The Partnership for Public Service was asked by the Pew Charitable Trusts to determine if the FDA has made progress in shoring up its scientific and technical workforce since the Science Board sounded the alarm. As part of our review, we examined whether the FDA had adopted any of the report’s workforce recommendations or taken other steps to correct the problems; how FDA employees and leadership view the current state of the workforce; and what the agency should do in the future to improve its recruitment, hiring and retention practices.

From our review, we discovered that the FDA has made progress since the Science Board issued its findings, including taking steps to expand its workforce. But we also found that the FDA continues to have significant workforce and management challenges in the scientific and medical arenas that need to be addressed for the agency to fulfill its public health obligations to the American public and its responsibilities to the industries it regulates.