The Sloan Foundation previously funded Misty Heggeness from the University of Kansas to collect and present data about the economics of caregiving through a dashboard—called the Care Board—that she is launching online. The Care Board will cover both paid and unpaid forms of childcare, elder care, and housework to demonstrate the value and feasibility of measuring these activities systematically and comprehensively.   That pilot is off to a great start and has attracted significant attention from academic researchers and government officials alike. Several federal agencies have expressed a compelling interest in developing official caregiving statistics, but none currently has the authority, budget, or expertise to start anything like the Care Board. When federal statistical agencies need to coordinate like this, either on technical matters or funding requests, they often turn to CNSTAT, the Committee on National Statistics at the National Academy of Sciences.   Half of this grant therefore funds a CNSTAT study panel on caregiving statistics that will meet ten times over the next two years. That panel will issue a peer-reviewed report making the case for precisely how and why the federal government should take on this task. The design decisions, use cases, and test results for the Care Board will be discussed throughout by this panel and form the basis of its recommendations. CNSTAT will then disseminate the report to Congress with all the authority and credibility that only the National Academies can muster.   The other half supports putting a data-rich Care Board online. One of the main challenges at this stage is carrying through plans to access and process confidential administrative data about everything from tax deductions to public assistance program participation. Also, new surveys, new categorization schemes, and new ways of inferring statistics are all under intense development and testing.   Working through the independent research unit at University of Massachusetts Amherst called the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), PI Nancy Folbre will manage the synergies between the two workstreams. Having devoted her career to the study of caregiving, Folbre is among the most respected and accomplished economists in this field. She and Heggeness will work to achieve a shared vision for sustainably providing important data about the economics of caregiving.

This grant is for three years of continued support for the American Film Institute (AFI) to continue awarding screenwriting, production, development, and scholarship awards for science and technology films and episodic television, and to hold science and technology seminars. The screenwriting award is offered to exceptional feature-length or episodic television scripts that accurately depict scientific stories or themes. The production award provides funds to produce a short film that centers science and technology themes or characters. The tuition award is for a prospective student with a science background who is transitioning to a film career. The development award provides financial support and mentorship for graduating Fellows developing science-based projects for the commercial film market, with the intent of pitching, optioning, and/or selling a scripted feature or series. AFI will also continue to host annual Sloan Seminars featuring screenings of films followed by discussions with accomplished filmmakers and scientists about the science and technology themes in the films.