While the halls of Congress and the White House are strewn with unsuccessful efforts to address science, health and technology challenges, the Center believes it can help find a path forward. This belief is based on experience. CSPC has broken through partisan barriers and bureaucratic stovepipes on public diplomacy, smuggled nuclear weapons, homeland security, and the loss of civility and creativity in government.

For example, in its 2000 report to the President-Elect and Congress titled Advancing Innovation: Improving the S&T Advisory Structure and Policy Process, the Center sounded an alarm to marshal the nation’s best scientific and technical minds to master the changing post-Cold War environment. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, CSPC focused on responding to terrorism by presenting the insights of Senator William Frist, Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger, Nobel Laureate Joshua Lederberg, Science Board Chairman William Schneider, and Distinguished University of Michigan Professor of Physics Homer Neal in Marshalling Science, Bridging the Gap. The Center also folded much of its science policy work into Homeland Security roundtables and science-based initiatives.

Currently, the non-partisan Center is organizing and leading expert working groups on critical national challenges for the President-elect and Congressional leaders. The Center is partnering with the National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Science Foundation, Defense Science Board and leading corporate research centers and universities on this effort. Recommendations from the Science and Technology expert working group, which were published in Presidential Leadership to Ensure Science and Technology in the Service of National Needs: A Report to the 2008 Candidates focus on the early appointment of a Presidential Science Advisor, which would strengthen the science policy process, elevate key policy and R&D issues including the development of alternate energy sources, better delivery of affordable quality health care, securing the homeland and securing multiple economic benefits.