Connectionists: Call for Papers - US biomed science policy: success, failure and recommendation

[Sean Manion]

Hi all,

I am co-hosting a call for papers at Frontiers in Systems Biology on
"United States Biomedical Science Policy: Success, Failure &
Recommendation: Past, Present & Future", which includes:

"Systems approaches and technology: computational modeling, AI, integrative
analysis, and network medicine as drivers of policy innovation."

Frontiers | United States Biomedical Science Policy: Success, Failure &
Recommendation: Past, Present & Future
<https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/73238/united-states-biomedical-science-policy-success-failure-recommendation-past-present-future>

*Manuscript Summary Submission Deadline 14 December 2025*

*Manuscript Submission Deadline 29 March 2026*

The United States (U.S.) has long been a leader in biomedical research.
After World War II, Vannevar Bush’s report on the value of government
investment in science, including biomedical research, launched the National
Science Foundation (NSF) while rapidly expanding the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) and research funding across fields. For 75 years, US federally
funded biomedical research has been a model and magnet for researchers
around the globe, while US biomedical research policy has helped shape the
current ecosystem across sectors worldwide. This includes both large scale
success, as well as challenges that face biomedical research such as
ethical issues, challenges with publishing and science communication,
reproducibility and replicability issues, and more.

However, this ecosystem faces significant and evolving challenges: ethical
dilemmas, hurdles in publishing and science communication, as well as
persistent concerns about reproducibility and replicability. In early 2025,
the arrival of a new US federal administration prompted sweeping policy
shifts in areas ranging from funding and publishing mandates to technology
adoption and animal modeling among others. These developments have
intensified public and academic debate, drawing renewed attention to both
persistent issues and dated practices within US biomedical science policy.

A dimension that warrants particular attention is the increasing importance
of a systems perspective in current and future biomedical policy. The use
of systems-based approaches, such as computational modeling, artificial
intelligence, and integrative analyses, can help address long-standing
issues in the field. For instance, advances in computational and systems
biology methods have not only driven technology development but have also
reduced the need for animal usage, exemplified by the move towards in
silico modeling and simulation. By streamlining what have traditionally
been reductionist, hypothesis-driven studies, such approaches can also help
reduce research cost and increase both efficiency and reproducibility.
These activities illustrate how policy reform, when informed and guided by
systems thinking, can yield improvements across the biomedical research
spectrum.

This Topic focuses on the evaluation of past and current biomedical science
policies in the US, including their global impact and alternatives, along
with recommendations for evidence-based future policy recommendations.
Topic areas can include research funding, governance, translation,
implementation, evaluation, communication, publishing, economic or mission
return on investment, and other critical activities and impacts, examined
explicitly through a systems lens.

To gather further insights in the evaluation and reinvention of US
biomedical science policy, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited
to, the following themes:
• Historical foundations and evolutionary trends of US biomedical policy
• Governance, funding, and translation: mechanisms, challenges, and
opportunities
• Systems approaches and technology: computational modeling, AI,
integrative analysis, and network medicine as drivers of policy innovation
• Research reproducibility, ethical standards, and communication:
challenges and solutions
• Economic and social returns on biomedical research investments
• The role of systems biology in resolving reproducibility and ethical
challenges
• Translational impact and technology adoption in biomedical research

Paper types can be original research, reviews, methods, brief reports,
perspectives and conceptual proposals.
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