AAAS staff members traveled to China in September to help promote the role of women in science during the meeting of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World in Tianjin, to take part in a Hangzhou meeting on ethics in science, and to encourage the communication of peer-reviewed research.

While it is generally agreed that federal investment in scientific research is crucial for American prosperity and innovation, specialists lack rigorous tools and methods to fully assess the impacts of such investment, a top AAAS official told a congressional panel recently.

While the United States has made promising steps in science diplomacy, including the recent appointment of the first-ever science envoys, the White House, the State Department, and Congress must do far more to expand links between U.S. and foreign scientific communities, according to AAAS President Peter Agre and Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering.