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Influencing Science Policy 1

With a new presidential administration and Congress in Washington, ESA remained a leading voice in keeping good science at the center of policy decisions. In addition to advocacy letters either issued by or joined by the Society, we also continued to keep our members informed through regular communication, special events on policy and our annual advocacy training for graduate students who additionally were able to visit Congressional leaders.

In fact, since activities around the 2020 Graduate Student Policy Award had to be canceled due to the pandemic and the adoption of virtual activities made it possible to invest in more participants, the 2021 class of GSPA recipients was the largest ever. First, the honorees participated in training on federal policy and science funding, and heard from ecologists working in the government; they then took those skills on a virtual Congressional Visit Day, giving them an opportunity to interact with policymakers and discuss the importance of federal funding for science and the need for research relief for the biological and ecological sciences.

You can follow some of our other important work in science advocacy on the Ecotone blog: