Taking Scientific Integrity to the Top
By Beth Potier, Media Relations
August 17, 2011
UNH’s Jon Pennock with NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco at a meeting on scientific integrity at the White House. Photos by Derek Parks, NOAA
Jon Pennock, director of the UNH Marine Program and NH Sea Grant, visited the White House last month (July 26, 2011) to share his views on scientific integrity at a roundtable discussion hosted by President Barak Obama’s science advisor John Holdren. Pennock and eight others (five total from academia and four from other governmental and non-governmental organizations) offered their views on the draft scientific integrity policy for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.
“I felt it was an honor to be invited,” said Pennock, who believes that UNH’s partnerships with NOAA as well as his position as president of the national Sea Grant Association helped secure his invitation. At the meeting, NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco sought the feedback of Pennock and the others to ensure that any policy she spearheaded did not have unintended negative effects on NOAA’s relationships with its partners.
In addition, Pennock said, in creating policies for scientific integrity for all the federal science agencies, Lubchenco and her colleagues are looking toward academia as a model.
“It’s clear that for this administration, having integrity in science, particularly the science that supports public policy, is an important issue. It’s not just words, they’re really working to put this into policy,” said Pennock, noting that the White House location of this meeting signaled its prominence. “It’s encouraging to me that they’re listening to scientists in the field.”
Jon Pennock (back row, third from left) joined NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco (front row, center) and John Holdren, President Obama’s science advisor (front row, second from right) at a roundtable discussion on scientific integrity in July.
Read Lubchenco’s blog post on the meeting.
View more information on NOAA’s draft scientific integrity policy.
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