The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, housed at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, is a multi-disciplinary collaboration designed to bring the science of early childhood and early brain development to bear on public decision-making. Established in 2003, the Council is committed to an evidence-based approach to building broad-based public will that transcends political partisanship and recognizes the complementary responsibilities of family, community, workplace, and government to promote the well-being of all young children.

The ultimate mission of the Council is to close the gap between what we know and what we do to promote successful learning, adaptive behavior, and sound physical and mental health for all young children. Central to this concept is the ongoing generation, analysis, and integration of knowledge and the critical task of educating policymakers, civic leaders, and the general public about the rapidly growing science of early childhood development and its underlying neurobiology.

Goals and Strategies

To bring credible and accurate knowledge to bear on public decision making that affects children’s learning, behavior, and health.
The Council provides a forum for vigorous debate about what the biological and social sciences do and do not say about early childhood and early brain development. Its primary objective is to analyze and integrate existing knowledge from multiple sources and to communicate sophisticated material in a clear and unified fashion through working papers, scientific articles,  professional journalism,  invited presentations and collaborative projects.

To rethink the challenge of knowledge translation in order to strengthen its impact on the lives of children.
In partnership with the non-profit FrameWorks Institute, the Council serves as a dynamic laboratory for developing and testing new strategies for closing the gap between what science tells us and what our policies and practices do to advance child well-being.

To build broad-based and informed leadership to represent the interests of young children in the public and private sectors.
The Council is committed to educating opinion leaders and decision makers about the relevance of neuroscience, developmental and behavioral research, intervention studies, and the economics of human capital formation for both public and private sector initiatives on behalf of young children and their families. To this end, selected organizational partnerships are an important vehicle for the Council’s work, beginning with the Legislative Working Group, a major collaboration with the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).

To promote a new national dialogue focused on rethinking the meaning of both shared responsibility for children and strategic investment in their future.
The Council is committed to an evidence-based approach to building broad-based public will that transcends political partisanship and recognizes the complementary responsibilities of family, community, workplace, and government to promote the well-being of all young children. The ultimate goal of this effort is to change the terms of public debate from whether to invest in young children to how the return on investment can be maximized. