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Offshore renewable energy is poised to play a significant role in the nation's clean energy future, particularly along the U.S. West Coast, where floating offshore wind technology is nearing commercial scale. At the same time, West Coast waters support long standing and diverse maritime activities, including commercial, Tribal, and recreational fisheries, domestic and international shipping, port operations, and U.S. Coast Guard missions. As offshore renewable energy advances, understanding how these uses may interact is essential for informed planning and comprehensive decision making.Offshore Renewable Energy Development on the U.S. West Coast: Understanding Effects on Shipping, Fisheries, and Maritime Activities examines how offshore wind, wave, and tidal energy development may impact shipping routes, fisheries, port operations, and Coast Guard activities. Drawing on lessons from earlier offshore wind projects along the East Coast and current West Coast planning processes, this report identifies opportunities to proactively address potential conflicts, strengthen coordination, and support coexistence among ocean users.The report concludes that the West Coast's early stage of offshore renewable energy development presents a critical opportunity to align clean energy goals with maritime safety, fisheries sustainability, Tribal rights, and economic vitality. Through early engagement, transparent spatial planning, and coordinated governance, offshore renewable energy can be developed in ways that reduce undue burdens on coastal communities and existing ocean users while delivering broad public benefits.

The National Academies' National Cancer Policy Forum convened a workshop in May 2025 to explore the emerging field of cancer engineering and its potential to improve patient outcomes through the convergence of engineering with cancer research, care, and policy. Participants - including experts from academia, government, industry, and patients - discussed how engineering innovations can accelerate cancer research, advance early detection and diagnosis methods, and improve access and affordability of cancer care for all. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshop.

Floods, droughts, wildfires, earthquakes, other extreme environmental events pose persistent and growing risks to ecosystems, infrastructure, and human life. A deeper understanding of the timing and severity of extreme events provides opportunities to prepare, adapt and mitigate the societal consequences of. While modern observational systems have recorded the extreme events of the past century or two, they do not provide a full record of the historic frequency and magnitude of such events.Paleoenvironmental data from natural archives, such as sediments, ice cores, tree rings, and corals can extend the record of events back centuries to millennia. Such data are already being used to inform public policy, infrastructure design, and emergency planning across the United States. For example, tree-ring reconstructions of past hydrologic conditions have informed Bureau of Reclamation planning for the Colorado River and resource strategies at water utilities. Despite its potential to inform disaster preparedness, the use of paleoenvironmental data are hindered by many challenges, including a diversity of analytical methods, decentralized storage, and limited digital discoverability.At the request of Department of Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, this report evaluates potential functions and criteria for a new center for paleoenvironmental records of extreme events. The report's authoring committee concludes that while there is a need for new physical storage and better coordination of digital repositories and databases, the most urgent unmet need is an enhanced capacity for synthesis and translation - the processes that transform data into usable knowledge. The report provides a vision for a new center dedicated to synthesis and translation with the mission to help improve societal resilience to future extreme events.

Synthetic cells represent a rapidly advancing frontier in engineering biology, offering new ways to understand living systems and developing innovative solutions across health, environmental management, agriculture, and manufacturing. Constructed from biomolecular components and designed to perform life-like functions, synthetic cells have the potential to enable more predictable, controllable, and adaptable biological technologies with wide-ranging societal and economic benefits.Supporting Responsible Innovation of Synthetic Cells: Biosafety, Biosecurity, and Environmental Considerations examines how this emerging field can advance while addressing biosafety, biosecurity, and environmental considerations. The report finds that many risks associated with synthetic cells are similar to those posed by existing chemical and microbial systems but may arise in new ways due to novel combinations of features, boundary-blurring system architectures, and emerging applications, creating uncertainty for risk-benefit evaluation and oversight.To support responsible innovation, the report outlines a path forward grounded in adaptive, evidence-based, and proportionate governance. Key recommendations include establishing a coordinated national biotechnology governance strategy, strengthening the empirical data and research infrastructure for risk assessment, modernizing biosafety and biosecurity oversight, and promoting transparency, public engagement, and international collaboration.By aligning scientific advancement with adaptive and coordinated governance, this report provides a framework for ensuring that synthetic cell research develops in ways that are safe, secure, and responsive to societal needs, helping realize the promise of this emerging technology while managing uncertainty and risk.

As the polar regions undergo rapid change, planning for the Fifth International Polar Year (IPY5) offers a pivotal opportunity to shape global polar research and advance understanding. Exploring Key Research Topics for the Fifth International Polar Year: Proceedings of a Workshop captures expert dialogue on the scientific priorities, operational needs, and collaborative frameworks that could define this ambitious international effort.The workshop convened leaders across disciplines to identify transformative research questions and monitoring strategies aligned with U.S. and international engagement in IPY5. Participants examined advances since the last IPY, including developments in remote sensing, autonomous observing systems, modeling, and machine learning. Discussions emphasized critical topics such as sea-level rise and grounding-zone processes, permafrost carbon feedbacks, ocean–ice interactions, marine ecosystems, space weather, wildfire, and the integration of atmosphere, ocean, ice, and land systems.Beyond scientific priorities, the proceedings highlight the human and institutional capacity required for success. Contributors explored international coordination models, data interoperability, Indigenous leadership and data sovereignty, community-based observing networks, and pathways for early-career researchers to lead IPY-scale efforts. The result is a forward-looking roadmap that connects polar science to societal outcomes, from coastal risk management and infrastructure planning to environmental services, forecasting, and decision supporting the groundwork for a bold and collaborative IPY5 vision.

