The government wants your advice on biofuels

Canada, US policymakers do that rarest of things: ask the public for input on all the key subjects of interest in the world of advanced biofuels.

“We are the government and we are here to help,” goes the old cliche. This week, the message is “we’re the government and we need some help.” A refreshing change.

What do they need, you ask? Your insight on, broadly speaking, how to structure the national bioeconomy blueprint, in the case of the US. In case of Canada, how to best structure the Clean Energy Dialogue between the US and Canada.

Make your comment on US biofuels policy, here.

Canada’s request is simple, yet important. How to structure a $300K, five-month funding envelope on how to support and structure key biofuels / bioenergy research activities.

Here’s the skinny: next week, the Science and Technology Integration Division (STID) of Environment Canada’s Science and Technology Branch, under its commitments for the North American Clean Energy Dialogue (CED), is expected to issue a call for proposals from the public sector to support dialogue on the biofuels sector through biofuels / bioenergy research activities in such area as modelling GHG reductions; evaluate environmental footprints of biofuels; future biofuel production trends, expanding biodiesel production etc.

The types of deliverables that will be considered include workshop reports, contract reports and the like against well defined deliverables and criteria established under the Clean Energy Dialogue.

Over in Washington, the US is asking for your help in addressing 17 key questions. Your answers could have a substantial impact on policy.

The 17 questions

(1) Identify one or more grand challenges for the bioeconomy in areas such as health, energy, the environment, and agriculture, and suggest concrete steps that would need to be taken by the Federal government, companies, non-profit organizations, foundations, and other stakeholders to achieve this goal.

Research and development: R&D investments, particularly in platform technologies, can support advances in health, energy, the environment, and agriculture, and accelerate the pace of discovery in fundamental life sciences research.

(2) Constrained Federal budgets require a focus on high-impact research and innovation opportunities. With this in mind, what should be the Federal funding priorities in research, technologies, and infrastructure to provide the foundation for the bioeconomy?

(3) What are the critical technical challenges that prevent high throughput approaches from accelerating bioeconomy-related research? What specific research priorities could address those challenges? Are there particular goals that the research community and industry could rally behind (e.g., NIH $1,000 genome initiative [1] )?

(4) The speed of DNA sequencing has outstripped advances in the ability to extract information from genomes given the large number of genes of unknown function in genomes; as many as 70% of genes in a genome have poorly or unknown functions. All areas of scientific inquiry that utilize genome information could benefit from advances in this area. What new multidisciplinary funding efforts could revolutionize predictions of protein function for genes?

Moving life sciences breakthroughs from lab to market: It is a challenge to commercialize advances in the life sciences because of the risk, expense, and need for many years of sustained investment. The Administration is interested in steps that it can take directly, but is also interested in encouraging experimentation with new private-sector-led models for funding commercialization of life sciences research.

(5) What are the barriers preventing biological research discoveries from moving from the lab to commercial markets? What specific steps can Federal agencies take to address these shortcomings? Please specify whether these changes apply to academic labs, government labs, or both.

(6) What specific changes to Federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs [2] would help accelerate commercialization of federally-funded bioeconomy-related research?

(7) What high-value data might the government release in the spirit of its open government agenda that could spur the development of new products and services in the bioeconomy?

(8) What are the challenges associated with existing private-sector models (e.g. venture funding) for financing entrepreneurial bioeconomy firms and what specific steps can agencies take to address those challenges?

Workforce development: Investment in education and training is essential to creating a technically-skilled 21st century American bioeconomy workforce.

(9) The majority of doctorate recipients will accept jobs outside of academia. What modifications should be made to professional training programs to better prepare scientists and engineers for private-sector bioeconomy jobs?

(10) What roles should community colleges play in training the bioeconomy workforce of the future?

(11) What role should the private sector play in training future bioeconomy scientists and engineers?

(12) What role might government, industry, and academia play in encouraging successful entrepreneurship by faculty, graduate students, and postdocs?

Reducing regulatory barriers to the bioeconomy: As President Obama has stated, our regulatory system must “identify and use the best, most innovative, and least burdensome tools for achieving regulatory ends” and “protect public health, welfare, safety, and our environment while promoting economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation.”

(13) What specific regulations are unnecessarily slowing or preventing bioinnovation? Please cite evidence that the identified regulation(s) are a) slowing innovation, and b) could be reformed or streamlined while protecting public health, safety, and the environment.

(14) What specific steps can Federal agencies take to improve the predictability and transparency of the regulatory system? (Please specify the relevant agency.)

(15) What specific improvements in the regulatory processes for drugs, diagnostics, medical devices, and agricultural biotechnology should federal agencies implement? What challenges do new or emerging technologies pose to the existing regulatory structure and what can agencies do to address those challenges?

(16) What are the highest impact opportunities for public-private partnerships related to the bioeconomy? What shared goals would these partnerships pursue, which stakeholders might participate, and what mutually reinforcing commitments might they make to support the partnership?

(17) What are the highest impact opportunities for pre-competitive collaboration in the life sciences, and what role should the government play in developing them? What can be learned from existing models for pre-competitive collaboration both inside and outside the life-sciences sector? What are the barriers to such collaborations and how might they be removed or overcome?

Note: All US comments must be submitted electronically to: [email protected]. Responses to this RFI will be accepted through December 6, 2011.