CoR NEWSMarch 22, 2017
To: APLU Council on ResearchFrom: APLU CoR Staff
- CoR in the News
- Kelvin Droegemeier Appointed Oklahoma Secretary of Science and Technology
- Administration’s FY2018 Budget Blueprint – Additional Analysis
- Safeguarding of Controlled Unclassified Information Letter
- Apply for Campus Leader and Institutional Research Safety Awards by March 31st
- Nominations for National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation Accepted through April 7th
“Trump needs R&D to run government like a business,” an op-ed written by CoR Executive Committee member David Conover (VPR at the University of Oregon) and Geraldine Richmond was published in this morning’s Oregonian. Congratulations, David!
Past CoR Executive Committee Chair Kelvin Droegemeier was recently appointed to join Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin’s Cabinet as Secretary of Science and Technology. Kelvin will maintain his VPR role at the University of Oklahoma and add this new role, in which he hopes to have many positive impacts on science and STEM in the state. Congratulations, Kelvin!
Last week, the Trump administration released its FY2018 budget blueprint, proposing a $54 billion increase for national defense discretionary budget authority and a reduction of $54 billion for nondefense discretionary programs. The budget blueprint provides an outline of the administration’s agency and program funding requests. The administration is expected to release a full FY2018 budget request in May 2017. APLU released a statement and provided an initial analysis of the budget blueprint on March 16th. The documents related to the administration’s FY2018 budget blueprint are available at the following website: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget.
There are a couple of additional items which were not included in the initial analysis last week. In outlining the proposed $5.8 billion cut to and the major reorganization of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the blueprint indicates, “The Budget also reduces administrative costs and rebalances Federal contributions to research funding.” Further, the budget blueprint proposes decreasing the FY2017 non-defense discretionary caps by $15 billion (3 percent) from $519 billion to $504 billion to help offset the cost of the border wall and the FY2017 Defense Appropriations Supplemental request.
APLU, AAU, COGR, and EDUCAUSE recently submitted a letter to the Department of Homeland Security concerning HSAR 2015-001, “Safeguarding of Controlled Unclassified Information.” Our associations remain concerned about the implications of compliance requirements for protecting Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in non-Federal information systems, such as those operated by our member institutions. The proposed HSAR 2015-001 rule appears to confuse rather than clarify the applicability of government security requirements applicable to CUI and conflicts with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Final Rule on CUI. The DHS rule is the initial agency acquisition regulation issued subsequent to the NARA rule, making it even more important for our organizations to take a stand and prevent an unfortunate precedent.
APLU is partnering with the Campus Safety Health and Environmental Management Association (CSHEMA) to offer both institutional and individual awards that recognize outstanding programs and innovations that improve research safety on campus. If your institution has made advances in research safety, consider applying for one of these two awards here:
Innovation Award
The CSHEMA Innovation Award seeks to honor the achievement of institutions that have implemented innovative process improvements, resource enhancements, or initiatives to improve the culture of safety on campus.
Campus Leaders Who Care Award
The Campus Leaders Who Care Award recognizes outstanding involvement and support of senior administrators for their understanding of how important health, safety, and environmental stewardship is to their institution.
Please let Kacy Redd (kredd@aplu.org) know of any questions you may have regarding the application process for these awards.
- Nominations for National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation Accepted through April 7th
The National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation programs recognize the top American contributors to the scientific and technological frontier regardless of creed, gender, sexual orientation, or political party. The NMS and NMTI Laureates are nominated by the people – by members of the scientific community and citizens of this country – and nominations are being accepted right now until April 7th for the next cohort of Laureates. We have a duty as supporters of STEM excellence to continue to submit nominations for the highest American honors in these fields. Medal of Science nominations (which require three letters of recommendation) may be submitted via NSF’s FastLane system, and Medal of Technology and Innovation nominations (which require six letters of recommendation) may be submitted via this webform. Thank you for supporting the achievements of our Nation’s best and brightest scientists and technologists.
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