As wildfires ravage the West Coast , the COVID-19 pandemic continues to exact a toll on the state as its citizens grapple with the economic fallout and businesses face uncertainty. The country is bracing itself for a good greater host of challenges within the coming months: the onset of the seasonal flu, uncertainty round the availability of a COVID-19 vaccine, underdeveloped telehealth systems, navigating the challenges of online learning and remote work that needs access to a robust digital infrastructure and broadband. These challenges underscore the urgent need for renewed investment within the science and technology enterprise and therefore the rapid application of latest knowledge domain and advanced technology to unravel complex problems.

One thing is clear: subsequent presidential administration must renew its commitment to investing in science and technology no matter who wins in November. We write as a gaggle of leaders from across science, technology and innovation who have served within the Executive Office of the President , Congress, academia and therefore the private sector, now joining together on a nonpartisan basis to unite behind ambitious ideas suggests by the Day One Project to form the generational investments this country must address its stubborn challenges and transform every American’s life for the higher .

The Day One Project was launched in January 2020 to create a portfolio of innovative and actionable ideas across science, technology and innovation policy to tell the priorities of subsequent administration. The Project, which is non-partisan, aims to place forth forward-leaning proposals to deal with pressing challenges including responding to the health and depression resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and delivering a vaccine, the proliferation of devastating wildfires, addressing racial and gender equity, ensuring economic process , boosting American national security, rebuilding institutional capacity of Federal institutions tasked with science and technology work, also as elevating the role of science, technology, and innovation within the policymaking process.

In the 1950s and 1960s, successive presidents challenged the state to explore a once-unimaginable frontier—and American ingenuity delivered, with NASA producing both the most important rocket in history and therefore the precise machinery necessary to form the trip to the moon. within the 1970s and 1980s, this nation made rapid advances in computing, boldly proposing that the pc might be a tool for everybody , and created military and intelligence technologies so powerful that they helped recast geopolitics.

In the 1990s, the U.S. served because the center of the international Human Genome Project, with American scientists daring to undertake a challenging mission that has since revolutionized the sector of biology. within the past 20 years , American innovators led the development of a whole economy around network connections and servers, connecting over three billion people worldwide and putting the world’s knowledge at anyone’s fingertips.

In the future, the us has the chance to still lead the way in science and technology. Scientific and technological innovation are the engine of America’s essential contract with its citizens: to make sure national security, to advance public health and environmental quality and to realize sustained and inclusive economic prosperity. Rooted during a rich history of yank ingenuity, this contract represents a shared expectation by the people of this country that American innovation will play an important role in meeting this country’s most vital challenges. But events during this year alone explain such progress won’t happen if science and technology are taken without any consideration .

The COVID-19 pandemic might be remembered solely for its immense human and economic costs—or it could also mark a chance to reimagine health with prevention and equity at the core and a pivot to recommit the science and technology enterprise to making a far better American future. to urge these benefits―and the advances in numerous other aspects of national well-being and security that depend upon science and technology―the American science and technology community must cultivate and lift up diverse perspectives across race, gender and background, tapping the complete potential of this nation to take care of the country’s global edge up innovation. it’ll also require embracing other nations as partners, working with allies on topics driving national security and economic competitiveness, and building broader coalitions on global challenges during which all have a standard stake.

Two critical rebuilding efforts are needed to supply the foundations for the work ahead. the primary is to reinvigorate government institutions of science, technology and innovation and repose on existing strengths during this nation’s ecosystem of government-funded research in universities and national laboratories, entrepreneurial innovation in companies big and little , and public-private partnerships to accelerate the transition from research discoveries to applications within the national interest. The second critical effort is to get the groundwork for the fundamentally new modes of research project and innovation that a number of the nation’s challenges would require like rising inequality and therefore the need for more comprehensive, forward-leaning approaches to global climate change , ecological impoverishment and infectious disease .

New ideas abound, from funding models that reward high-risk research to new mechanisms that bridge the divide from lab to plug . Getting these ideas embraced and funded would enjoy the commitment of each American who believes within the promise of scientific and technological innovation. Each generation has the selection of the way to best start a path to progress. Previous generations created the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and therefore the refore the refore the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; landed astronauts on the moon; orbited satellites to watch the state of the Earth’s environment and the activities of this country’s potential adversaries; invented the web and the smartphone; harvested electricity from the sun; and produced generation after generation of increases within the American standard of living. the present moment would require a response of comparable ambition that seeks to incorporate every American and builds U.S. capacity in every postcode .

Leadership from the U.S. government is required to assist leverage the science and technology community and work towards ideas which will shape our nation’s future for the better—starting with build up the science and technology capacity in executive-branch departments and elevating the role of science and technology within the federal policymaking process. As former leaders and veterans of variety of federal science and technology institutions, we all know rebuilding these organizations requires commitment and expertise from day one among subsequent presidency . Whether President Trump wins a second term or vice chairman Joe Biden becomes subsequent commander-in-chief, subsequent administration must make investments in science and technology a core priority. Equally important, the entire science and technology community must work to make sure the public’s trust in science and evidence.

Of course, the federal alone cannot accomplish what’s needed; creating robust partnerships with industry, academia and with state and native governments are going to be critical to the present renewed commitment to reinvigorating the science-society partnership. The Day One Project is functioning with experts and new voices to assist shape the agenda of subsequent presidency , and to convert ambitious new ideas into usable policy proposals that generate impact. there’s such a lot that must be done; we must be prepared on day one.