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4 Strengthening the Scientific and Technological Capabilities of the EPA Scientific Enterprise
Pages 60-73

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From page 60...
... Those actions are not, however, sufficient to ensure that ORD has the capabilities to fully embrace this new framework and to be well positioned for identifying and integrating scientific and technical advances into its research and development enterprise in the coming years. To that end, in this chapter the committee identifies four major actions ORD should take to ensure that it can implement systems thinking for a One Environment–One Health approach in the most effective way: • Integrating a culture of innovation throughout ORD; • Increasing collaboration with other government agencies, the broader science community, and other partners; • Expanding and improving the quality and accessibility of ORD's communications and out reach; and • Enhancing the integration of scientific and technological advances and innovative approaches through leadership, its people, and the effective application of resources.
From page 61...
... Small Business Innovation Research ● Water treatment technology that photocatalytically mineralizes Program: provides funding to small businesses PFAS. to develop and commercialize innovative ● Technology that combines methane and volatile organic compound technologies that address environmental needs, capture to reduce pollution in the oil and gas industry.
From page 62...
... Increasingly, research enter prises construct multiple partnerships to integrate a variety of research strengths and attributes. • Senior leadership articulates and supports the inclusion of innovative research in the organiza tion's agenda and budgets.
From page 63...
... . Examples of more recent collaborative research topics include nontargeted analysis trials, reducing exposures to wildland fire smoke, innovations in electronic health records; and advancing response and recovery capabilities from wide-area contamination incidents.5 In addition, ORD specifically has maintained a history of research collaborations with the extramural scientific community to generate scientific information relevant to policy development and assessment of risks through the multi-decade Science to Achieve Results (STAR)
From page 64...
... However, there are major challenges that hinder new thinking and more entrepreneurial behavior, including administrative complexity that lengthens the time needed to develop collaborations; shorter-term research obligations for staff that frequently cause priorities and resources to shift and leave little room for high-risk/high-reward research; organizational inertia that results from a preference for maintaining the status quo; and a lack of sufficient cultural knowledge and interpersonal relationships for developing and managing collaborative relationships outside the boundaries of familiar disciplines.7 Despite the challenges mentioned above, there are substantial benefits for ORD, and EPA more generally, to be gained from participating at a broader and deeper scale of collaboration. The benefits include: ● Gaining access to talented professionals across a range of disciplines and institutions; ● Constituency building and early buy-in within EPA and the external research community; ● Leveraging EPA's resources with those of other organizations to investigate scientific issues on a more comprehensive scale; 6 See https://www.epa.gov/water-research/cyanobacteria-assessment-network-cyan.
From page 65...
... Leadership can also look for ways to streamline the organizational process for collaboration so that participants can more readily overcome many of the current bureaucratic obstacles that deter development of external partnerships. Additional decisions and planning elements include: ● Expanding the recruitment of not only qualified scientific personnel but also those that embody ethnic and racial diversity and possess interpersonal skills and cultural humility necessary for effective stakeholder engagement.
From page 66...
... Ongoing debates include the morality and efficacy of mandating COVID-19 vaccinations, assessing the potential health co-benefits from instituting controls of mercury emissions from industrial sources, and long-term opposition to the scientific consensus for regulating carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The difficulty of these challenges is intensified by the fact that many of the tools traditionally used by scientists and regulatory agencies -- presentation of scientific data at professional conferences, publication of scientific studies in the peer-reviewed literature, and public comment opportunities for scientific documents used in regulatory proceedings -- are necessary but no longer sufficient to meet expanded public expectations for transparency and clarity of data use.
From page 67...
... In addition, cross-agency science committees, such as the EPA Science and Technology Policy Council and the Risk Assessment Forum, can play a key role in this regard. The Science and Technology Policy Council is composed of senior executives from across the agency for the purpose of identifying critical science and technology issues and developing and implementing policies to help advance EPA's mission priorities.10 The Risk Assessment Forum, which consists of senior scientists from across EPA, was established to facilitate agency-wide consensus on difficult and controversial risk assessment issues and ensure that the consensus is incorporated into appropriate EPA risk assessment guidance.11 9 See https://www.epa.gov/report-environment.
From page 68...
... Although these latter areas are established, there needs to be continuing attention paid to identifying emerging hazards and addressing areas of toxicology that have not been well studied, such as the role of epigenetic changes in health and disease as well as the growing attention to New Approach Methods. For areas such as biotechnology and epidemiology, sufficient expertise would be needed to provide the agency with competent guidance and the ability to identify collaboration opportunities, including grants, that leverage expertise outside of EPA.
From page 69...
... The practice of co-creation among multiple partners and enterprises is a major pathway that innovative organizations take in their quest to develop solutions at scale. ORD has historically developed a number of innovative research initiatives in such fields as computational toxicology, combustion engineering, exposure assessment, and investigations of specific individual pollutants.
From page 70...
... ● Develops criteria for how ORD should select its collaboration partners. ● Expands core collaboration skills by recruiting qualified scientific personnel who embody eth nic and racial diversity and possess interpersonal skills necessary for developing and managing collaboration opportunities at different levels of scale and across multiple sets of institutions.
From page 71...
... ● Integrating ORD's scientific enterprise into a broader network that promotes scientific literacy and understanding through professional societies, educational institutions, business and envi ronmental organizations, and networks of volunteers. Leadership Finding: The success of ORD in integrating scientific and technological advances into its research and development enterprise depends on strong support from EPA leadership and involvement of personnel from agency program offices and regional offices in the planning and implementation of research, as well as the application of research results.
From page 72...
... It should also develop and maintain enough expertise in areas such as biotechnology and epidemiology to provide the agency with competent scientific guidance and identify collaboration opportunities, including grants that leverage expertise outside EPA. Identifying Strategic Resources for the Future of EPA Science Finding: ORD has had a precipitous decline in total funding, personnel, and the amount of extramural research support it can provide.
From page 73...
... https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-08/documents/chickasaw _mou_fact_sheet_081016.pdf. EPA SAB (Science Advisory Board)


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