Category Archives: Progress

Pittsburgh Police officials told City Council on last week that the bureau is making progress on a series of reforms but they warned the force risked becoming less diverse at a time when racial tensions around policing have come to the forefront.

The hearing was called by City Councilor Corey OConnor to assess the Bureau of Public Safetys work on a series of police reforms proposed by a task force this past October. The task force called for a slew of changes in crowd control and use of force, police training and recruitment, community engagement and transparency in policing data.

A lot of these issues cannot be addressed overnight, Police Chief Scott Schubert said. But others were addressed even before recommendations were made.

Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich noted that as of last week, 78 police had been sidelined by virus concerns, and 18 were known to be infected. That kind of disruption, he said, has slowed some of the response with the issues that have been brought to us.

Still, officials touted success in many areas like community engagement. And they said more progress was expected in early 2021, when they hoped to make policing data more broadly available and to complete work on the 8 Cant Wait reforms to the use of force. Those changes, endorsed by Mayor Bill Peduto last summer, include a ban on chokeholds, an emphasis on de-escalation tactics and more rigorous standards for police accountability and use of force.

Officials also said they welcomed efforts to have social service agencies rather than police handle concerns about mental health and homelessness challenges which they acknowledged the average officer may not have sufficient expertise to handle.

Officers are general practitioners they are not the cardiologists, said Hissrich. They are confronted with issues that they dont have the answers [for].

But Schubert also expressed concerns that a longstanding concern about the police force the disproportionately small number of non-white officers in its ranks could get worse.

Currently, the force is about 13 percent Black, in a city where nearly one-quarter of residents are Black. More than 50 of those Black officers are eligible for retirement, Schubert says: If they all depart, the share of Black officers on the force would drop to just 7 percent. And with no plans to recruit a new class of officers next year an austerity measure prompted by the coronavirus there is little immediate prospect of reversing the trend.

Right now, it doesnt represent the demographics of the city of Pittsburgh, Schubert said. And if all [those eligible for retirement] would go, were going to be in pretty bad shape. Its something, and Ive said it to you before, thats of deep concern to me for our organization.

Black officers on the force are more likely to be older, because many of them were hired under a 1970s-era federal consent decree that required half of new police hires to be black. But the percentage of new hires who are Black has dropped since the decree lapsed. In recent years, the city has sought to step up recruitment of non-white officers, but with little effect on the overall trend.

Broader staffing issues led to an exchange with City Councilor Deb Gross over the debate about whether to defund police by redirecting money toward way from law enforcement and toward social-services. The issue has been at the forefront of protests and public comment before council throughout the latter half of the year.

HIssrich said that when he joined the Peduto administration, the message he heard was We need more officers, we need more officers. The force reached 900 positions a level he said was appropriate. Now we want to curtail back to where we were years ago. In my opinion it would be very detrimental to the city of Pittsburgh as far as crime.

Schubert added that if cuts were made, the first things to be cut would be community engagement efforts that try to ease police-community tensions.

My whole career I have believed in community policing, but there are resources you need to make that happen, he said.

Gross was unconvinced. She noted, as she has before, that Pittsburgh has more police per capita than many other comparable cities. And she noted that the citys just-passed 2021 budget contained steeper cuts for other services while leaving $111 million for policing.

This budget defunds city planning and its defunded [the Department of Public Works] and defunded Parks and Rec, she said. And we did not defund police even a little bit.

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Police Officials Tout Progress, Warn Of Waning Diversity On Force - 90.5 WESA

Each January, many people resolve to improve their overall health in the year ahead. Such resolutions can serve as motivating factors that compel people to live longer, healthier lives.

New Years resolutions have proven hard to keep. While its difficult to pinpoint how many people are successful with their resolutions, reports indicate that success is typically elusive. A recent report from U.S. News & World Report found that 80 percent of resolutions fail by February.

One of the tricks to realizing a resolution is to continue making progress toward your goal. Finding ways to measure progress can make the difference between staying the course in the year ahead or having your resolution fall short.

Set specific goals. Its essential that people who are hopeful that a New Years resolution will help them get healthier be specific when setting their goal. For example, its easy to determine if youre on a path to success if you declare your intention to lose 10 lbs. rather than simply saying, I want to lose weight. If your goals are specific, you can set benchmarks throughout the year that help you measure the progress youre making en route to achieving your ultimate goal. If you want to lose 10 lbs. and youve lost six by the end of June, thats measurable progress toward your goal that can motivate you to keep going.

