Scientists need to look beyond their laboratories to the chemistry on Capitol Hill, a panel of professors and policy experts agreed at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s meeting in Chicago.

Across the country, institutions of higher learning have implemented science policy courses for undergraduate and graduate students. However, the panel said, more programs of study are needed.

Panel members included Gene Fisher, senior policy fellow at the American Meteorological Society and adjunct professor at North Carolina State University, Tobin Smith, vice president at the Association of American Universities, Homer Neal of the University of Michigan, Francis Slakey of Georgetown University and Alicia Jackson, a former MIT graduate student.

The panelists encouraged science students and their institutions to supplement biological, chemical and physical science preparation with coursework in the complex process of policymaking, legislation and lobbying.

Although many universities have courses that analyze policy and legislation that have already been enacted, science and policy are still treated as very separate issues. Jackson, who is also a staff member on the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, said that scientists, themselves often unfamiliar with the legislative process, tend to encourage their students not to stray from the pure sciences.

Smith explained that this problem was hardly limited to scientists. Most political science departments, he said, lack courses explaining science to future policymakers. As a result, most legislators have minimal science training beyond the high school level.

Fisher suggested that the skills used by scientists and policymakers are often transferable, but only with the proper training. Both science and policymaking involve problem identification, investigation, and evaluation, she said, adding that more science policy courses at the college level could foster communication between the two disciplines.

“If you can't explain it to me in a way that I can understand it,” Smith said, “then you can't explain it to people on The Hill.” Smith, who holds an MA in Legislative Affairs from George Washington University, was the only panelist without a background in science.

Nonetheless, the panelists expressed hope for the future of science policymaking in higher education. At the University of Michigan, Neal implemented a course that gives students an overview of what science policy entails, as well as historic and current events that have shaped the science world.

Such initiatives can also be student lead. Jackson developed a “boot camp” class for her fellow graduate students at MIT that condensed the basics of science policy into an intensive one week program.

As a professor in Washington, D.C., Francis Slakey uses Congress “as a laboratory.” In his seminar style course, students identify potential science policy issues, draft legislation, and lobby members of Congress to support their propositions. Using this method, Slakey and his students have even had some projects accepted as bills and signed into law.

According to the panel, science policy courses provide students with the tools they need to bridge the gap between the research laboratory and Capitol Hill, improving relationships between scientists and government officials.