COSSA’s 2007 Annual Report

Executive Director's Report

The past year once again challenged COSSA’s advocacy acumen. There were challenges to social/behavioral research as well as a roller-coaster Federal funding process. COSSA’s role promoting and defending the social and behavioral sciences flourished again. The year began with the takeover of the Congress by the Democrats, which meant new Committee Chairs and key staff people. Also in January, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2007, which began on October 1, 2006, appropriations’ process remained unfinished. COSSA was in the midst of advocacy activities to help the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Census Bureau gain exemptions from the new Congress’ determination to simply fund all agencies at their previous year’s levels. COSSA’s efforts were successful.

In May, the NSF authorization bill reached the House floor. Once again the plan was to double the Foundation’s budget in seven years (the previous authorization had tried and failed to do so in five years). In an attempt to embarrass the new Democratic majority, leaders of the Republican Study Committee decided to launch an attack on already-funded grants with what they deemed “silly titles.” The defunding proposals were sponsored by Reps. John Campbell (R-CA) and Scott Garrett (R-NJ).

Representative Brian Baird Becomes A Champion

COSSA organized and coordinated the efforts to defeat the amendments. Working with its members and its allies, through connections built up over years of cooperation, in the scientific and higher education community, we reached out to sympathetic members of Congress willing to oppose these legislative provisions. Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), a Ph.D. psychologist and Chairman of the Research and Science Education Subcommittee, and Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), a Ph.D. physicist who is also the Ranking Republican on that Subcommittee, were magnificent in leading the fight on the House floor that ultimately defeated these amendments.

Later in the year, the NSF authorization became part of the America COMPETES Act, a massive piece of legislation to improve the Nation’s competitiveness through investment in science, technology, and science and math education. Baird succeeded in ensuring that the social sciences were included with the other sciences and engineering in NSF’s priorities.

Having Baird as Chair of the Subcommittee also gave him the power to set agendas and hold hearings on subjects of interest to him. COSSA worked with Subcommittee staff to help organize a series of hearings on the contributions of the social and behavioral sciences to public policy. In September, Baird held the first of these hearings, on social science contributions to the Nation’s energy challenge. More hearings are scheduled for early 2008.

The Ups and Downs of the FY 2008 Funding Game

The FY 2008 appropriations process also included highs and lows and some strange activity. As has happened in too many years recently, Congress did not complete its work on the domestic spending bills until after the fiscal year began. With the new Democratic majority the number of oversight hearings blossomed and once again outside groups were given the opportunity to press their case for the agencies they cared about. COSSA presented testimony to the House Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee in April. Because the Subcommittee has jurisdiction over five agencies that support social and behavioral science research, COSSA discussed budgets for NSF, Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the National Institute of Justice, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Unfortunately, the amount of time given each outside witness was limited and so COSSA had six minutes to promote the budgets of these five agencies.

COSSA also provided written testimony regarding the budgets of the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, the Institute of Educational Sciences, the International and Foreign Language programs of the Department of Education, and the research programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. COSSA also communicated with the Agriculture Committees about these research programs as they worked on the new Farm Bill.

In addition, Rep. David Price (D-NC) became the Chair of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations Subcommittee. This allowed COSSA to work closely with an old friend to help secure funds for DHS’s University Programs. This funding line provides support for DHS’ Centers of Excellence including the one devoted primarily to social/behavioral research at the University of Maryland, as well as the scholarship and fellowship programs, which help many of our graduate students.

As the appropriations process moved along through the summer and early fall, NSF had received significant increases, over ten percent, from both the House and Senate committees. However, there was an anomaly with the BJS budget in the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee had reduced BJS’s budget from $35 million to $10 million without explanation. COSSA organized efforts to ascertain why and to try and remedy the situation. Eventually, we were told that the $10 million was a “misprint” that would be corrected later on in the process.

The “later on” did not occur until late December as the Congress tried to avoid a post-Christmas session. Faced with President Bush’s unwillingness to budge from his insistence that Congress not exceed his cap for domestic discretionary spending, the Democratic leadership decided to reduce the funding increases for NSF to 2.5 percent, to provide less than a one percent increase for the NIH, and to pretty much level-fund at the previous year’s level everything else, including BJS.

The one exception was the Census Bureau which received its requested significant increase to continue its preparations for the 2010 count. COSSA, as a member of the 2010 Census Advisory Committee, has participated in many discussions regarding the march toward the upcoming decennial tally. COSSA had advocated for many years for the American Community Survey, which has made possible the elimination of the long-form Census questionnaire. With the dress rehearsal coming up in 2008 and the issue of using new technology for follow-up still up-in-the-air, the Census faces difficult challenges ahead. It will face those challenges with a new leader. After almost a year after Director Louis Kincannon’s announced resignation, Steve Murdock, the Texas state demographer, took over the reins of the Bureau.

Health and Behavior and Diversity Too

COSSA’s work with the NIH continued through our leadership of the Coalition for the Advancement of Health Through Behavioral and Social Science Research (CAHT-BSSR). David Abrams, Director of NIH’s Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR), met monthly with the group to discuss NIH’s activities regarding health and behavior. Abrams spoke at the COSSA Annual Meeting in December and then early in 2008 announced he would be leaving NIH in the spring.

Other COSSA foci at NIH included: pushing the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to be more inclusive of the social/behavioral sciences, which is evident in its new strategic plan; participating in meetings to discuss NIH’s efforts in personalized medicine, obesity, health disparities, and cancer prevention through behavioral interventions; monitoring the reassessment of NIH’s peer review process; and tracking the progress of the National Children's Study.

COSSA has also undertaken a major effort regarding “Enhancing Diversity in Science.” Significant planning for a retreat that will take place at the end of February 2008 took place in 2007. Under the leadership of COSSA’s Deputy Director for Health Policy, Angela Sharpe, a large group of professional associations across all the sciences will take part in this effort, supported by NIH, to build a scientific workforce that responds to the Nation’s increasingly diverse population.

n 2007, COSSA maintained its close ties to the National Academies’ Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE). Late in the year, COSSA testified to a newly formed panel assessing the research portfolio of the National Institute of Justice. Earlier in the year, COSSA participated in the release of the study of the Title VI programs of the U.S. Department of Education, whose committee was chaired by former COSSA President Janet Norwood. COSSA also monitored the release of the Academies’ report on Science and Security, whose panel it testified to at its first meeting in January 2006. DBASSE also continued its efforts on evidentiary social science and COSSA participated in those meetings, chaired by former Census Bureau Director and COSSA “Founding Father,” Ken Prewitt. In addition, COSSA was asked to make a presentation to the Committee on National Statistics on the budgetary outlook for statistical agencies.

Annual Meeting and COSSA Family Changes

The COSSA Annual meeting was held in early December, somewhat later than usual. We experimented with a morning that included concurrent sessions on issues where social/behavioral science research has made important contributions – Developing Human Capital and Global Issues of Climate Change, Economic Growth, and International Politics. Another panel examined the Peer Review processes at Federal agencies. In addition to Abrams’ address, the representatives of COSSA’s membership also heard a luncheon talk on the promises and perils of Nanotechnology from Julia Moore of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Nanotechnology Project.

This past year also saw changes in the leadership of COSSA’s Governing Members, with three new Executive Directors. The COSSA Executive Committee also had two new designated members from groups without Washington offices, bringing the turnover to five. I look forward to working with these new people as COSSA moves forward.

As always, I would like to thank the professional associations, scientific societies, universities, and research centers and institutes that support COSSA’s important work. I would also like to express my appreciation to the members of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors, COSSA staff, social and behavioral scientists on and off campus, colleagues in the scientific and higher education advocacy communities, Members and staff on Capitol Hill, and officials at Federal agencies, who make the work at COSSA continually interesting and challenging.

Howard J. Silver

Executive Director

February 2008

Howard J. Silver