National Academy of Sciences

This grant will support the Institute of Medicine with the National Academy of Sciences to plan and convene a two-day public workshop on "Lessons Learned in the Conduct of Large Scale, Complex, Multi-National Global Health Program Evaluations". The goal of this workshop is to capture and share the state of the art in evaluation science and to inform the planning and implementation of future large scale evaluations.

The Academy set a vision for science education when it released a framework for new K-12 standards in 2010. Now it plans to design blueprints for assessments that would include measurement of deeper learning skills. We propose a partnership with the Carnegie Corporation and the Bechtel Fund to support this work, which likely will lead to a follow-up request in 2013 to fund new assessments of deeper learning in science.

The National Academies’ Committee on Science, Technology, and Law seeks $10,000 from the Hewlett Foundation to support travel of experts and other related expenses for a June 2012 meeting to discuss the feasibility of a professional school course on science, law, and policy. This meeting is a follow-on from a January 2012 meeting co-chaired by Dr. Bruce Alberts and Mr. Paul Brest. NAS posits that graduates of professional schools (e.g., in law, public policy, and business) require scientific and technical knowledge to support their decision-making, but that most of these graduates lack a fundamental understanding of the methods, social and intellectual practices, goals, achievements, and/or limitations of the sciences. The June 2012 meeting is intended to help plan for the development of this curriculum by: a) Developing a mission statement/report on the importance of the problem of scientific literacy in decision-making and the justification for the initial focus on professional schools; b) Generating ideas about case studies that could demonstrate the importance of improving understanding of "scientific reality" in a variety of decision-making settings: legislative, regulatory, litigation, standard-setting and business; c) Considering development of a curated web-site to house existing materials, new materials, and possibly host forums for debates on emerging problems. Following the June 2012 meeting, staff will work with the co-chairs to develop a project plan and strategy.