2/25/21

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On January 15, President Joe Biden announced his selection of Dr. Eric Lander to serve as the President’s Science Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Along with this announcement, President Biden shared a public letter posing five key questions on how science and technology can help ensure that “our children and grandchildren may inhabit a healthier, safer, more just, peaceful, and prosperous world.” For each question in President Biden’s letter, the Day One Project has identified a set of promising policy ideas sourced and developed by the Project from the science and technology community that address the relevant challenges and issues posed by President Biden. The Project believes these ideas reflect not a comprehensive response, but an effective avenue to confronting some of these challenges align with strategic priorities of the Biden-Harris Administration.

Read the Day One Project Response to President Biden’s Letter here.  

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Over the past year, the Day One Project has worked with hundreds of experts and former policymakers to develop over 100 science and technology policy proposals that respond to the wide range of urgent challenges our country faces. The Day One Project is a nonpartisan platform for developing new science and technology policy ideas from a wide range of perspectives, including from scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs, and policymakers. The contents of this document represent a curated set of ideas sourced from a larger portfolio that is publicly available online. More detail is available upon request for each of the ideas outlined herein, either in the form of a detailed policy action memo and/or via consultation with a knowledgeable expert.

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As the Day One Project Leadership Council wrote last year, “the United States has the opportunity to continue to lead the way in science and technology. Scientific and technological innovation are the engine of America’s essential contract with its citizens: to ensure national security, to advance public health and environmental quality and to achieve sustained and inclusive economic prosperity.” 

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The Day One Project believes that the need for ambitious, smart, evidence-based, and socially-minded policymaking is self-evident as the nation grapples with a devastating pandemic and the associated economic fallout, the growing climate crisis, systemic racial injustice, emboldened adversaries on the world stage, and other great challenges. By leveraging the considerable science and technology prowess cultivated in the United States over the past century, the Project believes that the nation can learn from our mistakes and build a more just and prosperous future. We hope and believe that the ideas presented herein will help make that promising future a reality.