ELKAN BLOUT Sharing Our Knowledge

Within the Academies’ community, Elkan Blout is highly respected for his intelligence, his accomplishments, and for his long and continuing commitment to the missions of the NAS, NAE, and IOM.

Elkan recognized that, in coming years, perhaps the greatest single challenge that science, engineering, and medicine will face is the ability to bridge the profound communication gap between those enterprises and the lay community. For that reason, this past year Elkan became a charter member of the Presidents’ Circle Knowledge Fund. This newly established fund is a pool of dedicated resources that will enhance the Academies’ public outreach efforts, and underwrite broader and deeper dissemination of Academies study reports and lay publications.

The Academies hope to leverage Elkan’s six-figure pledge with gifts from Presidents’ Circle members and from other Academies members. As those new donors contribute to this pool, the Fund will be positioned to significantly increase the number of lay-publications and other public communications produced each year -- as well as more effectively disseminate the key facts, conclusions and recommendations contained in the Academies’ hundreds of new reports.

“My experience in the business, government, research, and academic worlds has reinforced for me how important it is to overcome the communication barriers that exist among scientific and engineering disciplines -- and especially those barriers that so easily arise between scientists and the public,” Elkan says. “Having directly observed the National Academies for more than 30 years, I firmly believe that we can and must play a leading role in that process.”

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