Take a friend along for the ride. Friends also can serve as both measuring sticks and motivators en route to getting healthy. A partner whos also striving to get healthier can make it that much easier to get to early morning or late night workouts. This person can make sure youre up in the morning and let you know if its been awhile since youve shown the commitment necessary to achieve your goal. If your workout partner is more than halfway to his or her goal by mid-year and youre lagging behind, you can compare routines to determine if theres any tweaks you can make to increase your chances of being successful.

Document everything. Strava is an internet service that tracks exercise and incorporates social networking. Strava helps millions of runners and cyclists track their workouts so they can see if theyre staying the course each day or falling short of their goals. Such services can be highly effective at tracking progress, but people aiming to get healthier also can use a notebook to keep detailed records of workouts, caloric intake and other factors that can help them get healthy.

Visit your physician. Doctors can be invaluable resources as people try to get healthy. Schedule a physical early in the year and ask your doctor to help you set goals. Then schedule a follow-up later in the year to see how your efforts are affecting your overall health. Few things can prove as motivational as a good report from the doctor.

Resolutions have a tendency to fall by the wayside. But with some effective metrics, people can make serious progress toward getting healthier in the year ahead.

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How to track your progress en route to getting healthy - Williston Daily Herald

Congress approved the Sudan Claims Resolution Act this week, and our only complaint is that it took so long. The Trump Administration produced a transformative deal with Khartoum, but extended haggling on Capitol Hill needlessly endangered the fragile Sudanese government.

Sudans long-time dictator fell last year, and the transitional government is acting boldly to move on. A quarter century after the country hosted Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, the State Department negotiated an accord to restore the countrys sovereign immunity and lift its state sponsor of terrorism designation. In exchange, the Sudanese government agreed to normalize ties with Israel and pay $335 million to victims of the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings.

Americas foes should take note. Sudan was antagonistic for decades and responsible for American deaths. But it agreed to change and negotiated in good faith. It is behaving like a normal country, and its economy will benefit accordingly. Access to international finance, and to multilateral institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, will bring the previously isolated nation new avenues for commerce.

The opportunity to turn a terror-sponsoring state into a productive partner doesnt come often, and the Trump Administration deserves credit for seizing it. So does most of Congress, where the deal received bipartisan support. But Senators Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) delayed passage for months, claiming the deal was bad for 9/11 victims families. One of the offers they called a compromise included an unrelated gift-basket for trial lawyers.

The bill that finally passed restores Sudans sovereign immunity generally but allows 9/11 victims families to pursue litigation in federal court. The cases could put Sudan on the hook for billions, but theyre unlikely to succeed. The law also includes $700 million in aid to the country and more than $200 million in loans.

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Donald Trumps Sudan Progress - The Wall Street Journal

SALISBURY Work is moving forward on what Partners in Learning hopes to be a new and improved facility on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, with the next public step for the project just a couple weeks away.

A public hearing on a rezoning request for part of the property will go before the Salisbury City Council on Jan. 5. Bill Wagoner, the Partners in Learning board member who is heading up the construction side of the project, said the board will revisit the request for a vote on Jan. 19.

The planning board considered the request on Dec. 8 and unanimously voted to recommend approval by the council.

The Post reported on the donation of the 8-acre parcel, which doesnt yet have an address, to Partners in Learning by Gerry and Brenda Wood in June, but Partners in Learning had hopes for a replacement for its center on the campus of Catawba College long before.

Gerry said he originally planned to build a warehouse on the parcel.

Wagoner said the parcel is a rare site in town where the zoning does not follow property lines. Part of the property is zoned highway business, and the other portion is zoned corridor mixed use. Wagoner, who is also on the planning board, said it is best to get rid of split zoning sites so one set of rules applies to an entire parcel.

Partners in Learning is requesting the property be rezoned completely to highway business, which Wagoner said would best serve the nonprofit.

The lease on the Catawba facility will expire and Partners in Learning intends to add space and services at the facility. The hope is to add a psychologist on staff at the new facility who can perform applied behavior analysis therapy and diagnose children with autism as well as two additional classrooms, one for infants and the other for toddlers.

Partners in Learning Executive Director Norma Honeycutt says the organization has a wait list of more than 300 children, more than it has ever had.

The project has an estimated cost of $3-4 million. Honeycutt said the organization expects to have a 3-D model of the facility to show to donors by the end of the year.

Partners in Learning posted a drone video showing the site to YouTube. Wagoner said 2 to 3 acres of the property will be dedicated to outdoor education and experiential learning.

Partners in Learning is a five-star, nationally accredited childcare center that provides more than just childcare. It offers parenting education, after-school programs, summer enrichment, behavioral and special needs support and applied behavioral analysis therapy.

The nonprofit also has a location at Novant Health Rowan Medical Center.

