The Council on Excellence in Government recently released its latest Prune Book, listing the toughest jobs in government (tough from a management perspective).  The name is inspired by the government’s Plum Book, a listing of jobs that the president appoints.

Paul Light, a noted scholar on effective government and presidential transitions, highlighted what he considers ten sub-Cabinet level jobs from the Prune Book that are particularly difficult.  Part of the challenge for each of these positions is dealing with recent failures and the associated increased scrutiny.  Science and technology play a role in a few of them.  The list after the jump.

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I’ll leave predictions to Roger.  With a new year, Congress, Administration, etc., there are a few stories to follow for science and technology policy in the coming year.  By no means a comprehensive list, here are a few things I’ll be monitoring:

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There’s a report from Wired.com’s Epicenter blog reflecting a failure to follow basic common sense for effective policy.  Several groups are advocating for even more money for broadband deployment than the Obama administration intends to have in its economic stimulus plan.  Apparently the wrinkle here is that there is very little, if any, public information on how many currently have broadband, and how much they pay for it.  There are other related questions that are hard to answer – unless you are one of the companies providing the service.  But that information is also not publicly available.  If you read the blog entry, you’ll find that reporting requirements were recently reduced, making it harder to effectively judge how to invest that broadband money.  This is the same data problem we currently have with TARP funds, except in that case, there’s no information (or requirements to produce it) on how that money is being spent.  Here we don’t have the information needed to effectively invest money.  Either way, the chances for effective policy drop precipitously.

The conference itself is not online, but will be at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy January 26.  The event, Today’s Online Privacy Challenges: Innovation and Liberty, is a half-day seminar focused on online privacy policies for private industry and the government.  If the Obama Administration’s emphasis on openness and online government becomes a reality, it will add to growing concerns over privacy of online information that Facebook, MySpace and other social networking technologies have forced people to deal with.  Minnesota established online privacy regulations in 2002, and it would be interesting to see how effective they have been in protecting privacy.  Registration for the conference is not yet open, but should be soon.

Buried in this week’s address by President-elect Obama, was the announcement of not one, not two, but three co-chairs of the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST).  Joining Dr. Holdren – the science adviser appointment, as co-chairs of PCAST will be Dr. Harold Varmus, former Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Eric Lander, a genomic scientists with the Whitehead Institute at MIT.  These selections are noted breaks from the past two administrations, which selected industry representatives to co-chair PCAST with the OSTP Director.

Their marching orders would mark a bit of a departure for PCAST.  From the address:

“Together, [Holdren, Varmus, and Lander] will work to remake PCAST into a vigorous external advisory council that will shape my thinking on the scientific aspects of my policy priorities.”

Should this hold true, it would be a good idea to pay more attention to the meetings and members of PCAST.  The current roster is available online.

Yesterday House Science and Technology Committee chair Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tennessee) held a press conference outlining plans for the next Congress.  Given the energy emphasis of Presidential science appointments and the current economic debacle, Rep. Gordon emphasized those issues.  Topics covered included plans to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E), science investment recommendations for the stimulus, R & D for possible cap and trade legislation, and a balanced portfolio for NASA.

I’m not sure how instructive Gordon’s comments will be, as it seems that he was jumping on the energy and climate bandwagon driven by the appointment of Dr. Chu as Energy Secretary.  Once subcommittee assignments are finalized in January, the agenda of the committee might become more clear.

The Science blog on science policy reported last week that the Association of American Universities has sent a letter to Congress requesting that financial aid and research funding be part of any economic stimulus package.  You can read the full letter online at the AAU website (click on the December 17 item).  The specific recommendations are as follows (details in the letter):

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We can surmise some likely science-related outcomes from the current economic recession already.  Government budgets are hit; construction projects wil stop, slow down, or be postponed; endowment performance declines; etc.  Traditionally, many people will return to school, or delay entering the workforce by continuing their schooling, in light of a recession.  Chris Mooney, however, jumps the gun in this Science Progress column by suggesting that the anticipated increases in enrollment haven’t materialized.

The recession ‘officially’ started in the last quarter of 2007, so a boost in entrants for this fall is a possible outcome of the conventional wisdom.  However, that would presume that these applicants were so tuned into the economy that they turned around applications fast enough to be ready to enter by the following fall.  Given how irrational and dysfunctional the current collapses have been, there’s nothing to suggest that rational choices to gain more schooling would necessarily increase.  So why Mooney would expect a boost in enrollment or applicants so soon after the realization of the recession sets in escapes me.

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Prompted by a notice from the American Institute of Physics that the National Academies is starting the 2010 version of the decadal priority setting exercise for research in astronomy and astrophysics, I am throwing out the idea that a similar exercise might be useful in the area of science and technology policy.  The decadal survey takes a look at these fields every ten years to see where resources should be focused.  From the Statement of Task:

“The Astro2010 committee will survey the field of space- and ground-based astronomy and astrophysics, recommending priorities for the most important scientific and technical activities of the decade 2010-2020.

“The principal goals of the study will be to carry out an assessment of activities in astronomy and astrophysics, including both new and previously identified concepts, and to prepare a concise report that will be addressed to the agencies supporting the field, the Congressional committees with jurisdiction over those agencies, and the scientific community.”

Now, there is no similar process currently underway in science and technology policy (either in practice or in research), and the field may not be sufficiently mature or coherent enough that such an effort could be transferred in whole from the astrophysics and astronomy fields.  But I think this kind of broader assessment could be useful in a number of ways.  Some possibilities:

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Scientific Blogging reported recently on a November meeting of a new council of the European Science Foundation.  The main point of the article is an increased, organized effort to combat scientific fraud.  This is not to say that it’s on the rise or anything of that sort.  However, unlike the United States (and surprising to me) there is no group or agency within the EC with investigatory or subpoena power to look into incidents of scientific fraud – whether it is falsification, fabrication or plagiarism.

The main objective of the Research Integrity Forum is to encourage convergence toward common standards of conduct, examination and sanction – if needed – for research misconduct.  If the trend towards more and more collaboration continues (and it’s hard to see it not increasing), some commonalities will be needed to iron out disputes that eventually happen.