Category Archives: General Topics

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Resources for 21st Century Manufacturing

In what areas do the United States exercise successful manufacturing practices and where are we in need of improvement? These resources examine opportunities and challenges for 21^st century manufacturing.

Building America's Skilled Technical Workforce

Building America’s Skilled Technical Workforce

Skilled technical occupations—defined as occupations that require a high level of knowledge in a technical domain but do not require a bachelor’s degree for entry—are a key component of the U.S. economy. In response to globalization and advances in science and technology, American firms …

Securing Advanced Manufacturing in the United States: The Role of Manufacturing USA: Proceedings of a Workshop

Securing Advanced Manufacturing in the United States: The Role of Manufacturing USA: Proceedings of a Workshop

The Manufacturing USA initiative seeks to reinforce U.S.-based advanced manufacturing through partnerships among industry, academia, and government. Started in 2012 and established with bipartisan support by the Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation Act of 2014, the initiative …

Making Value for America: Embracing the Future of Manufacturing, Technology, and Work

Making Value for America: Embracing the Future of Manufacturing, Technology, and Work

Globalization, developments in technology, and new business models are transforming the way products and services are conceived, designed, made, and distributed in the U.S. and around the world. These forces present challenges – lower wages and fewer jobs for a growing fraction of middle-class …

Promising Practices for Strengthening the Regional STEM Workforce Development Ecosystem

Promising Practices for Strengthening the Regional STEM Workforce Development Ecosystem

U.S. strength in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines has formed the basis of innovations, technologies, and industries that have spurred the nation’s economic growth throughout the last 150 years. Universities are essential to the creation and transfer of new …

An Assessment of ARPA-E

An Assessment of ARPA-E

In 2005, the National Research Council report Rising Above the Gathering Storm recommended a new way for the federal government to spur technological breakthroughs in the energy sector. It recommended the creation of a new agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, …

The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Electric Power Technologies

The Power of Change: Innovation for Development and Deployment of Increasingly Clean Electric Power Technologies

Electricity, supplied reliably and affordably, is foundational to the U.S. economy and is utterly indispensable to modern society. However, emissions resulting from many forms of electricity generation create environmental risks that could have significant negative economic, security, and human …

Making Things: 21st Century Manufacturing and Design: Summary of a Forum

Making Things: 21st Century Manufacturing and Design: Summary of a Forum

More than two decades ago, a commission of 17 MIT scientists and economists released a report, Made in America, which opened with the memorable phrase, “To live well, a nation must produce well.” Is that still true? Or can the United States remain a preeminent nation while other …

Making Value: Integrating Manufacturing, Design, and Innovation to Thrive in the Changing Global Economy: Summary of a Workshop

Making Value: Integrating Manufacturing, Design, and Innovation to Thrive in the Changing Global Economy: Summary of a Workshop

Manufacturing is in a period of dramatic transformation. But in the United States, public and political dialogue is simplistically focused almost entirely on the movement of certain manufacturing jobs overseas to low-wage countries. The true picture is much more complicated, and also more …

21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program

21st Century Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program

The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) – a program of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology – has sought for more than two decades to strengthen American manufacturing. It is a national network of affiliated manufacturing extension centers and …

Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for the Global Economy

Rising to the Challenge: U.S. Innovation Policy for the Global Economy

America’s position as the source of much of the world’s global innovation has been the foundation of its economic vitality and military power in the post-war. No longer is U.S. pre-eminence assured as a place to turn laboratory discoveries into new commercial products, companies, industries, and …

Strengthening American Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership: Summary of a Symposium

Strengthening American Manufacturing: The Role of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership: Summary of a Symposium

The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)– a program of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)– has sought for more than two decades to strengthen American manufacturing. It is a national network of affiliated manufacturing extension centers …

Best Practices in State and Regional Innovation Initiatives: Competing in the 21st Century

Best Practices in State and Regional Innovation Initiatives: Competing in the 21st Century

Most of the policy discussion about stimulating innovation has focused on the federal level. This study focuses on the significant activity at the state level, with the goal of improving the public’s understanding of key policy strategies and exemplary practices. Based on a series of workshops …

Violence-Related Research and Resources

As the nation struggles to understand gun violence in our schools and communities, the National Academies offers a range of resources that examine lethal violence and approaches to preventing it: a research agenda for firearm-related violence, a collection of case studies examining lethal school violence, and summaries of workshops that explored community violence as a public health issue, violence prevention, and the social and economic costs of violence.