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Partners in Learning making progress toward opening new facility in Salisbury - Salisbury Post - Salisbury Post

While the events of 2020 arguably the longest year any of us have ever experienced in terms of emotional toll have obscured what came before it, the previous decade has been one of remarkable change for both Idaho Falls and Ammon.

Todays Post Register takes a look back at the highlights of those changes with its Progress Edition 2020 section.

New medical facilities, including a new hospital and major expansions at Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, new schools in both Bonneville Joint School District 93 and Idaho Falls School District 91 and major new retail and business developments have changed our area for the better.

After decades of jockeying for regional supremacy, Idaho Falls is now eastern Idahos largest city and its undisputed business and medical hub.

The restructuring and expansion of Idaho National Laboratory has attracted many of the nations top scientists both to the site and to supporting businesses.

The transition of the Eastern Idaho Technical College to the College of Eastern Idaho has greatly expanded the areas educational and vocational training options.

And the citys continued development of the River Walk as well as the revitalization of downtown have made Idaho Falls a must-visit destination.

Although it wasnt possible to capture every single positive change that occurred over the past 10 years, the Progress Edition is a good reminder of what weve accomplished in a decade that brought historic change to the area.

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A decade of progress a look at the changes the 2010s brought to I.F. and Ammon - Post Register

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The Giants hopes of winning the NFC East took a big hit with a pair of losses the last two weeks, but it doesnt sound like head coach Joe Judge views missing out on a division title as a overly negative development.

Judge took over a team that hasnt sniffed playoff contention the last three years and one more win will give the Giants half as many as they had over those campaigns. Thats a sign of improvement as is the fact that they were able to salvage their season after opening with a 1-7 mark.

Judge sees those things as mileposts on the way to being the kind of team he wants to build and he doesnt view a playoff berth this year the same way.

I dont think our progress as a team is going to be measured necessarily on making the playoffs . . . Im not downplaying playoffs, Judge said, via Jordan Raanan of ESPN.com. Its the National Football League. Were all here to compete. Were all here for the highest prize in all of sports. We all know what that is. Im a firm believer in just keeping our sights on what the immediate goal is and the long-term goal will take care of itself.

Its been clear for months that the winner of the NFC East is going to be a flawed team with plenty of work to do in the offseason. That need for growth appears to trump short-term success when it comes to the Giants.

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Joe Judge: Our progress wont necessarily be measured by making the playoffs - NBC Sports

(Reuters) -European shares posted their best day in six weeks on Tuesday, rebounding from a sharp sell-off as optimism around Brexit and U.S. stimulus helped to allay worries of a further hit to the global economy from a new coronavirus variant in Britain.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index finished up 1.2% on broad-based gains, recovering from a more than 2% slide in the previous session, which was also its biggest one-day drop in nearly two months.

The European Union is giving a final push in a bid to strike a Brexit trade deal with Britain, its chief negotiator said on Tuesday, with the two sides inching towards agreement on fishing - a major sticking point - days before the end of Britains transition deal since it left the bloc.

(The progress in fishing) highlights the willingness to move towards something that will eventually break the current deadlock, said Joshua Mahony, senior market analyst at online trading platform IG.

Helping Londons blue-chip index reverse early losses, data showed Britains economic recovery from its coronavirus crash was quicker than previously thought in the third quarter. The index closed 0.6% higher, breaking a three-day losing streak.

The losses were triggered by the emergence of a fast-spreading new coronavirus variant in Britain, which has forced wider lockdowns there and led countries around the world to close their borders to the UK. The EU on Tuesday recommended rolling back border closures to allow freight to resume.

The COVID-led economic isolation of the UK (is) serving to provide a heavy dose of reality of the kind of disruption that could come if negotiators fail to agree a (Brexit trade) deal by year-end, Mahony said.

Technology stocks and Brexit-sensitive banks led the rebound in Europe, while materials stocks lagged as they tracked a decline in underlying commodity prices. [MET/L][O/R]

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed a stopgap measure to fund U.S. agencies for another week after Congress passed a long awaited $892 billion COVID-19 aid package overnight.

AstraZeneca was the biggest weight on the pan-region index, down 1.5% after its experimental asthma drug developed with U.S partner Amgen failed to meet the main goal of a late-stage trial.

Additional reporting by Supriya R in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil DSilva and Mark Potter

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European shares rebound as Brexit trade deal progress overshadows virus worries - Reuters

Over the last year, the pandemic has caused the global economy to contract by 4.4%. At the same time, one trend has accelerated worldwide: digitalization. As countries face repeated lockdowns, school closures, and shutdowns of entire industries, digital capabilities whether for remote schooling, e-commerce, or working from home have become more essential than ever. But how exactly has this played out around the world and what do governments, businesses, and investors need to do to come out on top?

