Last year in my May-June report, I discussed AAPM's decision to purchase a new Association Management System (AMS) and Financial Management System (FMS) system. Since then, a lot has happened, and I will provide an update in this report. As per the plan, the FMS is now fully implemented and is currently being used by the AAPM Financial staff and the AMS system is going through the final training process. To date this project has gone smoothly starting with the decision to move forward with a plan for purchasing the new systems, Board approval to purchase the new systems and now onto implementation. High cooperation and enthusiasm from AAPM staff has made this project possible and on time and I am hoping that the new systems will make the organization's work more efficient.

Recently, I attended the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Assembly of Society Officers meeting at the American Center for Physics, College Park, MD and wanted to share some of the topics that were discussed related to the current state of science policies. Three panels convened to offer an analysis and planned strategies for advancing member organizations' science advocacy: The New Reality of Science Policy; Communicating Science to Gain Public Trust; and Positioning Your Society for the Age of Open Science.

The New Reality of Science Policy

Michael Henry, Director of FYI Science Policy News, offered an optimistic analysis of the current political climate for science. He posited an unexpected renaissance for the physical sciences, comparing the Trump administration's proposed science budget against appropriations, with evidence showing bipartisan support for science funding. David Goldston, Director of the Washington office of MIT, further supported the view that science funding has been relatively stable over the long term.

Kathleen Kingscott, Vice President Strategic Partnerships at IBM Research, set out a process for organizations to develop advocacy priorities and strategies, and Eleanor Dahoney, Vice President Policy and Advocacy at Research!America, coached attendees who lobby to know their legislator's priorities and draw on values and emotions.

Communicating Science to Gain Public Trust

The second group of panelists discussed the importance of communication in gaining the public's trust. Laura Helmuth, Health Science & Environment Editor for The Washington Post, talked about how the media report on science. She noted the dynamic nature of this pocket of journalism, which is increasingly dominated by journalists with significant science education and training. This is a welcome change for organizations like us to have journalists with a science background who can provide a balanced discussion on complex scientific issues such as radiation risks and benefits to the general public. Jevin West, Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, discussed his work combatting misinformation in science. He looked at the viable business model for spreading misinformation, and expressed the need to teach students and others how to look at science publications critically.

Nathan Sanders, co-founder of ComSciCon, and founder of the publication widely popular among science students, Astrobites; advocated for attendees to empower the next generation of science communicators by engaging graduate students as liaisons to the public.

Positioning Your Society for the Age of Open Science

Brian Nosek, co-founder of the Center for Open Science (COS), led the final panel by talking about improving transparency in scholarly communication, and his work at COS advocating for open science. Nosek seeks to improve reproducibility by shifting incentives that impact research, and transitioning business models that dominate scholarly communication. Nosek notes that changing journal publication, a critical part of the income stream to professional societies, is a starting point that can move the scientific enterprise toward openness. He believes that societies can accommodate the move to openness by adopting other income-producing activities, such as providing peer review at registration and through research. In addition, Nosek suggests preregistration as a way of increasing transparency and reproducibility of published research. He explains that the preregistration process requires authors to specify up-front what they intend to do and how they intend to analyze their results, allowing shortcomings to be resolved early in the process.

Roque Calvo, Executive Director for the ElectroChemical Society (ECS), upended his organization's business plan, based on traditional income sources as an independent, nonprofit publisher, to advance an open science paradigm, changing ECS's publishing standard to be supported by growing a $20 million endowment. Calvo spoke about his organization's Free the Science initiative, that will make ECS research freely available to all readers, while remaining free for authors to publish. The initiative currently gives ECS authors the choice to publish their work as open access. Calvo explained ECS's change in paradigm has increased readership and engagement in their journal publication process. He says ECS plans to open access to the entire ECS Digital Library by 2024.

Overall, I found this year's AIP Assembly of Society Officers very interesting with valuable discussions on the science advocacy environment and guidance in navigating policy challenges.

I would like to thank Richard Martin, AAPM's Government Relations Program Manager, for his subject matter contribution to this report. Please feel free to reach out to me at mmahesh@jhmi.edu, @mmahesh1, or call me at 410-955-5115, if you have any questions concerning this report.