Stories

To open the February issue of the Civic Science Series, Khara Ramos, Vice President of Neuroscience & Society at the Dana Foundation, reflects on the importance of civic science for meeting the grand challenges of today and the future. This contribution draws on Dr. Ramos’s remarks at a recent gathering of Civic Science Fellows and partners at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts.       

Grand challenges are ambitious but achievable. They are goals that harness science, technology, and innovation to solve important national or global problems. They capture the public’s imagination. Our challenge today is to continue developing people and capacity critical to envisioning and achieving future scientific and technological grand challenges.

I had the extraordinary opportunity to be part of the team that launched one of the previous decade’s grand challenges. In April 2013, President Obama announced the BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). The goal was to build new neurotechnologies to help understand the neural basis of perception, emotion, cognition, and behavior, and to precisely modulate those functions when they go awry in the many brain-based conditions that affect nearly every one of us. As a neuroscientist who began working at the NIH as a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow and spent nearly 10 years at the agency, I was thrilled to contribute to this incredibly optimistic, pro-science, ambitious challenge.

Thinking back, the vision statement for the NIH BRAIN Initiative captured some of the challenges we encountered, but not all of them. The critical issues it identified included overcoming siloed expertise; a stalling out of neurotechnologies available to advance our understanding of the brain; the urgent need to foster the next generation of transdisciplinary researchers; marshalling the resources needed for this work; and the ethical, legal, and societal implications of achieving the vision for the BRAIN Initiative.

My work focused on building neuroethics strategy, policy, and programs into the Initiative. Our concerns included uncertainty on how these neurotechnologies would develop; how neurotechnologies funded by the federal government might make their way into the hands of those with morally dubious aims; and how to ensure that these scientific advances would translate into brain health improvements for all. There were many other issues that arose, including tension between “hard science” and disciplines beyond science and engineering that are essential for addressing the humanistic questions that arise at the horizons of scientific inquiry. For example, should we use brain monitoring technologies in classrooms or workplaces to boost learning and productivity?

Also, when the BRAIN Initiative launched, there was no serious consideration given to engagement. The Initiative’s vision statement has scant mention of patient engagement, and it includes only a general call for public input on these federal investments. Now, more than 10 years on, a vision for a scientific grand challenge without a strong engagement element would be seen as lacking a key element. This is progress. In 2023 the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology released recommendations arguing that public engagement is core to a successful scientific enterprise, a significant signal of the evolving view of science in America.

We can draw on experience with the BRAIN Initiative and other grand challenges as we work on present day challenges such as AI. The issues described above are relevant to AI, but there are also some key differences. For example, because AI stands to permeate all aspects of society, there is no single clear locus of federal regulatory oversight. Further, the majority of AI R&D is happening in private industry, which has a nuanced relationship with government regulation. Another highly salient difference is that AI has supercharged the dissolution of an agreed-upon set of facts.

The Civic Science Fellows are working on all these threads, building relationships between traditionally siloed fields; between academia and broader communities they serve; and between researchers, policymakers and regulators, and publics. The fellowship program is producing individuals with unconventional skillsets that are essential for science, and inspiring examples of how civic science can produce a stunning array of positive outcomes for science and society. In light of the current crisis in science in the United States, this work is more essential than ever to ensure that we can achieve our next grand challenges. It is time to create a new vision of American science and build the partnerships and capacity needed to bring that vision to life.

Khara Ramos is Vice President of Neuroscience & Society at the Dana Foundation, a Civic Science Fellows funding partner and a member of the Civic Science Funders Collaborative.