To explore these questions, our colleagues at Tufts Universitys Fletcher School partnered with Mastercard to develop a third edition of the Digital Evolution Scorecard (following earlier editions published in HBR in 2015 and 2017). The 2020 edition is accompanied by an interactive policy simulator, and offers analysis of 90 economies based on a combination of 160 indicators across four key drivers: Supply Conditions, Demand Conditions, Institutional Environment, and Innovation and Change. Specifically, we used a combination of proprietary and public data from more than 45 different databases, as well as analyses conducted by the Fletcher Schools Digital Planet team, to explore the following questions across our core subject areas:

The scorecard takes in all this data and then assesses economies along two dimensions: the current state of the countrys digitalization and the pace of digitalization over time (as measured by the growth rate of the digitalization score over 12 years, 2008-2019). As shown in the graphic below, the resulting atlas for the digital planet segments economies into four distinct zones: Stand Out, Stall Out, Break Out, and Watch Out.

This zone includes economies with both high levels of existing digitalization and strong momentum in continuing to advance their digital capabilities. Three economies are particularly notable: South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong. These, along with others, such as Estonia, Taiwan, and the United Arab Emirates, are consistently top performers in this index, and have demonstrated both adaptability and institution-led support for innovation. Interestingly, the U.S. also shows remarkable momentum for an economy of its size and complexity, scoring second in digital evolution after Singapore.

So what does it take to be a Stand Out economy? While every case is different, our analysis suggests that the most successful of these countries prioritized:

This zone is characterized by economies with limited existing digital infrastructure, but which are rapidly digitalizing. China is a noteworthy outlier in this group: Its digital evolution is significantly higher than that of all other economies, due in large part to its combination of rapidly growing demand and innovation. Indonesia and India are also notable members of this group, ranking third and fourth in momentum despite their large economies. In addition to these large emerging economies, midsize economies such as Kenya, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Rwanda, and Argentina have all displayed increasing digital momentum, suggesting the potential to rapidly digitalize for both post-Covid economic recovery and longer-term transformation.

Based on our analyses, we found that successful Break Out economies prioritized:

This zone is characterized by economies many of which are in the EU that have mature digital landscapes, but which exhibit less momentum for continued advancement. In part, this is likely to due to the natural slowing of growth that accompanies maturity. Many in this zone have also intentionally chosen to slow their growth in order to ensure that they grow responsibly and inclusively. To regain momentum (without sacrificing these values), these countries should prioritize:

Finally, this zone which includes countries across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Southern Europe is characterized by shortcomings in both existing digital capabilities and momentum for future development. Countries in the Watch Out zone can look to Break Out economies as role models and benchmarks for how to use digital growth as a lever for economic resilience. Particularly for those that demonstrate emerging or sustained digital demand, Watch Out economies should prioritize:

Of course, an analysis of global technology and economic trends over the past year would be incomplete without an examination of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Most interestingly, while a high Digital Evolution score has generally correlated with greater economic resilience to the disruptions of the pandemic, it hasnt been a guarantee.

To explore this question, we mapped countries Digital Evolution scores against their percentage decrease in GDP growth from Q2 2019 to Q2 2020 (adjusted for inflation). As expected, we found that overall, the level of digital evolution helped explain at least 20% of a countrys economic resilience or cushioning against the pandemics economic impact. This cushioning comes from many sources: For example, more digitally-evolved economies tend to derive a larger share of their GDP from high tech sectors, where the workforce can shift to remote working more readily. In addition, digitally-evolved economies tend to be better at delivering public services online due to superior infrastructure, experience with digital transformation in much of the public sector, and accessible, affordable internet. Some even leveraged their superior digital evolution for contact tracing, exposure identification, data collection, and public health messaging that significantly minimized economic disruptions (South Korea and Taiwan offer excellent examples).

That said, this effect was not universal. Vietnam scored low on our digital evolution scorecard, but the impact of the pandemic on its economy has thus far remained smaller than expected. Vietnam is the only South East Asian country on track for economic growth this year, largely because the government was able to keep the virus under control through aggressive preemptive measures. In addition, the recent economic boom from Chinese manufacturing shifting to the more affordable Vietnamese market also helped the country to maintain its economic growth through the crisis.

On the opposite end, we also saw that the UK a highly digitally-evolved economy experienced an economic decline on par with India or Rwanda. Not only was the government response to the pandemic less than optimal, the composition of the UK economy also caused it to suffer disproportionately from social distancing and lockdowns: Services (which are are disproportionately reliant on in-person activities) make up around three quarters of the UK economy, and 10.9% of the countrys GDP comes from travel and tourism all of which were severely curtailed due to social distancing requirements.

Overall, digital evolution is an essential contributor to economic resilience, but it is no panacea. The governments Covid response, as well as the unique composition of its economy, can make a big difference as well.

