NOAA's Mission & Best Available Science

NOAA relies on the best available science to accomplish its mission. In cases such as the Endangered Species Act and Sustainable Fisheries Act, the use of the best available science is specifically mandated by law. NOAA's commitment to the use of the best available science is also pronounced in NOAA's Information Quality Guidelines, which state that NOAA will use the best available science and supporting studies when informing agency action. NOAA's Scientific Integrity Administrative Order (NAO-202-735D-2 § 8.1.d) iterates on this by mandating that policy decisions appropriately reflect the best available science. In recent years there has also been a push by Congress and the White House to further ensure evidence-based decision-making. In 2018 Congress passed the Foundations of Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, and after the signing of the Memorandum on Restoring Trusing in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) led the "Year of Evidence for Action" to accelerate efforts to make evidence, data, and science central at the highest levels of Federal decision making.

The Research & Publication Landscape

The research and publication landscape continues to rapidly expand making it impossible for scientists and policymakers to gather and analyze evidence using traditional methods. In 2020 alone, 2.9 million scientific publications were produced, up from 1.9 million in 2010, and between 2015 and 2019, environmental science publications grew faster than any other broad field at 45.7%. This growth in publications is a worldwide phenomenon with countries such as China, Iran, Russia, and Brazil growing at a more rapid pace than the United States and European Union, highlighting the potential bias when only English articles are included.

Beyond the growth of traditional publications, innovations in search platforms have also begun to provide access to larger amounts of grey literature, not indexed by traditional literature databases. Furthermore, constant changes to the functionalities of literature databases and the addition of new search platforms often leave researchers and policymakers unaware of the resources available and the skill sets required to search these tools effectively. Even if all of this literature were easily accessible in a single database, researchers would still be faced with over 48k active, peer-reviewed journals with 35k titles in English. While researchers have the benefits of abundant information, this information is often scattered, and once this information is gathered, there are also drawbacks to information overload.