Research eminence alone is not enough for top science posts.
It has been a rough few years for science-policy leadership in the United States. During the administration of former president Donald Trump, science was demeaned and undermined.
Mid-career, I learnt the hard way how essential policy expertise is to these roles. As the health attaché at the US mission representing the United States to the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1994, I jumped in at the deep end of international health — a quagmire of biomedicine, politics, policy and budgets. At the WHO, consensus ruled; I learnt that negotiation was a bellicose artform cloaked in diplomatic courtesies.
Policy expertise is a skill acquired over time. Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, was the Ebola tsar during the administration of president Barack Obama. Although not an expert on disease, he surrounded himself with those who were and listened to them. His success came from how adeptly he could integrate research evidence with the demands of complicated public-health policy and legislative budgeting.
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