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Aside from the impact of the pandemic, this analysis also illustrated several more long-term trends around how the most successful countries are pursuing digital evolution:

Economies that provide secure, frictionless digital experiences nurture the most positive, engaged consumers, creating the most active digital ecosystems. These ecosystems then generate more data, which is the lifeblood of a competitive digital economy, enabling a virtuous cycle of growth. Economies such as Singapore, Japan, Canada, and the Netherlands illustrate this approach well, with a combination of open data flows and strong privacy protections.

Meanwhile, economies such as China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia represent a paradox: While significant state investment and control over their digital ecosystems can lead to higher digital momentum, these economies also impede the free flow of data, resulting in missed opportunities to further boost that momentum through digital products and applications that rely on widely accessible data. The growing popularity of data localization laws (i.e., regulations that limit the transfer of data across international borders) is ultimately making data less accessible, which not only hinders global growth, but often also diminishes countries own competitiveness by raising costs for digital businesses, reducing competition, and encouraging rent-seeking behavior among domestic actors.

To start to address these challenges, policymakers would do well to measure, monitor, and understand the value of what we call the New GDP: a countrys Gross Data Product. Once theyve begun to understand their New GDP, economies can begin to unlock its full value by encouraging open data flows while providing adequate privacy protections for their citizens.

Mobile internet access has been a strong driver of momentum for Break Out economies, and it is the fastest route to getting the third of the global population that doesnt yet have internet connectivity online. India is the preeminent example: Its internet connectivity has doubled in the last four years, and the country is on track to add 350 million smartphones by 2023.

However, mobile phones are merely the first step in unlocking the benefits of digitalization. The pandemic has illustrated how the quality of both access (i.e., reliable broadband versus sporadic satellite connections) and devices (i.e., laptops and tablets well-suited to learning and working versus low-end mobile phones) is a key component of economic resilience in a time of heavy reliance on digital technologies. For example, when the pandemic shut down in-person schooling in India, many children had to resort to WhatsApp to communicate with their teachers. Although the messaging app was certainly better than nothing, the limited growth of Indias digital ecosystem beyond mobile phones created major inequalities in access to essential education.

Given these considerations, less digitally-advanced economies would do well to focus on improving access to affordable mobile internet but should not lose sight of the need to also invest in better devices and faster, more reliable access. This strategy has contributed to the high momentum demonstrated by Break Out zone economies such as Kenya, India, and Vietnam. And of course, China leads the pack globally when it comes to mobile adoption, thanks to a combination of massive investments in 4G infrastructure and a competitive mobile device marketplace including Xiaomi, Oppo, Huawei, and Vivo.

While investing in mobile is a great first step for economies with limited existing digital infrastructure, policymakers should endeavor to expand their gaze beyond simply increasing the number of mobile devices, recognizing that longer-term growth will depend on the quality of internet access, the devices, and the overall consumer experience.

Once economies reach a higher level of digital evolution, they often encounter a tradeoff between maintaining their rapid momentum and fostering institutions that prioritize digital inclusion that is, the equitable distribution of digital development across class, gender, ethnicity, and geography. While smaller economies such as Singapore and Estonia may have an easier time maintaining their innovative edge while still ensuring an inclusive digital environment, larger, more complex economies can struggle to balance innovation with the bureaucracy needed to responsibly regulate that innovation.

For example, European economies most of which fall into the Stall Out zone hold six of the top 10 spots on our Digital Inclusion index. These economies have pioneered inclusive public policies such as ensuring affordable internet access, providing assistive technologies for the disabled, and investing in workers digital skills, and they are at the forefront of developing regulations for data governance and privacy. Many of these initiatives have (rightly) become a standard for the rest of the world but that focus on inclusion has somewhat slowed slowed the pace of new digital development in many of these economies. These tradeoffs may well be worth making, but governments and citizens alike will benefit from clearly understanding and planning for their potential impact on digital momentum.

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There is much that decision-makers from every country can learn from their positions on the 2020 Digital Evolution scorecard. But they can also learn from other countries as benchmarks, role models, or even cautionary tales. For example, Singapore, Estonia, Taiwan, and the UAE have all established effective, self-reinforcing digital ecosystems through a combination of strong institutions and investment into attracting global capital and talent. They have also successfully leveraged these digital strengths to adapt to the challenges of the pandemic, demonstrating the importance of digital development for building economic resilience. Despite their small size, economies like these can serve as models for leaders around the world.

In addition, large economies with high digital momentum such as China, India, and Indonesia can serve as role models for other large developing economies, such as Brazil and Nigeria, that may be looking to step up their digital momentum in the coming years. And smaller developing economies can look to midsize leapfrog nations such as Kenya, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Rwanda, and Argentina for examples of how digital momentum can rapidly transform an economy.