Deadly Lessons: Understanding Lethal School Violence

Deadly Lessons: Understanding Lethal School Violence

The shooting at Columbine High School riveted national attention on violence in the nation’s schools. This dramatic example signaled an implicit and growing fear that these events would continue to occur—and even escalate in scale and severity.

How do we make sense of the tragedy of a …

Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence

Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence

In 2010, more than 105,000 people were injured or killed in the United States as the result of a firearm-related incident. Recent, highly publicized, tragic mass shootings in Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; Oak Creek, WI; and Tucson, AZ, have sharpened the American public’s interest in protecting our …

Community Violence as a Population Health Issue: Proceedings of a Workshop

Community Violence as a Population Health Issue: Proceedings of a Workshop

On June 16, 2016, the Roundtable on Population Health Improvement held a workshop at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Brooklyn, New York, to explore the influence of trauma and violence on communities. The workshop highlighted examples of community-based organizations using …

Means of Violence: Workshop in Brief

Means of Violence: Workshop in Brief

In an average day, there are approximately 4,000 violent deaths across the globe. In 1 week, there are 26,000 and in 1 month, 120,000. Workshop speaker James Mercy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted that these figures are directly influenced by the means and methods …

Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary

Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary

The past 25 years have seen a major paradigm shift in the field of violence prevention, from the assumption that violence is inevitable to the recognition that violence is preventable. Part of this shift has occurred in thinking about why violence occurs, and where intervention points might lie. …

Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review

Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review

For years proposals for gun control and the ownership of firearms have been among the most contentious issues in American politics. For public authorities to make reasonable decisions on these matters, they must take into account facts about the relationship between guns and violence as well as …

The Evidence for Violence Prevention Across the Lifespan and Around the World: Workshop Summary

The Evidence for Violence Prevention Across the Lifespan and Around the World: Workshop Summary

The Evidence for Violence Prevention Across the Lifespan and Around the World is the summary of a workshop convened in January 2013 by the Institute of Medicine’s Forum on Global Violence Prevention to explore value and application of the evidence for violence prevention across the …

Social and Economic Costs of Violence: Workshop Summary

Social and Economic Costs of Violence: Workshop Summary

Measuring the social and economic costs of violence can be difficult, and most estimates only consider direct economic effects, such as productivity loss or the use of health care services. Communities and societies feel the effects of violence through loss of social cohesion, financial …

Public Policy Approaches to Violence Prevention: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief

Public Policy Approaches to Violence Prevention: Proceedings of a Workshop—in Brief

LiDAR: Using Lasers in Digital Imaging

An international team of scientists and archaeologists using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to survey areas of the Guatemalan jungle have discovered that the Maya civilization was much larger than previously thought. LiDAR uses a laser to measure distances to the Earth’s surface and is applicable to many other areas of research, including self-driving cars.

These titles explore LiDAR and its various applications.

Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) Deployment for Airport Obstruction Surveys

Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) Deployment for Airport Obstruction Surveys

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Results Digest 10: Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) Deployment for Airport Obstruction Surveys explores the readiness of LIDAR technology as a cost-effective alternative to the traditional methods for collecting the data required to …

Use of Advanced Geospatial Data, Tools, Technologies, and Information in Department of Transportation Projects

Use of Advanced Geospatial Data, Tools, Technologies, and Information in Department of Transportation Projects

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 446: Use of Advanced Geospatial Data, Tools, Technologies, and Information in Department of Transportation Projects that explores the development, documentation, and introduction of advanced geospatial technologies within …

Opportunities to Use Remote Sensing in Understanding Permafrost and Related Ecological Characteristics: Report of a Workshop

Opportunities to Use Remote Sensing in Understanding Permafrost and Related Ecological Characteristics: Report of a Workshop

Permafrost is a thermal condition — its formation, persistence and disappearance are highly dependent on climate. General circulation models predict that, for a doubling of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, mean annual air temperatures may rise up to several degrees over much of the …

Laser Radar: Progress and Opportunities in Active Electro-Optical Sensing

Laser Radar: Progress and Opportunities in Active Electro-Optical Sensing

In today’s world, the range of technologies with the potential to threaten the security of U.S. military forces is extremely broad. These include developments in explosive materials, sensors, control systems, robotics, satellite systems, and computing power, to name just a few. Such technologies …

Satellite Observations to Benefit Science and Society: Recommended Missions for the Next Decade

Satellite Observations to Benefit Science and Society: Recommended Missions for the Next Decade

Satellite Observations to Benefit Science and Society: Recommended Missions for the Next Decade brings the next ten years into focus for the Earth and environmental science community with a prioritized agenda of space programs, missions, and supporting activities that will best serve …

Elevation Data for Floodplain Mapping

Elevation Data for Floodplain Mapping

Floodplain maps serve as the basis for determining whether homes or buildings require flood insurance under the National Flood Insurance Program run by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Approximately $650 billion in insured assets are now covered under the program. FEMA is …

Immunization Safety: Protecting Public Health

In 1900, for every 1,000 babies born in the United States, 100 would die before their first birthday, often due to infectious diseases. Today, vaccines exist for many viral and bacterial diseases. Our collection of reports examine immunization safety in depth and present the science to support vaccination’s crucial role in protecting public health.

Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality

Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality

In 1900, for every 1,000 babies born in the United States, 100 would die before their first birthday, often due to infectious diseases. Today, vaccines exist for many viral and bacterial diseases. …

Eliminating the Public Health Problem of Hepatitis B and C in the United States: Phase One Report

Eliminating the Public Health Problem of Hepatitis B and C in the United States: Phase One Report

Hepatitis B and C cause most cases of hepatitis in the United States and the world. The two diseases account for about a million deaths a year and 78 percent of world’s hepatocellular carcinoma …

The Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies

The Childhood Immunization Schedule and Safety: Stakeholder Concerns, Scientific Evidence, and Future Studies

Vaccines are among the most safe and effective public health interventions to prevent serious disease and death. Because of the success of vaccines, most Americans today have no firsthand …

Ranking Vaccines: A Prioritization Framework: Phase I: Demonstration of Concept and a Software Blueprint

Ranking Vaccines: A Prioritization Framework: Phase I: Demonstration of Concept and a Software Blueprint

As a number of diseases emerge or reemerge thus stimulating new vaccine development opportunities to help prevent those diseases, it can be especially difficult for decision makers to know where …

Ranking Vaccines: A Prioritization Software Tool: Phase II: Prototype of a Decision-Support System

Ranking Vaccines: A Prioritization Software Tool: Phase II: Prototype of a Decision-Support System

SMART Vaccines–Strategic Multi-Attribute Ranking Tool for Vaccines–is a prioritization software tool developed by the Institute of Medicine that utilizes decision science and modeling to help …

Ranking Vaccines: Applications of a Prioritization Software Tool: Phase III: Use Case Studies and Data Framework

Ranking Vaccines: Applications of a Prioritization Software Tool: Phase III: Use Case Studies and Data Framework

SMART Vaccines – Strategic Multi-Attribute Ranking Tool for Vaccines – is a prioritization software tool developed by the Institute of Medicine that utilizes decision science and modeling to help …

Throwback Thursday: Valuing Ecosystem Services

Ecosystems provide a wide variety of marketable goods. However, society is increasingly recognizing the myriad functions—the observable manifestations of ecosystem processes such as nutrient recycling, regulation of climate, and maintenance of biodiversity—that they provide, without which human civilizations could not thrive.

Valuing Ecosystem Services evaluates methods for assessing services and the associated economic values of aquatic and related terrestrial ecosystems. It focuses on identifying and assessing existing economic methods to quantitatively determine the intrinsic value of these ecosystems in support of improved environmental decision-making, including situations where ecosystem services can be only partially valued.

Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision-Making

Valuing Ecosystem Services: Toward Better Environmental Decision-Making

Nutrient recycling, habitat for plants and animals, flood control, and water supply are among the many beneficial services provided by aquatic ecosystems. In making decisions about human activities, such as draining a wetland for a housing …

Understanding the Impact of the Social and Behavioral Sciences on the Weather Enterprise

There is growing recognition that a host of social and behavioral factors affect how we prepare for, observe, predict, respond to, and are impacted by weather hazards. For example, an individual’s response to a severe weather event may depend on their understanding of the forecast, prior experience with severe weather, concerns about their other family members or property, their capacity to take the recommended protective actions, and numerous other factors.

