The SSRC Joins the UN’s Scientific Advisory Network
The SSRC has been asked to join the UN’s new scientific advisory network, sharing insights into how the social and behavioral sciences might contribute to more effective science and technology policy. In this post, SSRC President Anna Harvey shares the SSRC’s initial contributions on the UN’s priority issues of artificial intelligence, climate change, and biotechnology.
The office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations has established a Scientific Advisory Board and associated network of scientific institutions to provide guidance to UN leaders on emerging science and technology policy issues. The S-G’s office invited the SSRC to be a member of this network, providing insight into how the social and behavioral sciences might contribute to more effective science and technology policy.
The initial areas of focus for the Scientific Advisory Board and its affiliated network are artificial intelligence, climate change, and biotechnology. We were asked to share with UN leaders our thoughts about how the SSRC’s work could help to inform more effective science and technology policy in these areas. Here’s a summary of our contributions:
- Better understanding the potential labor market effects of the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and clean energy technologies;
- Identifying cost-effective and scalable strategies to increase both routine and pandemic-related vaccination uptake;
- Better understanding the potential of governmental investments in science and technology R&D to lead to innovation-led economic growth.
How will the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and clean energy technologies affect labor markets?
In recent years significant questions have been raised about the potential labor market impacts of the emergence of AI and clean energy technologies. Some have suggested that the emergence and widespread adoption of AI and clean energy technologies will lead to societally disruptive job losses and wage decreases in impacted industries. Others have suggested that firms adopting new AI-based tools and efficient clean energy technologies may be able to grow more quickly, leading to job growth and wage increases.
Developing effective workforce policies requires accurate and timely data. Yet currently stakeholders have very little accurate information about the workforce effects of the development and adoption of AI or clean energy technologies. In part this is due to the nature of emerging technologies: because of their relative newness, researchers have yet to develop reliable strategies to credibly and accurately identify the firms and occupations in these emerging fields. Because we cannot yet identify the firms and occupations most impacted by AI and clean energy, we cannot measure whether those impacts are economically positive or negative. This critical knowledge gap hampers the development of effective workforce policies.
In partnership with the US National Science Foundation, the University of Michigan, and The Ohio State University, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) has launched a project to address this important knowledge gap in the United States. Working with the SSRC’s partner consortium of over 50 research-intensive colleges and universities, we are piloting a data infrastructure that can track the flow of AI and electric vehicle (EV) research grants from federal funding agencies to university campuses, identifying every person receiving funds from an AI- or EV-related research grant, and then linking those person-level university grant records to governmental person- and firm-level employee and wage records. The data infrastructure will allow stakeholders to identify the industries and firms that are hiring AI and EV researchers, along with the firm-level impacts on job growth, job quality, and wages.
While the SSRC’s work on AI and EV labor markets is currently focused on the US, governments around the world require more accurate estimates of the labor market effects of the development and adoption of AI and clean energy technologies. Extending the approach being pioneered by the US National Science Foundation to other countries would provide global policy leaders with important and timely information enabling the development of more effective workforce policies.
How can we reliably and cost-effectively increase vaccination rates?
Vaccination rates are a pressing concern. MMR vaccine uptake is decreasing, uptake of the new RSV vaccine has been lower than expected, and there is widespread concern about uptake of the new malaria vaccine. We cannot take for granted that simply producing and supplying vaccines means that people will get vaccinated. Research on behavioral interventions that promote the uptake of proven biomedical products like vaccines must complement research to develop and bring to market such products.
Taking up this challenge, the SSRC’s Mercury Project was launched in 2021, as Covid-19 vaccines were rolled out. The Mercury Project supports over 100 social and behavioral scientists and practitioners conducting rigorous evaluation of interventions designed to cost-effectively increase vaccination rates in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the United States.
We will see findings reported from the Mercury Project’s current portfolio of evaluations at a Solutions Summit in October 2024, to be held at the University of Nairobi. The next critical step will be to systematically identify those vaccination-boosting interventions that can scale across multiple geographies, populations, and diseases. We know that a master protocol design, or closely coordinated randomized trials evaluating potentially scalable interventions across multiple and diverse settings, would enable stakeholders to find those interventions. At the Mercury Project Solutions Summit, we will work with leaders from the public, private, and philanthropic sectors to develop master protocol blueprints for vaccination-boosting interventions. Supporting this work would provide governments around the world with reliable evidence about how to cost-effectively increase both routine and pandemic-related vaccination.
What are the effects of science and technology R&D on innovation-led economic growth?
In recent years global concerns have been rising about apparent decreases in rates of productivity growth, which may be partially driven by decreases in rates of innovation. Many are interested in the potential for governmental investments in science and technology R&D to boost rates of innovation, with positive downstream effects on rates of productivity growth. Yet we know relatively little about how public research investments in science and technology impact innovation-led economic growth.
For our partnership with the US National Science Foundation, we are both surveying the existing literature on the economic effects of governmental investments in science and technology R&D, and developing new measures of those effects. While this work is currently focused on the US, governments around the world need better estimates of the potential of governmental investments in science and technology R&D to lead to innovation-led economic growth. Extending the approach being pioneered by the US National Science Foundation to other countries would provide global policy leaders with important and timely information enabling the development of more effective R&D policies.
What else?
How else might the social and behavioral sciences contribute to more effective science and technology policy? We welcome your insights! Please reach out to us at president@ssrc.org if you have thoughts you’d like to share.