AAAS Forum on Science & Technology Policy Convenes 8-9 May

The role of science and technology in the 21st century and the place of science-related issues in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign will be among the top topics during the 33rd annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy on 8-9 May in Washington, D.C.

The AAAS Policy Forum has become the premier venue for discussion of current issues in science and technology policy, and that's reflected in this year's agenda. About 500 participants are expected for the event, which will be held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

The Forum will feature a keynote address at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday 8 May by John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science Technology Policy and the longest serving presidential science adviser. Marburger, who assumed office in October 2001, has addressed the Policy Forum each year during his tenure. This will be his seventh and final appearance representing the Bush administration.

A morning plenary session that same day will discuss the kind of world that science and technology will face in the 21st century and how S&T will both shape and react to that world. The speakers will be James Canton, chairman of the Institute for Global Futures; Melinda Kimble, senior vice president at the United Nations Foundation; and Christopher T. Hill, professor of public policy at George Mason University.

Canton is a leading authority on future trends in innovation. Kimble oversees programs in health, population, the environment, and human rights. Hill is author of a recent essay predicting the rise of a "post-scientific" society in which new ideas will draw less on natural sciences and engineering and more on organizational and social sciences.

Among other topics on the agenda:

• New models for funding science.

• The proper role for advocacy in science.

• The intersection of science and the new media.

• Prospects for human enhancement technologies in sports, the military, age extension and cognition.

Other speakers at the Forum include:

• John Kao, founder of Kao & Company and formerly on the faculty of the Harvard Business School. He will give a luncheon address at 12:15 p.m. on 8 May on the eroding state of innovation in the United States and steps to reverse a slide that he has described as a "silent Sputnik" crisis.

• Kei Koizumi, director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program. Koizumi will give his latest analysis of the U.S. R&D proposals for 2009 budget year during the opening session.

• Lewis Branscomb, professor emeritus at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego. He will deliver the annual William D. Carey Lecture at 5:45 p.m. on 8 May, speaking on the topic "Changing Patterns of Research and Innovation in a Networked World." Branscomb's lecture is open to the public.

• Peter R. Orszag, director of the Congressional Budget Office. Orszag will discuss the fiscal challenges facing the next administration and Congress during a morning plenary session on Friday, 9 May on the 2008 election and beyond. Also on the panel for that session is John E. Porter, former U.S. representative from Illinois, who will discuss how to ensure the best presidential science appointments.

Get more information on the 2008 AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy.

Earl Lane

9 April 2008