Agenda for national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine

This category includes merit-based autonomous institutions, in which peers elect new members in recognition of their distinguished and continuing professional achievements, elect their own officials, perform programs of independent work, and inform the general public and national decisionmakers on science and technology aspects of public policies.

1. Participate in national efforts to identify national S&T goals and priorities

Academies should help the national government to develop a national science and technology strategy that specifies priorities for research and development that address national needs in areas such as agriculture, health, industrial development, and the environment.
It is essential that the academies actively participate in national and international debates to make the voices of science and technology heard on a broad range of issues.
The national academies should become more actively involved in bringing together the private and public sectors; and they should work across sectoral and national boundaries to help promote collaboration between the industrialized and developing nations, as well as among the developing nations. Scientists and engineers can play especially productive roles here in articulating creative proposals for different countries and sectors.

2. Help the government to assess strengths and weaknesses of national capacities for achieving national S&T goals

Academies should help in the performance of reviews by national research organizations of their personnel, curricular, and research programs. Given the relatively modest scientific capacity of most developing nations, their merit reviews should ideally include appropriate experts from other nations. Such involvement of the global research community, possibly through a program of international cooperation among academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine, can make the merit review processes in developing nations more effective, and not just for particular programs but in general.

3. Provide S&T advice to government

Academies should develop robust and dependable mechanisms to provide advice to governments on scientific and technological questions related to public policies and programs.

4. Encourage new centers of excellence that address issues of national need

Academies should help facilitate the future planning for and creation of centers of excellence - whether of local, national, regional, or international status. Such centers can serve as the main nodes for individuals or groups charged with enhancing S&T knowledge of national and even regional importance.
Academies should encourage centers of excellence to have institutional autonomy, sustainable financial support, knowledgeable and capable leadership, international input, focused research agendas that include interdisciplinary themes, applied research as well as basic research, technology transfer, peer review as a systemic element, merit-based hiring and promotion policies, and mechanisms for nurturing new generations of S&T talent.

5. Promote the upgrading of ongoing research programs that address issues of national need

Academies should participate in the evaluation of all existing research programs and centers of excellence. Techniques for such procedures should include, as appropriate, peer review teams, relevance -review panels, or benchmarking studies.
New scientific and technological research projects should be decided on the basis of input from expert review, with each project and program evaluated for both technical merit and its potential benefits to society.

6. Promote the upgrading of educational programs and institutions

Science and engineering academies and other S&T organizations should also be involved in teacher training and the production of materials needed for students' S&T education. Scientists should be encouraged to visit schools at all levels to support teachers and give well-designed presentations to promote science to the young. The InterAcademy Panel (IAP) and many national academies are already engaged in promoting programs that connect scientists to teachers, school systems, and curricular change, and the results of their experiences should be widely shared and disseminated.

7. Provide information on S&T issues of importance to the public

Academies should disseminate the results of research relevant to national needs and the implications of new scientific and technological knowledge for effective public policies.