Government & Policy Roundup

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given $20 million to a National Academies initiative to build science capacity in the Third World. Specifically, the money will be used to boost three African academies of science--to be selected later this year--so that they will be able to provide credible scientific advice to policymakers.

The House passed the Green Chemistry R&D Act of 2004 (H.R. 3970) on April 21 (C&EN, March 22, page 9). The bill, which gives a federal focus to environmentally friendly chemistry R&D, will now be sent to the Senate for consideration.

Education is key for the U.S. to remain the global leader of invention, according to a report released by the Lemelson-MIT Program with support by NSF. The report, "Invention: Enhancing Inventiveness for Quality of Life, Competitiveness, and Sustainability," contains the results of five workshops held last year to assess ways for the U.S. to encourage inventiveness and use human ingenuity to solve technological challenges.