It is essential to bring to bear expertise in the social and behavioral sciences (SBS) to understand how people’s knowledge, experiences, perceptions, and attitudes shape their responses to weather risks and to understand how human cognitive and social dynamics affect the forecast process itself. Our report explores and provides guidance on the challenges of integrating social and behavioral sciences within the weather enterprise. It assesses current SBS activities, describes the potential value of improved integration of SBS and barriers that impede this integration, develops a research agenda, and identifies infrastructural and institutional arrangements for successfully pursuing SBS-weather research and the transfer of relevant findings to operational settings.

Integrating Social and Behavioral Sciences Within the Weather Enterprise

Integrating Social and Behavioral Sciences Within the Weather Enterprise

Our ability to observe and forecast severe weather events has improved markedly over the past few decades. Forecasts of snow and ice storms, hurricanes and storm surge, extreme heat, and other severe weather events are made with greater accuracy, …

The Science of Science Communication: Free Webcast and Resources

With so many complex and sometimes uncertain scientific issues facing our society, there has never been a more critical time to communicate science effectively. A National Academy of Sciences event, the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium on the Science of Science Communication III begins today and runs through tomorrow, November 17th. Watch the free webcast to hear from researchers, practitioners, content experts, and philanthropists, all vested in ensuring that evidence-based science communication thrives.

Our books provide guidance to improve communication of and public engagement with science:

Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda

Communicating Science Effectively: A Research Agenda

Science and technology are embedded in virtually every aspect of modern life. As a result, people face an increasing need to integrate information from science with their personal values and other considerations as they make important life …

The Science of Science Communication II: Summary of a Colloquium

The Science of Science Communication II: Summary of a Colloquium

Successful scientists must be effective communicators within their professions. Without those skills, they could not write papers and funding proposals, give talks and field questions, or teach classes and mentor students. However, communicating …

Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences

Science Literacy: Concepts, Contexts, and Consequences

Science is a way of knowing about the world. At once a process, a product, and an institution, science enables people to both engage in the construction of new knowledge as well as use information to achieve desired ends. Access to …

Effective Chemistry Communication in Informal Environments

Effective Chemistry Communication in Informal Environments

Chemistry plays a critical role in daily life, impacting areas such as medicine and health, consumer products, energy production, the ecosystem, and many other areas. Communicating about chemistry in informal environments has the potential to …

Communicating Chemistry: A Framework for Sharing Science: A Practical Evidence-Based Guide

Communicating Chemistry: A Framework for Sharing Science: A Practical Evidence-Based Guide

A growing body of evidence indicates that, increasingly, the public is engaging with science in a wide range of informal environments, which can be any setting outside of school such as community-based programs, festivals, libraries, or home. Yet …

Trust and Confidence at the Interfaces of the Life Sciences and Society: Does the Public Trust Science? A Workshop Summary

Trust and Confidence at the Interfaces of the Life Sciences and Society: Does the Public Trust Science? A Workshop Summary

Does the public trust science? Scientists? Scientific organizations? What roles do trust and the lack of trust play in public debates about how science can be used to address such societal concerns as childhood vaccination, cancer screening, and …

Scientific Research Disaster Recovery Grants from the Gulf Research Program

Photo credit: NASA

This week, the Gulf Research Program announced it will be awarding up to $2 million in fast-track grants to help scientific research efforts recover from the impacts of Gulf Coast hurricanes Harvey and Irma. For more information about this and other funding opportunities from the program, visit www.nas.edu/gulf/grants.

Over its 30-year duration, the Gulf Research Program works to enhance oil system safety and the protection of human health and the environment in the Gulf of Mexico and other U.S. outer continental shelf areas by seeking to improve understanding of the region’s interconnecting human, environmental, and energy systems and fostering application of these insights to benefit Gulf communities, ecosystems, and the Nation.

Learn more about the Gulf Research Program.

The Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2016

The Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2016

Each year, the Gulf Research Program (GRP) produces an annual report to summarize how funds were used. These reports review accomplishments, highlight activities, and, over time, will assess metrics to determine how the program is progressing in …

The Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2015

The Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2015

Each year, the Gulf Research Program produces an annual report to summarize how funds were used. These reports review accomplishments, highlight activities, and, over time, will assess metrics to determine how the program is progressing in …

The Gulf Research Program: A Strategic Vision

The Gulf Research Program: A Strategic Vision

In 2010 the Deepwater Horizon explosion and fire in the Gulf of Mexico caused the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, resulting in significant impacts on the region’s environment and residents. Legal settlements with the …

The Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2013-2014

The Gulf Research Program Annual Report 2013-2014

The 2013-2014 annual report highlights the establishment and first activities of the Gulf Research Program, an independent, science-based program founded in 2013. Through grants, fellowships, and other activities, the Gulf Research Program seeks …

Opportunities for the Gulf Research Program: Community Resilience and Health: Summary of a Workshop

Opportunities for the Gulf Research Program: Community Resilience and Health: Summary of a Workshop

There are many connections between human communities and their surrounding environments that influence community resilience and health in the Gulf of Mexico. The impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Gulf communities and ecosystems …

Opportunities for the Gulf Research Program: Monitoring Ecosystem Restoration and Deep Water Environments: Summary of a Workshop

Opportunities for the Gulf Research Program: Monitoring Ecosystem Restoration and Deep Water Environments: Summary of a Workshop

Environmental monitoring in the Gulf of Mexico poses extensive challenges and significant opportunities. Multiple jurisdictions manage this biogeographically and culturally diverse region, whose monitoring programs tend to be project-specific by …

Opportunities for the Gulf Research Program: Middle-Skilled Workforce Needs: Summary of a Workshop

Opportunities for the Gulf Research Program: Middle-Skilled Workforce Needs: Summary of a Workshop

During the period 1990 to 2010, U.S. job growth occurred primarily in the high-skilled and low-skilled sectors. Yet, one-third of projected job growth for the period 2010-2020 will require middle-skilled workers — who will earn strong …

Throwback Thursday: Science, Evolution, and Creationism

Science, Evolution, and Creationism explains the fundamental methods of science, documents the overwhelming evidence in support of biological evolution, and evaluates the alternative perspectives offered by advocates of various kinds of creationism, including “intelligent design.” The book explores the many fascinating inquiries being pursued that put the science of evolution to work in preventing and treating human disease, developing new agricultural products, and fostering industrial innovations.

Our Evolution Collection details the extensive evidence that exists in support of biological evolution, stresses the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem management, and evaluates the alternative perspectives offered by various kinds of creationism. These reports also focus on how science and religion can be viewed as different ways of understanding the world, rather than as frameworks that are in conflict with each other.

Science, Evolution, and Creationism

Science, Evolution, and Creationism

How did life evolve on Earth? The answer to this question can help us understand our past and prepare for our future. Although evolution provides credible and reliable answers, polls show that many people turn away from science, seeking other …

Mitigating the Misuse of Life Sciences Research

Dual Use Research of Concern in the Life Sciences: Current Issues and Controversies examines the U.S. strategy for reducing biosecurity risks in life sciences research and considers mechanisms that would allow researchers to manage the dissemination of the results of research while mitigating the potential for harm to national security.

On October 20th, members of the authoring committee for the report, Arturo Casadevall and Claire Fraser, participated in a Reddit AMA discussing the misuse of life sciences research and ways to mitigate this threat. Read the archive here.

Learn more about biosecurity with our collection.

Dual Use Research of Concern in the Life Sciences: Current Issues and Controversies

Dual Use Research of Concern in the Life Sciences: Current Issues and Controversies

The potential misuse of advances in life sciences research is raising concerns about national security threats. Dual Use Research of Concern in the Life Sciences: Current Issues and Controversies examines the U.S. strategy for reducing biosecurity risks in life sciences research and …

Gain-of-Function Research: Summary of the Second Symposium, March 10-11, 2016

Gain-of-Function Research: Summary of the Second Symposium, March 10-11, 2016

On March 10-11, 2016, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a public symposium on potential U.S. government policies for the oversight of gain-of- function (GOF) research. This was the Academies’ second meeting held at the request of the U.S. government to provide …

Challenges and Opportunities for Education About Dual Use Issues in the Life Sciences

Challenges and Opportunities for Education About Dual Use Issues in the Life Sciences

The Challenges and Opportunities for Education About Dual Use Issues in the Life Sciences workshop was held to engage the life sciences community on the particular security issues related to research with dual use potential. More than 60 participants from almost 30 countries took part and …

Understanding Biosecurity: Protecting Against the Misuse of Science in Today's World

Understanding Biosecurity: Protecting Against the Misuse of Science in Today’s World

Drawing on the work of the National Academies, this booklet introduces some of the issues at the intersection of science and security. The life sciences offer tremendous promise for meeting many 21st century challenges. But with opportunities come responsibilities. An important aspect of …