-tech to meet the moment of the Cold War. Today, peer and rival competition demands a similar imagination of our nation’s R&D ecosystem. We must pay attention to the revolutionary potential of ARPA-Health and ARPA-Infrastructure, while supporting even more nascent efforts Focused Research Organizations and novel approaches to science funding like fast grants and translational science lottery programs. Each of these new structures represents a variant of an “embedded autonomy” approach to R&D, wherein the government describes outcome-oriented goals and measures progress while mission-driven organizations take disruptive risks for paradigm-shifting innovation. 

Similarly, the role of the government as a buyer and driver of innovation was made clear by the Advanced Market Commitments for vaccines in Operation Warp Speed. Several other innovative procurement techniques have been demonstrated to solve market failures, from challenge-based acquisitions of reusable spaceships to milestone based payments in the public-private partnership between NASA and SpaceX. Agencies largely have the authority to create whole “marketplaces of outcomes” and spawn entirely new industries, from climate-solutions technologies to quantum computing. 

Third, we must appreciate that both research and manufacturing are essential for maintaining America’s innovation edge. The tight relationship between R&D and the learning-by-building phase of manufacturing was demonstrated by the loss of U.S. competitiveness in Solar panels, semiconductors, electric vehicles and other critical technologies. This will continue as there is a dearth in advanced manufacturing options in the United States. Startups in semiconductor, biotechnology, climate-solutions technology, and quantum industries are increasingly producing cutting edge technologies — and establishing innovation ecosystems — outside the United States. When talking about U.S. innovation and competitiveness for the next century, we must pay attention not only to basic science but to ways of financing small- and medium-sized manufacturers in demonstrating, adopting, and training a workforce to use advanced production technologies.

In short, America needs more ideas that last but we have a few that might help get us there.

When my dad turned 75 this October, he told me that it was the first birthday that really got under his skin and made him realize his age. Something about 75 years conveys the gravitas of a lifetime, encompassing three distinct generations and witnessing epic societal transformation over decades. 

For perspective, it was 75 years ago when Winston Churchill gave his famous speech warning of an “Iron Curtain” falling over Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe and that the United Nations General Assembly met for the first time; the year that saw a bank issue its first credit card, the first commercial use of suntan lotion, and the invention of Tide™ detergent and Tupperware.™ It was also the year that President Truman signed the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 into law, creating the civilian-controlled United States Atomic Energy Commission to oversee the creation of nuclear weapons and to research and implement the peaceful use of nuclear energy.  

It was against this historical backdrop, that a group of entrepreneurial scientists founded the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) in 1946 to meet national security challenges with evidence-based, scientifically-driven policy and expertise. Over 75 years later, FAS is still working to minimize the risks of significant threats, as well as addressing critical issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress and prevent catastrophic harm. 

An echo of 75 years ago, today we face urgent and pressing threats to human wellbeing, from the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change to systemic racism to threats to national security. Science and innovation offers hope, inspiration, and concrete roadmaps for change, but as we have witnessed repeatedly, science and innovation alone are no panacea. Society faces deep schisms and structural challenges. Trust in science has eroded significantly. We face a critical crossroads for science policy and the imperative to create feedback loops that ensure that the creation of new knowledge and its pathway toward use in decision-making move in lockstep.

Today, FAS is at the forefront of reimagining the next 75 years of science policy… one actionable idea at a time. The FAS’ Day One Project is dedicated to democratizing the policymaking process by working with new and expert voices across the science and technology community, building S&T capacity in the federal government, and helping to develop policies that can be implemented in the near-term. This work embodies the spirit of entrepreneurship, creativity, and humility that shaped FAS’ mandate and methodology from its earliest years.

FAS’ work is taking place at a unique moment, one in which the pandemic has really opened our eyes to the urgency of restructuring the very foundation of the science policy interface to better enable evidence-based decisions. Many thought leaders are talking and writing about the future of science policy, and policymakers are really listening. Incidentally, much has been written about the particular time frame of 75 years. In addition to FAS’ 75th anniversary, last year marked the 75th anniversary of the publication of Science, The Endless Frontier: A Report to the President by Vannevar Bush, who was an influential science advisor to president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In recognition of Vannevar Bush, Issues in Science and Technology, is publishing a year-long series on The Next 75 Years of Science Policy that forecasts needs to restructure the resources of science to enable the best possible future.

Looking forward, FAS is embracing the theme of “progress studies,” which refers to a school of thought focused on studying people, organizations, institutions, and cultures and offering policy recommendations to advance societal progress — broadly defined — over time.  This focus challenges the convergence of ideas from technologists, economists, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, scholars studying innovation and the science of science policy to come together in providing actionable ideas on how to most productively create more equitable, inclusive, robust, prosperous, and effective societies. 

Progress studies is only one of many opportunities that FAS is poised to help shape the future of science policy. From helping to deliver timely input to Congress through the Congressional Science Policy Initiative to new efforts to help make the science of science policy actionable for decision makers, FAS is poised to help shape the future of science policy. Building on a legacy of 75 years, today FAS stands ready to build on its rich history, learn from contributions to science policy over the past decades, and help forge a path imbued with the spirit of entrepreneurship and humility.