America’s infrastructure is in disrepair and our transportation system has failed to keep pace with usage, technology and maintenance needs. As a result, 43% of public roadways are in poor or mediocre condition, roadway fatalities reached nearly 43,000 last year, and logistics and supply chain systems are ill-prepared for the increasing stresses caused by pandemics, […]
Our innovation ecosystem needs more transformative research and engagement enterprises (TREEs), especially for societal challenges that have not historically benefitted from solution-oriented research.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has identified several domains in the transportation and infrastructure space that retain a plethora of unsolved opportunities ripe for breakthrough innovation.
FAS is seeking to engage experts from across the transportation infrastructure community who are the right kind of big thinkers to get involved in developing solutions to transportation moonshots.
Do you have ideas that could inform an ambitious future advanced research portfolio at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)? We’re looking for your boldest infrastructure moonshots.
On December 8th, 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation hosted a workshop, “Transportation, Mobility, and the Future of Infrastructure,” in collaboration with the Federation of American Scientists.
Just over a year ago, I found myself pausing during a research lab meeting. “Why were all the subjects in our studies of wearable devices white? And what were the consequences of exclusion?” This question stuck with me long after the meeting. Digging into the evidence, I was alarmed to find paper after paper signaling embedded […]
Plants are key to enable a diversified and climate-resilient food system. Mary Fernandes proposes a Plant Genome Project (PGP), a robust Human Genome Project-style initiative to build a dataset of genetic information on plant species.
Until a month ago, I was an event skeptic. When it’s as easy as a Zoom link to connect with colleagues, I found it hard to believe that getting a bunch of people together around an agenda was ever really worth the time and effort. Point one for my colleagues at FAS and the White […]
The federal government should broaden institutional capacity to collect and integrate evidence on public values into policy and decision making.
Federal science-funding agencies spend tens of billions of dollars each year on extramural research, but a healthy dose of transparency could improve the grantmaking process greatly.
Congress extended SBIR. Now what?