Research and innovation in the life sciences is driving rapid growth in agriculture, biomedical science, information science and computing, energy, and other sectors of the U.S. economy. This economic activity, conceptually referred to as the bioeconomy, presents many opportunities to create jobs, improve the quality of life, and continue to drive economic growth. While the United States has been a leader in advancements in the biological sciences, other countries are also actively investing in and expanding their capabilities in this area. Maintaining competitiveness in the bioeconomy is key to maintaining the economic health and security of the United States and other nations. Safeguarding the Bioeconomy evaluates preexisting and potential approaches for assessing the value of the bioeconomy and identifies intangible assets not sufficiently captured or that are missing from U.S. assessments. This study considers strategies for safeguarding and sustaining the economic activity driven by research and innovation in the life sciences. It also presents ideas for horizon scanning mechanisms to identify new technologies, markets, and data sources that have the potential to drive future development of the bioeconomy.

In anticipation of future environmental science and engineering challenges and technologic advances, EPA asked the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the overall capabilities of the agency to develop, obtain, and use the best available scientific and technologic information and tools to meet persistent, emerging, and future mission challenges and opportunities. Although the committee cannot predict with certainty what new environmental problems EPA will face in the next 10 years or more, it worked to identify some of the common drivers and common characteristics of problems that are likely to occur. Tensions inherent to the structure of EPA's work contribute to the current and persistent challenges faced by the agency, and meeting those challenges will require development of leading-edge scientific methods, tools, and technologies, and a more deliberate approach to systems thinking and interdisciplinary science. Science for Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead outlines a framework for building science for environmental protection in the 21st century and identified key areas where enhanced leadership and capacity can strengthen the agency's abilities to address current and emerging environmental challenges as well as take advantage of new tools and technologies to address them. The foundation of EPA science is strong, but the agency needs to continue to address numerous present and future challenges if it is to maintain its science leadership and meet its expanding mandates.

Large-scale development projects oftentimes end up creating negative impacts that affect vulnerable populations with particular intensity. Projects likely to displace families from their homes, degrade the living conditions of indigenous peoples or intensify social conflicts at local levels are not uncommon. Social safeguards are intended to prevent these and other unintended impacts, and when the impacts cannot be averted, to develop appropriate measures to mitigate them. However, the practical implementation of social safeguards is plagued with a series of structural problems. The collection of stories from the field presented in this book illustrates the principles and application of social safeguards in the context of projects funded by multilateral banks, identifying key challenges in their implementation and exploring paths to overcome those limitations.

Part I Setting the scene -- Introduction: Individual rights, the public interest and biobank research 4000 (8) -- Genetic data and privacy protection -- Part II GDPR and European responses -- Biobank governance and the impact of the GDPR on the regulation of biobank research -- Controller' and processor's responsibilities in biobank research under GDPR -- Individual rights in biobank research under GDPR -- Safeguards and derogations relating to processing for archiving purposes in the scientific purposes: Article 89 analysis for biobank research -- A Pan-European analysis of Article 89 implementation and national biobank research regulations -- EEA, Switzerland analysis of GDPR requirements and national biobank research regulations -- Part III National insights in biobank regulatory frameworks -- Selected 10-15 countries for reports: Germany -- Greece -- France -- Finland -- Sweden -- United Kingdom -- Part IV Conclusions -- Reflections on individual rights, the public interest and biobank research, ramifications and ways forward. .

In the past 30 years, the population of prisoners in the United States has expanded almost 5-fold, correctional facilities are increasingly overcrowded, and more of the country's disadvantaged populations—racial minorities, women, people with mental illness, and people with communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis—are under correctional supervision. Because prisoners face restrictions on liberty and autonomy, have limited privacy, and often receive inadequate health care, they require specific protections when involved in research, particularly in today's correctional settings. Given these issues, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protections commissioned the Institute of Medicine to review the ethical considerations regarding research involving prisoners. The resulting analysis contained in this book, Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners, emphasizes five broad actions to provide prisoners involved in research with critically important protections: • expand the definition of "prisoner"; • ensure universally and consistently applied standards of protection; • shift from a category-based to a risk-benefit approach to research review; • update the ethical framework to include collaborative responsibility; and • enhance systematic oversight of research involving prisoners.