Charge

The Government Engagement Working Group supports ERVA’s goals of apprising members and interested parties of executive branch and legislative actions relevant to engineering research and of effectively communicating opportunities and challenges identified through ERVA visioning to congressional and federal agency representatives. With care that no lobbying will take place and all activities are conducted in compliance with NSF award guidelines, the working group will regularly communicate with the leadership team and Standing Council about relevant executive branch and legislative activities and will coordinate information sharing interactions among the Executive Committee and Standing Council with key policymakers and agency personnel.

With priority given to fulfilling the community’s best interest through a ubiquitous awareness of proportionate representation from underrepresented groups, the members of the Government Engagement Working Group will ensure all recommendations are made with an objective, unbiased approach particularly regarding their own engineering discipline, professional affiliation, or other influences such as geographic region that would introduce inappropriate favoritism into the ERVA’s outcomes. The need to maintain a balanced and consistently diverse pipeline of all members of the academic and industry continuum, especially early career professionals, is paramount to train the most prepared, agile and innovative next generation engineers and beyond.