The Energy Department has announced that it will award 95 grants worth a total of $95 million to 80 small businesses located in 26 states as part of its Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.

DOE said Monday it picked companies that have demonstrated technical feasibility for technology innovations during phase I.

Prior Phase II awardees which competed for a sequential Phase II grant to continue prototyping and process development will receive a two-year median award worth $1 million.

Congress established the SBIR and STTR programs to leverage small businesses as part of a larger effort to advance innovation for the federal government.

The Office of Management and Budget introduced on June 29 a new part of its Circular A-11 that instructs government agencies to craft customer experience frameworks and guides on how to manage customer experience improvement efforts, NextGov reported Monday.

The guidance covers the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury and State. Official reporting on such initiatives from those agencies will start in the first quarter of fiscal year 2019.

The guidance requires agencies to determine customer experience in seven domains: customer satisfaction, confidence/trust, service quality, ease, efficiency, equity of process and employee helpfulness.

An OMB senior official said the modification to the A-11 guidance is in line with the President’s Management Agenda, noting, “It is the first step toward a broad federal CX [customer experience] improvement and lays the groundwork to create common structure, elements and measurable improvements in customer satisfaction by using the principles and practices proven by leading private sector organizations.”

Stephanie Thum, executive strategist for the Customer Experience Professionals Association, said the addendum to the A-11 guidance was an “evolution” of what federal CX professionals have been pushing.

The National Science Foundation has appointed the members of a panel that will support and advise a federal interagency committee on programs for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education pursuant to the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act.

Congress authorized the establishment of the 18-member STEM Education Advisory Panel that will evaluate the Committee on STEM’s efforts for the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act and help determine possible updates to the 2013-2018 Federal STEM Education 5-year Strategic Plan, NSF said Wednesday.

France Cordova, NSF director and co-chairperson of CoSTEM, said the panel will aid the committee and partner agencies in the development of CoSTEM’s next five-year plan on strategic investments for future STEM researchers.

NASA provides educational and engagement opportunities to students and teachers through the agency’s spectrum of work and aims to continue initiatives that will “help fill the pipeline of new explorers”, said Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator and CoSTEM co-chairperson.

The Education Department intends to partner with the panel to develop STEM education for American students, said Betsy DeVos, Education secretary and CoSTEM member.

Tim Gallaudet, acting undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and member of CoSTEM, said he plans to collaborate and accommodate recommendations from the panel to help NOAA employ STEM for economic development, natural resource conservation and the protection of lives and properties.

NSF consulted the department, NASA and NOAA during the panel member selection process. The panel will be headed by Gabriela Gonzalez, Intel‘s deputy director for the Intel Foundation, as chairwoman, and David Evans, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, as vice-chairman.