There are no one-size-fits-all solutions to digital evolution. Every country is unique, and the factors that enable one economy to succeed are far from certain to work in another. But despite these limitations, the 2020 Digital Evolution Scorecard can still offer clarity around the current state of both digital development and digital momentum around the world as well as the impact of that digital evolution on countries responses to the pandemic. Insight into how the nations of the world have fared (and what policy choices helped them get where they are) is the first step for anyone interested in fostering digital growth and economic resilience in their own community and around the globe.

The authors are grateful to Griffin Brewer, Christina Filipovic, and the Digital Planet team at the Fletcher School, and Paul Trueman at Mastercard.

Editors note: Every ranking or index is just one way to analyze and compare companies or places, based on a specific methodology and data set. At HBR, we believe that a well-designed index can provide useful insights, even though by definition it is a snapshot of a bigger picture. We always urge you to read the methodology carefully.

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Which Economies Showed the Most Digital Progress in 2020? - Harvard Business Review

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation opportunity to remake our approach to science. This moment, in all its difficult uncertaintyCOVID-19, economic turmoil and the crescendo of a long overdue national discussion about racial justicedemonstrates why universities, funders and other research stakeholders should move decisively to embrace open science. By adopting what are called open science practices, we can align the incentive structures of research production and consumption with our values, and catalyze the scientific progress our society so desperately needs.

The two of usthe president of Arizona State University (ASU), which has topped U.S. News & World Reports Most Innovative Schools list since the inception of the category in 2016, and the director of the Open Research Funders Group (a collaboration of leading philanthropies that collectively confer more than $10 billion in grants annually)call on our peers to commit not only in principle, but also in practice, to creating a more efficient, effective and equitable research ecosystem.

Open science, to quote Michael Nielsons Reinventing Discovery, is the idea that scientific knowledge of all kinds should be openly shared as early as is practical in the discovery process. That open science is an integral tool in the fight against COVID-19 is indisputable: the importance of access to scientific articles and data to help identify promising vaccines and therapeutics was recognized by publishers and researchers alike early in the pandemic. As a consequence, the research community has worked rapidly to take down the barriersincluding article paywalls, data hoarding and siloed lab work that chronically impede scientific progress.

The open dissemination, discussion and testing of COVID-19-related science has quickly taken the place of these outdated norms. Within one month of the first reported case, the virus was rapidly sequenced and openly posted to GenBank, the NIH genetic sequence database. Scores of researchers racing to learn more about COVID-19 shared their early findings as openly accessible preprints. These findings were tested and refined in real-time discussions that were tracked publicly and transparently. Papers that could not withstand replication and reproducibility efforts were quickly and publicly debunked, allowing the scientific community to pursue more promising research avenues. Society and commercial publishers made subscription-controlled coronavirus articles available to all. The protocols and technology behind the Yale School of Public Healths COVID-19 saliva test have been made available as open source.

Two clear conclusions can be drawn from this rapid alignment. First, the daily workings of science have practical ramifications in all our lives. Scientific norms affect not just researchers working in labs, but also policy makers, doctors, patients, families, and the general public. Second, open science is the form of research dissemination and global collaboration that best reduces vexing limits to knowledge that are exacerbated by COVID-19. If rapidly and openly sharing research data and papers is critical to understanding and combating coronavirus, doesnt the same hold true for cancer? Heart disease? Climate change? The scientific communitymoving with great speed and clarity of purposehas clearly signaled that open science is the most efficient way to tackle issues that have a significant and direct effect on the lives of the general public. The unambiguous conclusion is that open is better for science.

Importantly, open is also better for the economy. For example, around the turn of the century, the massive and massively successful Human Genome Project placed research results in the public domain. This commitment to open science generated nearly $800 billion dollars in economic benefits between 1988 and 2010, a return on investment of $141 for each dollar of the federal governments investment in the project. More than 310,000 jobs in the U.S. economy were created, directly and indirectly, totaling almost four million job-years of employment as a result of this scientific undertaking. Similarly, we also owe the development of global positioning systems to the real-world implementation of open science principles, a development that produced more than $50 billion in economic benefits.

Indeed, across a range of sectors from health care to energy, a McKinsey estimate from 2013 put the potential economic value of open data alone in the trillions of dollars annually, equivalent to more than three times the global economic impact of the automotive industry. By leaning into open science practices, we can fuel innovation, job creation and economic growth. As Franklin Roosevelt opined in 1941, at a similar moment of upheaval and uncertainty, the enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living is one of Americas basic expectations.

