Board Meeting Summary: March 19, 2021

The FASEB Board held its quarterly meeting online March 19. Items to note included:

Programs/Operations

Public Affairs: FASEB’s public affairs team shared partial results from a recent survey on members’ views on prioritizing FASEB’s outreach to the Biden administration and new Congress. Survey respondents’ top choices for reaching out to the new Congress were identifying freshmen with backgrounds in science and coordinating agency-specific briefings for freshmen, with a tied third response of organizing virtual meetings with freshmen and creating new factsheets on research issues. When asked which outreach activity members were willing to commit to take part in, the most popular response was participating in a meeting with the Biden transition team.

There was also a session enabling members to discuss and debrief from their Capitol Hill meetings.

Data Management and Sharing: Consultants from Mighty Red Barn presented their findings in a working paper, “Data Management and Sharing Product Landscape,” and highlighted four potential product concepts being considered by the Task Force for additional development: a data management ecosystem knowledge base, a data help desk, a data fellows program, and an institutional partners program.

Communications and Member Engagement Task Forces: As part of the Board’s 2021 work plan, final charters were shared for the two most recently approved task forces. Chris Curran (BDRP) will chair the Communications Task Force, with Bill Yates (APS) as vice chair. Charles Parkos (ASIP) will chair Member Engagement, with Robin Lorenz (HCS) as vice chair.

Unaudited Financial Results: FASEB’s finance team presented brief updates on progress of the 2020 audit and PPP2 Loan status.

Board Actions
The Board approved the following:

• A letter to the VA Secretary encouraging continued support for animal research
• A letter to the House Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies urging rejection of language prohibiting animal research at the VA
• A letter to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine commending its report, “Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Wellbeing in Higher Education: Supporting the Whole Student”
• DEAI Implementation plan, which focuses on four priority programs (recruitment, reverse mentoring, family care awards, and cohort) as FASEB’s initial investment to support our diversity effort
• Final report and recommendations from the Shared Research Resources Task Force