Small businesses play a critical role in developing innovative technologies that support national defense and strengthen the U.S. industrial base. For more than four decades, the Department of Defense Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs have helped connect entrepreneurial firms with defense needs, advancing new capabilities while expanding opportunities for participation in the defense innovation ecosystem.Review of the SBBR and STTR Programs at the Department of Defense presents a comprehensive, congressionally mandated assessment of how these programs operate and the impacts they deliver. The report finds that the Department of Defense's SBIR and STTR programs are effective tools for stimulating technological innovation, engaging small businesses, and broadening the defense industrial base, while identifying opportunities to improve data systems, technology transition, program visibility, and administrative efficiency. Drawing on extensive quantitative and qualitative evidence, the report offers targeted recommendations to strengthen program management, enhance flexibility, and ensure that promising innovations can move more effectively from research to operational and acquisition use.

Recent advances in pediatric health, such as declines in child mortality, would never have happened without significant and consistent federal investment - supported by Congress and led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Despite these advances, there is broad consensus among experts that child health is in crisis as children in the United States are experiencing rising rates of chronic diseases and poor mental, emotional, and behavioral health. NIH tasked the National Academies with convening a committee to examine NIH's pediatric research portfolio and structure and to provide recommendations focused on improving NIH's overall support of pediatric health research. The resulting report provides evidence and eight recommendations to guide NIH's integration of a pediatric and life-course focus throughout its research and funding priorities.

What approaches can ensure that personal protective equipment (PPE) is designed and implemented in ways that effectively protect farmworkers and mitigate the risk of Influenza A (H5N1) transmission from animals to humans?In September 2025, the National Academies convened a workshop to examine the role of personal protective equipment in high-risk farm settings, bringing together public health officials, academic researchers, PPE innovators, producers, veterinarians, occupational health and safety experts, and farmworker advocates, among many others, to assess current evidence and on-the-ground realities surrounding risk and exposure. Discussions explored what is known - and what remains uncertain - about H5N1 transmission, practical and systemic barriers to PPE access and use, the implications for PPE use in diverse agricultural settings, and the ways in which risk perception, training, trust, and working conditions shape adoption. Participants shared lessons from recent outbreak responses and highlighted the importance of tailoring protective strategies to task-specific risks, environmental conditions, and farm-level operations. This Proceedings of a Workshop summarizes presentations and discussions that took place during the event.

NASA's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs support technological innovation by small businesses and support the agency's research, development, and mission needs.Developed by an expert committee convened by the National Academies, this report finds that NASA's SBIR/STTR programs advance mission-aligned technologies, engage small businesses in NASA's innovation ecosystem, and support early- and intermediate-stage technology development. While the commercial space sector presents new opportunities and challenges, NASA's SBIR/STTR programs play a critical complementary role in its growth by supporting the development of technologies and specialized suppliers that contribute to both NASA missions and emerging commercial applications.The report emphasizes the importance of maintaining NASA's recent organizational improvements, streamlining application processes, and improving pathways for the commercialization of NASA SBIR/STTR-supported technologies. It also highlights the value of NASA's Technology Portfolio Management System, or TechPort, for tracking technology readiness and recommends strengthening data systems to better assess program outcomes, research partnerships, and long-term impacts.

In 2021, U.S. Navy personnel accidentally caused two releases of kerosene-based aviation fuel (jet propellant 5, or JP-5) from the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility on O'ahu, Hawai'i, contaminating the drinking water supply for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and the Aliamanu Military Reservation. This exposure impacted up to 93,000 individuals, disrupting their lives and, for many, resulting in acute and ongoing health concerns.The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Defense Health Agency tasked the National Academies with convening an expert committee to make recommendations for monitoring the health of community members exposed. The resulting report was informed by exposed community members. It reviews and determines the strength of scientific evidence; reviews available exposure assessments and models: provides recommendations on clinical surveillance, testing, and care: and identifies research needs.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of pregnancy-related death in the United States and a major contributor to pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality. More than half of pregnancy-related deaths occur from 7 days to 1 year after delivery, and more than 75 percent of pregnancy-related cardiovascular deaths are potentially preventable. Clinical preventive services before, during, and after pregnancy - as well as between pregnancies - can help reduce risk and protect long-term cardiovascular health.The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) requested that the National Academies convene an expert committee to identify clinical preventive services to reduce pregnancy-related cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, assess how HRSA programs can support access and uptake of clinical preventive services, and identify research priorities. The resulting report presents the committee's conclusions and recommendations, including two clinical preventive services supported for implementation now.

Building on decades of National Academies' work addressing biological threats domestically and internationally, Biological Threats in the Age of Emerging Biotechnology: A Workshop Series captures critical international dialogue on how to safeguard innovation with rapidly evolving advances in biotechnology. Although biotechnologies are developed for and used in research for many different issues, much of the current biosecurity and biosafety policies and risk assessment frameworks focus on applications of biotechnologies with pathogens and toxins. This workshop series sought to understand relevance of these and related security policies and frameworks for assessing applications of biotechnologies that do not involve pathogens and toxins, and additional information that may be needed to assess risks and benefits of these biotechnology applications.Through four workshops convening experts from India, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and the United States, this proceeding explores how current policies can be adapted to assess and mitigate dual use risks while preserving the benefits of emerging biotechnology. Using case studies in human health multi-omics, crop improvement, and DNA synthesis screening, participants examined regulatory gaps, data governance challenges, and opportunities for international coordination and responsible innovation.The discussions highlight the importance of balancing risk reduction with scientific progress, strengthening global norms, improving data security and oversight, and fostering collaboration among researchers, industry, and policymakers. The proceedings also offers a timely global perspective on enabling biotechnology to advance safely, securely, and for peaceful purposes while supporting health, sustainability, and economic development worldwide.