According to Science Magazine, a new science adviser may soon join President Donald Trump’s team. Trump announced on August 2, that he intends to nominate meteorologist Kelvin Droegemeier, a university administrator and former vice-chair of the governing board of the U.S. National Science Foundation, to be director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. This decision made after 560 days, double the amount of time taken by any other president to name a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director.

Droegemeier’s position would mean advising the president on technical issues and overseeing coordination of federal science policy. With Droegemeir in office, the science community has high hopes for the future of climate change and his ability to advocate for it.

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U.S. Energy Department Moves to Open Access

ECS Open Access Word CloudWe have been beating the drum about open access here at ECS for some time. This taken from Interface magazine over one year ago:

Commercial publishers have learned that the subscription-based model could be played to their enormous benefit, placing a further cost on the scholarly publishing system. There has been a proliferation of new journals being added to subscription packages, burdening library budgets with additional journals and without providing reciprocal scientific value. This has been coupled with the excessively high prices being charged by many scientific publishers for the dissemination of technical knowledge, and collectively the money now being extracted from the process is stifling scientific advancement. (Read the rest.)

(We noted when Tesla was getting it right, too.)

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