Two Duke University PhD candidates have been awarded a $25,000 grant to study the feasibility of establishing a North Carolina Science and Technology Policy Fellowship Program.
The California Council on Science and Technology, in partnership with the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Simons Foundation, is funding multiple grants to support planning processes for creating immersive science and technology policy fellowship programs in state legislature.
Few state legislators have backgrounds in science, engineering or technology, yet they are routinely called on to make decisions on issues with complicated scientific and technological components. The Fellowship Program would provide the state legislature with non-partisan science PhDs to assist them in grappling with the complex issues of science underlying many legislative initiatives.
Andrew George and Dan Keeley, students in the Duke PhD program in Biology, won their bid for North Carolina with support from Science & Society, the Sanford School for Public Policy, the Duke Government Affairs Office and the North Carolina Sea Grant Program.
“We are going to have to work hard to engage public and private universities, business, and non-profits as well as legislators and members of the executive branch throughout the entire process to ensure that we are creating a fellowship that best serves the needs of the fellows and state policy,” says George. “A primary challenge of implementation is the difference in structure of the legislatures.”
To learn more, read the full article on the Duke Science & Society website.