White House Organizes Summit On STEMM Equity and Excellence

The STEMM Opportunity Alliance will galvanise stakeholders to achieve STEMM equity and excellence across the five action areas of the national vision by 2050.

White House Organizes Summit On STEMM Equity and Excellence

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF), and over 90 partners from across the scientific enterprise, including government, academia, philanthropy, industry, and community organisations, convened at a White House Summit on STEMM Equity and Excellence on Monday to signal the importance of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to achieve statewide success.

The summit also set the stage for the launch of the STEMM Opportunity Alliance (SOA), a national effort by AAAS with the support of the DDCF that will galvanise stakeholders to achieve STEMM equity and excellence by 2050. This initiative will bring together organisations and entities from various sectors and scientific communities who are dedicated to developing and advancing a national strategy for achieving shared equity goals in STEMM.

Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced new actions to transform the American science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) ecosystem by dramatically expanding access and opportunities and strengthening America’s global competitiveness. The new actions respond to the President’s Day 1 call to advance equity for people who have historically been underserved, marginalised, and negatively impacted by poverty and inequality.

The American STEMM ecosystem excludes and diverts too many talented individuals, limiting opportunities for discovery and innovation and limiting our country’s potential. People of color, rural communities, women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people have long navigated the STEMM fields at a structural disadvantage. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to removing systemic barriers to STEMM participation and ensuring that all Americans have the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from science, technology, and innovation.

OSTP is presenting a national vision for transforming the American science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine ecosystems at the first-ever White House Summit on STEMM Equity and Excellence. The Summit will bring together people from all sectors of STEMM, including government and business, civic, education, nonprofit, community-based, and philanthropic organisations, who are committed to working together to create a more equitable and excellent science and technology ecosystem, and will include remarks from Dr. Arati Prabhakar, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Brian Deese, Director of the National Economic Council, John Pode, and others.

“Our Nation depends on a diverse, skilled STEM workforce that is ready to take on the challenges of the twenty-first century, from expanding US leadership in space exploration to addressing the climate crisis,” said Vice President Kamala Harris. “That is why our Administration is committed to empowering and instructing the next generation of innovators and removing the barriers to these talented individuals achieving their full potential. “We can prepare our nation’s STEM workforce and create educational and economic opportunity for future generations by bringing government, civil society, and the private sector together.”

“Achieving STEMM excellence and equity means supporting a strong and diverse teacher pipeline. “If we want to attract more bright, talented people to the fields of science and technology—if we want educators to be able to do what they do best — we must provide them with the support and respect they deserve,” said First Lady Jill Biden. “The White House Summit on STEMM Equity and Excellence is advancing critical efforts to strengthen the pathway for people of colour to become STEMM educators and to ensure that all educators have access to the resources they need to continue doing this incredible job for years and years to come.”

The national vision is based on more than a year of nationwide engagement with students and teachers, workers in the science and technology sectors, researchers, innovators, and entrepreneurs, education and university leaders, grassroots organisers and community scientists, business leaders, state and federal STEMM policymakers, and others. Each of the five actions, taken together, will expand opportunities across the STEMM ecosystem for people and communities that have been historically excluded from these sectors, from elementary and higher education and those seeking training and employment to funding, research, and development.

First and foremost, we must ensure that every individual has the opportunity to participate in and contribute to science and technology throughout their lives. Second, we must invest in the critically important STEMM teacher pipeline. Third, we must increase equity in investment in communities, institutions, and people who have historically been denied access to STEMM resources. Fourth, we must acknowledge and address the fact that the scientific culture has for far too long tolerated outright, blatant bias and discrimination—and then dismantle it.

Equity is still widely regarded as a luxury in academic institutions, businesses, and by others teaching and applying science, in part because it is difficult to quantify. So, fifth, we must close the STEMM information gap by producing better and more comprehensive data, developing shared indicators, and committing to greater transparency so that science and society can be held accountable.

To drive real change across these five action areas, OSTP is announcing a historic slate of actions from government as well as philanthropy, industry, education, research, and community organisations totaling more than $1.2 billion in STEMM work, investments, and opportunities. Together, these commitments will move our country toward a more equitable STEMM ecosystem, with the potential to dramatically broaden the boundaries of who contributes to, participates in, and benefits from American science, technology, and innovation.

“When we remove barriers to participation and build better onramps—to education, work, and research—we enable everyone to benefit from scientific advances and new solutions to this century’s most pressing issues,” said Dr. Arati Prabhakar, the President’s Chief Advisor for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Today, we are laying out a vision that will assist us in achieving one of America’s greatest aspirations: providing every individual with the opportunity to reach their full potential.”

With support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) and over 90 partner institutions from industry, education, research infrastructure, community organisations, and philanthropy, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has launched the STEMM Opportunity Alliance (SOA), a first-of-its-kind national initiative to lead and coordinate this and future cross-sector action to sustain American global leadership by achieving equity across STEMM.

The SOA will galvanise stakeholders to achieve STEMM equity and excellence across the five action areas of the national vision by 2050. This initiative will bring together organisations and entities from various sectors and scientific communities who are dedicated to developing and advancing a strategy for achieving shared national equity goals in STEMM. To date, more than $4 million has been committed to launching SOA and seeding the initial years of its catalytic impact.

“From pandemic preparedness to clean energy to supply chain independence, the Nation’s priorities rely on a wide range of science and technology skills and expertise,” said Dr. Alondra Nelson, Deputy Assistant to the President and OSTP Principal Deputy Director for Science and Society. “By responding to these five core action areas with intention and focus, we can meet these critical goals and galvanise action across sectors to achieve an equitable, thriving, and eminent science and technology ecosystem for the United States.”

“Diversity of thought is necessary for scientific excellence,” said Dr. Sudip S. Parikh, Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and executive publisher of the Science family of journals. “America’s diverse talent gives us a critical competitive global advantage, but to capitalise on recent investments and meet future demand, we must eliminate systemic barriers that limit who can participate in STEMM. A clear and accountable national strategy will enable the scientific excellence required to power new innovations and meet formidable future challenges with a uniquely American perspective.”

“An equitable science is not a luxury; it is a necessity if we want to live in a just and competitive country in the twenty-first century,” said Sam Gill, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. “The breadth of partners and depth of commitments in today’s event signal a historic opportunity to work across sectors and fields to make equity in science a reality.”

The Administration has championed new transformative investments in American innovation: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Executive Order Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation, and others are empowering American institutions, research, and development, and this initiative will further ensure that innovation will continue to make life better, safer, and more prosperous for all for future generations.

The new actions announced today will help to ensure that the historic momentum in science and technology yields equitable results for all communities, regardless of race, zip code, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, region, or disability. As President Biden has stated, “we can channel the full talents of all our people into a greater measure of hope and opportunity for our nation and the world.”

Originally published at EurekAlert