In addition to being better for science and better for the economy, open is better for society. ASU has found strength in defining success not in whom it excludes, but whom it includes. When knowledge and innovation rest in the hands of the few, we struggle to reach our collective potential. Access to data and published research democratizes information and allows more voices to join the scientific conversation. It removes a layer of insularity in ways both big and small. To take one example at the systemic level, the average library expenditures at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are significantly less than those of non-HBCU counterparts. This translates in real terms to a racialized inequality of access to the journal articles, books, and other materials upon which future research can be formulated.

At the individual level, the exchange of scientific information often occurs in direct personal interactions. Data that are otherwise proprietary may be shared among close peers and colleagues. Scholars without access to paywalled articles can request copies from the authors, but may be hesitant to do so if they are not part of the same informal networks. By making these materials open for allto access, replicate, question and build uponwe can contribute to both levelling the playing field and widening the circle of science.

Universities, philanthropies, government agencies and other stakeholders can accelerate the positive effects of open sciencein the fight against COVID-19, in our efforts to strengthen the economy, and in our quest for a more just societyby aligning our incentive structures with our values. Practically, this means exercising specific points of leverageincluding hiring, funding, tenure and promotionto ensure that research practices become more open. Many examples are flowering today. Dozens of university departments include language in their job postings along the lines of This department values transparent, replicable research and open science principles. This sets the expectation that open practices will be a component of not only the job interview but, for the successful candidate, of the job itself. A wide range of philanthropies are now asking grant applicants to explain how they have historically made their work open, and how, if funded, they will make their outputs open going forward. This provides a powerful incentive (the promise of financial support) for researchers to adhere to open practices.

Aligning research incentives to reward open science practices may seem daunting, but university and philanthropic leadership can start the process by taking specific, concrete actions that have already been proven effective in practice. While a number of organizations have launched fully actualized open science programs, notably McGills Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital (The Neuro) and the Rochester Institute of Technologys Open@RIT, university presidents and provosts can move their institutions systematically toward open simply by engaging in a structured dialog with their researchers. In this spirit, we call on universities to emulate MIT and launch an open science task force. MITs work began with a concise charge from its provost, to coordinate a renewed Institute-wide discussion of ways in which current policies and practices might be updated or revised to further the Institutes mission of disseminating the fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as possible.

The MIT model is a true collaboration among the administration, chairs and faculty that includes the development and deployment of open science plans tailored to the disciplinary considerations of each department. It is predicated on the acknowledgement that what constitutes open science best practices in, say, anthropology, will differ from what works for zoology.

Facilitating this bespoke departmental approach are the many emerging norms and policies articulated by professional societies such as the Linguistics Society of America, the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science and the American Geophysical Union. Ideally, the recommended policies that arise from these task forces will resonate with faculty from both an institutional and a disciplinary perspective. The ultimate goal is to develop "mutually reinforcing vectors," an environment in which researchers hear consistently from a range of influencers at their university, within their discipline, and across potential funding sources that open practices are both warmly encouraged and properly rewarded.

In support of this "mutually reinforcing vectors" approach, we also call on philanthropies to adopt grantmaking policies that encourage researchers to share their outputs (articles, data, code, materials, etc.) openly and rapidly. In this effort, they can lean on the work of funders ranging from the American Heart Association to the Gates Foundation to the Michael J. Fox Foundation to craft language and workflows that have been field-tested over thousands of grant conferrals. Philanthropies can also draw from policy language templates (developed by the Open Research Funders Group and endorsed by funders including the Sloan Foundation and the Wellcome Trust) to implement a stepwise approach to more closely aligning their incentivization schemes with open science principles.

While open is better for science, the economy, society, it is not magic. It takes concerted, direct effort by key stakeholders to effect change. It also takes a community of practicesharing successes, roadblocks, and solutions; developing and testing resources that explain the whats, whys and hows of open; and identifying key opportunities to expand the coalition of the willing. One such effort is the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicines Roundtable on Aligning Incentives for Open Science (in which we both participate). The Roundtable includes direct representation from colleges and universities, philanthropies and government agencies.

Crucially, the broader network of stakeholders engaging with the Roundtable also includes more than 500 professors, postdocs, librarians, professional society representatives, publishers, funders and other stakeholders. For any university or philanthropy finding itself not yet prepared to take the plunge in the manner we have outlined above, we warmly encourage you to engage with the roundtable to get a better sense of the tangible steps your peers are taking to stimulate open science within their institutions.

There are hurdles to widespread adoption of open science practices, to be sure. Researchers need proper training on data management plans, reuse licensing and other good open science hygiene. Infrastructure must be developed and nurtured to preserve scientific data, curate it and render it actionable. And organizations must overcome their natural entropy, which makes tackling big, cross-cutting initiatives like open science challenging. While these obstacles are nontrivial, they are small in comparison to the scientific, economic, and societal benefits of open. In a moment of great peril, maintaining the status quo will ultimately prove more costly.

