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Category: Energy R&D

Jim O’Neill nominated as NSF director

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President Trump has nominated Jim O’Neill to serve as Director of the National Science Foundation. His name was among a list of nominations sent to the Senate yesterday morning. O’Neill was removed from his position as deputy secretary of HHS last month as part of a broader restructuring, which also saw Jay Bhattacharya named acting CDC director. The NSF has been without a permanent leader since last April, when director Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned as the Trump administration cut hundreds of research grants and proposed massive budget cuts.

O’Neill served as a senior HHS official during the George W. Bush administration, before moving to the private sector, where he worked closer with Peter Thiel. He was the managing director at Thiel’s Mithril Capital Management and also served as CEO of the Thiel Foundation, before joining the second Trump administration as deputy HHS secretary. If confirmed by the Senate, O’Neill would be the first non-scientist to lead the NSF.

Energy Department Launches Genesis Mission Consortium

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Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the launch of the Genesis Mission Consortium, a historic public-private partnership advancing the Department’s Genesis Mission to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) in accelerating scientific discovery.

Building on President Trump’s Executive Orders Launching The Genesis Mission and Removing Barriers to American Leadership In Artificial Intelligence, the consortium brings together technical capabilities and expertise from the private sector, academic institutions, and mission teams at the DOE and the 17 National Laboratories.

As described in the launch announcement, “the consortium will help identify high-value partnerships among its members and external stakeholders, strengthening collaborative responses to funding opportunities. It will amplify DOE’s outreach by promoting solicitations, executing agreements, and tracking project successes. Functioning as a collaborative hub, the consortium will serve as a single, coordinated access point for members and their resources.”

For more information on the Genesis Mission Consortium, visit www.genesismissionconsortium.org.

 

February 12 Update:

The DOE built upon the Genesis Mission launch by announcing 26 science and technology challenges. “These challenges represent a bold step toward a future where science moves at the speed of imagination because of AI. It’s a game-changer for science, energy, and national security,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science and Genesis Mission Lead Dr. Darío Gil. “By uniting the U.S. Government’s unparalleled data resources and DOE’s experimental facilities with cutting-edge AI, we can unlock discoveries that will power the economy, secure our energy future, and keep America at the forefront of global innovation.” For the full list of challenges, visit https://www.energy.gov/documents/genesis-mission-science-and-technology-challenges.

WH Launches Genesis Mission for AI

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On November 24, President Trump signed an Executive Order entitled Launching the Genesis Mission, which establishes a coordinated national effort to unleash a new age of AI‑accelerated innovation and discovery.

    • Full text can be found here
    • The Fact Sheet can be found here
    • An additional article from the White House can be found here

Some highlights:

    • The EO launches the Genesis Mission to transform the use of AI in how scientific research is conducted and accelerate the speed of scientific discovery.
    • The Secretary of Energy will leverage the National Labs to create a cooperative research system, focusing on computing power and data.
    • DOE will create a closed-loop AI experimentation platform to integrate supercomputers and data assets to generate a foundation model as well as power robotic laboratories.
    • The Secretary of Energy will establish and operate the American Science and Security Platform to serve as the infrastructure for the Mission.
    • The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (Kratsios), will coordinate the national initiative and integrate data and infrastructure from across the government.
    • The Asst. to the President for S&T is also tasked with coordinating with NSF, NIST, NIH and other federal agencies.
    • The Secretary of Energy, Assistant to the President for S&T, and the Special Advisor for AI & Crypto (Sacks) will collaborate with academia and the private sector to support the Mission.
    • The EO also outlines focus areas to be addressed by the Mission:
      • biotechnology, critical materials, nuclear fission and fusion energy, space exploration, quantum information science, and semiconductors and microelectronics.
    • The EO also directs the Secretary of Energy to share a list with the Asst. to the President for S&T of at least 20 science and technology challenges of national importance that the Secretary assesses to have potential to be addressed through the Mission.

Trump Administration Releases FY27 Research Priorities Document

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On Thursday, the Trump Administration released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities and Cross-Cutting Actions Document. The document, signed by OMB Director Russ Vought and OSTP Director Michael Krastios, outlines the administration’s research priorities, describing its mission to align the government’s “role in the S&T enterprise to once again drive R&D that is bold, mission-driven, and unapologetically in service of the American people.”

Vought and Krastios list 5 top administration priorities in the coming fiscal year. The priorities are to:

  1. Ensure Unrivaled American Leadership in Critical and Emergin Technologies
  2. Unleash American Energy Dominance and Explore New Frontiers
  3. Strengthen American Security
  4. Strengthen and Safeguard American Health and Biotechnology
  5. Assure America’s Continued Space Dominance

The memorandum also describes the administration’s intent to undertake a number of crosscutting actions to “usher in the Golden Age of American Innovation.” These include:

  1. Implementing and Supporting Gold Standard Science
  2. Building the S&T Workforce of the Future
  3. Expanding and Making Accessible World-Class Research Infrastructure
  4. Revitalizing and Strengthening America’s S&T Ecosystem
  5. Focusing on High-Value Research Efforts.

Specifics regarding each priority can be found in the document linked above.

 

 

 

 

Trump Signs Executive Orders on Nuclear Energy & Federal Research

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Last week, President Trump signed two Executive Orders on nuclear energy and Gold Standard Science.

The Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base order seeks to expedite and promote the production and operation of nuclear energy in America by streamlining regulations, allowing reactor construction on federal lands, and requiring the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue licensing decisions within 18 months. The orders also promote uranium mining and enrichment to strengthen the domestic nuclear fuel supply.

Meanwhile, the Restoring Gold Standard Science Executive Order mandates that federally funded research adhere to stricter principles of transparency and reproducibility standards. The Executive Order cites falling public trust in scientific research as justification for the new instructions, which include new definitions for numerous terms and strict enforcement guidelines. The new procedures are set to take place within 30 days.