National Academies

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NATIONAL ACADEMIES

The U. S. National Academies are a consortium of four organizations. They are composed of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council.

History and Structure

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was founded in 1863 to provide scientific and technical advice to the government. It is a membership organization of leading scientists, and new members are selected by the current membership. The membership decides how many total members to admit, and the number as of 2004 was about 1,800. In 1916 NAS realized that it could not meet the demand for advice from its members alone and therefore organized the National Research Council (NRC) to make it possible to enlist the larger scientific and technical community in its mission of providing expert advice to government. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) was formed in 1964, and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 1970. Like NAS, NAE and IOM are membership organizations of the most respected engineers and medical professionals respectively. NAE has about 1,900 members, and IOM has approximately 1,200. The three organizations jointly manage NRC, which is the operating arm of the Academies.

The National Academies are not government organizations. The federal government chartered NAS, but the Academies are private organizations. The Academies do, however, receive federal funds to conduct studies at the request of Congress or federal agencies. State governments, foundations, and private companies also support studies, but industry can provide no more than 50 percent of the cost of a study. NAS, NAE, and IOM can each conduct studies independently, but NAS with support from NAE conducts most of its studies through the NRC. IOM is not a formal part of the structure of NRC, but its program must be approved by the NRC Governing Board and its reports must meet the requirements of the NRC Report Review Committee. The NRC issues about 250 reports per year, and at any given moment has roughly 6,000 volunteers serving on 600 study committees. In 2003 the National Academies had a staff of 1,200 and a budget of about $225 million.

The National Academies have a long and distinguished history of involvement in a wide range of activities related to science, technology, and ethics. The typical process for any Academies activity begins with a request from the federal government to conduct a study and issue a report on a specific topic. The Academies then select a committee of experts from relevant disciplines to perform the study. Once the committee members are named, there is a period of public comment to make certain that there is no bias or conflict of interest within the committee. Then the committee is formally appointed. The committees usually include some NAS, NAE, or IOM members, but most committee members are not members of these institutions. The expertise needed for these studies include law, ethics, and other nonscientific disciplines, and the individuals come from think tanks, advocacy groups, and industry as well as the universities. All committee members are volunteers; they are assisted by Academies staff.

The committees usually work for about eighteen months to produce a consensus report. All reports are subjected to rigorous review by the Report Review Committee, which appoints reviewers who are independent of the institution, have had no role in preparation of the report, and are unknown to the committee. Once the study committee has satisfied the reviewers that the report is fair and accurate, the report is published by the National Academies Press and is available for public purchase.

A list of sample NRC studies follows:

Science and Human Rights (1988)
The Responsible Conduct of Research in the Health Sciences (1989)
Shaping the Future: Biology and Human Values (1989)
Extending Life, Enhancing Life: A National Research Agenda on Aging (1991)
The Social Impact of AIDS in the United States (1993)
Women and Health Research: Legal and Ethical Issues of Including Women in Clinical Studies (1994)
Society's Choices: Social and Ethical Decision Making in Biomedicine (1995)
Biotechnology: Scientific, Engineering, and Ethical Challenges for the 21st Century (1996)
Xenotransplantation: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy (1996)
Non-Heart-Beating Organ Transplantation: Medical and Ethical Issues in Procurement (1997)
Cells and Surveys: Should Biological Measures Be Included in Social Science Research? (2001)
Integrity in Scientific Research: Creating an Environment That Promotes Responsible Conduct (2002)
Research Ethics in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: Proceedings of a Workshop (2002)
Responsible Research: A Systems Approach to Protecting Research Participants (2002)
Scientific and Medical Aspects of Human Reproductive Cloning (2002)
The Experiences and Challenges of Science and Ethics: Proceedings of an American-Iranian Workshop (2003)
Guidelines for the Care and Use of Mammals in Neuroscience and Behavioral Research (2003)
Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care (2003)

Ethics Related Activities

In addition to producing studies at the request of others, the Academies sometimes use their endowment funds to prepare studies and organize activities at their own initiative. One such project began in the 1980s when there were a number of prominent cases of scientific fraud. NAS decided that it had a responsibility to make certain that all scientists understood the rules and responsibilities of scientific research. In 1989 NAS published On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, which provides a detailed discussion of the norms governing the proper behavior of scientists. More than 200,000 copies were distributed, and an expanded version was published in 1995. NAS distributed 70,000 copies of the new edition free to graduate students.

The Academies also operate the Joseph Henry Press, which publishes books by independent authors on a variety of scientific subjects. One title is The Common Thread: A Story of Science, Politics, Ethics, and the Human Genome (2002) by Georgina Ferry and 2003 Nobel laureate John Sulston. IOM also publishes books by independent authors, such as Science and Babies: Private Decisions, Public Dilemmas (1990) by Suzanne Wymelenberg.

Finally NAS publishes the scholarly journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (1914–present) and co-publishes with the University of Texas at Dallas the quarterly policy magazine Issues in Science and Technology (1984–present). Proceedings includes scientific research articles, but some of these touch on ethical as well as scientific concerns. An example is Paul R. Ehrlich's "Intervening in Evolution: Ethics and Actions" (2001). Issues is an independent magazine that provides a forum where individuals can express their views on a wide range of subjects. It regularly publishes articles and book reviews that address ethical and social concerns.

Although NAS conducts most of its activities through the NRC, it maintains direct control of the Committee on Human Rights, which was formed in 1976 to protect human rights, particularly of scientists, throughout the world. NAE and IOM became cosponsors in 1994. The committee uses the prestige of the institutions to defend scientists, engineers, and health professionals who are unjustly detained or imprisoned for behavior that is protected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The committee investigates suspected violations, appeals directly to governments when appropriate, offers moral support to prisoners and their families, and works to make the public aware of the need to protect human rights. The committee serves as the secretariat for the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Scholarly Societies, which includes organizations from fifty countries. The committee has had numerous successes in obtaining the release of people being unfairly detained.

Because of their reputation and renown, the Academies are able to attract leaders from government, academia, and industry to events that provide a forum for discussion of controversial issues. The NAS Building in Washington, DC, is the site of numerous workshops, conferences, and symposia at which experts and decision makers debate the critical ethical issues related to science and technology. Examples include a series of workshops on regulatory issues in animal care and use as well as several meetings about human reproductive cloning and the treatment of human subjects in research.

The National Academies have enormous influence in all aspects of science and technology because of their long history of providing guidance to government, the rigorous review process through which all reports must pass, and the widely recognized expertise of committee members. NRC reports are regularly featured in the popular press, and committee chairs are often invited to testify before Congress or to brief administration officials. The full text of all reports is available for free on the Academies Internet site, which makes the site a valuable source of information for scholars, journalists, and government officials.

KEVIN FINNERAN

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cochrane, Rexmond C. The National Academy of Sciences: The First Hundred Years, 1863–1963. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1978.

Committee on the Preparation of the Semi-Centennial Volume. A History of the First Half-Century of the National Academy of Sciences: 1863–1913. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1913.