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We Must Tear Down the Barriers That Impede Scientific Progress - Scientific American

There are more than 50 clinical trials worldwide testing potential vaccines, known as candidates, against COVID-19. So far, two of the vaccine candidates have been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use.

The majority of vaccine candidates for COVID-19 are still in a preclinical phase. That means the candidate vaccines are being tested in animal experiments, for example, rather than with human patients.

Please note:To be displayed as approved in the chart, a vaccine needs to be either approved by the USFDA or the European Medicines Agency(EMA), or cleared for emergency use by FDA, EMA orWHO. More details can be found here.

When those tests are deemed successful, candidate vaccines can move into clinical trial phases. That's when they are tested with humans. There are three clinical trial phases for efficacy and safety before a vaccine can be approved for use by humans. The phases differ from each other, most significantly in their scale:

Some companies, such asBioNTech-Pfizerin Europe, and Sinovac in China, have tested their vaccine candidates in several trials in parallel. For example, they have tested the same vaccine but in different age groups or with different dosages.

If clinical trials are successful, a company can formally apply to regulatory bodies to have their vaccine approved for use by the general public.

Three regulatory authorities are considered to be particularly important in this context: The FDAin the US, the Europea EMA,and the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Device Agency in Japan.

When a vaccine is approved, it doesn't mean everybody can get it immediately.

First, the vaccine has to be produced on a mass scale. With COVID-19, manufacturers aim to produce billions of doses by the end of 2021.

Second, logistics experts have to ensure appropriate distribution of the vaccine, and political leaders haveto decide who gets the vaccine first.

Read more: Can a vaccine be given out fairly?

In the end, though, it will be up to each individual to decide. A survey of more than 13,000 people in 35 countries most affected by COVID-19 showed that the majority of people asked would choose to get vaccinated.

It can take several years to develop an effective and safe vaccine. On average, it takes between 10 and 12 years, but it can take longer. The search for a vaccine against HIV has been going since the early 1980s so farwithout success.

In the case of COVID-19, researchers are racing to shorten the time it usually takes because of the ongoing pandemic. Despite the pressure that that brings, vaccine developers, manufacturers and the World Health Organization (WHO) say there will be no compromises on safety.

Research teams are aiming to accelerate, or limit, the time it takes to get to approval during the pandemic to an average duration of 16 months.

However, that will only be the beginning. Once clinical trials are successfully completedand a vaccine is approved and produced, researchers start phase IV, during which they observe the progress of vaccinated patients.

Researchers are pursuing 12different approaches for vaccines against COVID-19.

Most of the vaccine candidates use a protein-based subunit so, instead of using a complete pathogenic virus, they are built on a small component of it, such as a protein found in its outer shell.

That protein is administered to patients in a high dose, with the aim of inducing a fast and strong reaction by the human immune system.

The hope is that the immune system will "remember" the protein and trigger a similar defense reaction if or when it comes into contact with the actual virus.

Vaccines against hepatitis B and HPV (human papillomavirus), for example, are based on this principle.

Four additional approaches have made it to phase III.

Non-replicating viral vectors are a type of so-called recombinant vaccines: Researchers modify the virus' genetic information by switching on or off or altering certain functions. By doing that they can, for example, reduce the infectiousness of a virus. Such genetic modifications, however, require that science already has detailed knowledge about which parts of a virus' genetic material are responsible for which functions in order for them to be able to manipulate them effectively. The term "non-replicating" means that the virus in the vaccine enters cells in the human body but is unable to reproduce there on its own.

Inactivated vaccines use a "dead" version of the pathogen. They tend to provide a lower level of protection than live vaccines. Some vaccines in this class have to be administered several times to achieve sufficient immunity. Examples of inactivated vaccines include ones against influenza and hepatitis A.

RNA vaccines follow a different strategy, without using any "real" component of the virus at all. Instead, researchers aim to trick the human body into producing a specific virus component on its own. Since only this specific component is built, no complete virus can assemble itself. Nevertheless, the immune system learns to recognize the non-human components and trigger a defense reaction.

Vaccines based on virus-like particles use another approach: Researchers only use the empty virus envelope without any genetic material inside of it to train the immune system.

At time of writing, there were well over 100 research teams worldwidedeveloping a COVID-19 vaccine. So far, 15 teams have advanced their candidate vaccines to the third phase of clinical trials.

Five teams stand out for conducting the most extensive clinical trials:

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COVID-19 vaccine tracker: What's the progress? - DW (English)