President Barack Obama Monday said he would seek to revitalize the U.S.' federal commitment to science and technology, pledging 3 percent of the U.S.' gross domestic product to scientific research, education and development.
Addressing the National Academy of Sciences, Obama also announced the members of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a group of 20 that includes Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, Craig Mundie.
Obama described science as "more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before." Mentioning the swine flu outbreak, he said funding for science and medicine directly inform "our capacity to deal with a public health challenge of this sort."
PCAST was originally founded by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 to help the president and vice president set technology policy. PCAST's three co-chairs will be John Holden, the new director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy; Eric Lander, a professor at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who's also the principal leader of the Human Genome Project; and Harold Varmus, president and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
"This council represents leaders from many scientific disciplines who will bring a diversity of experience and views," said Obama in a statement. "I will charge PCAST with advising me about national strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation."
Google's Schmidt served on the president's transition team and was a vocal Obama supporter throughout the campaign. Microsoft's Mundie previously served on President Bill Clinton's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, and has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 2002.
In his speech, Obama also plugged the recently debuted Office of Science & Technology blog.
"For some of you, we know, it's not enough that the tech press is praising us and that Twitter is all a-tweet with word of our walking the walk of government transparency," wrote the OSTP's director of strategic communications, Rick Weiss, in a Monday post. "Some of you need more—like a plug from the President of the United States—before you'll get involved. Well, you need not wait any longer. This morning, in a speech at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama highlighted the OSTP blog as an example of 21st century government."
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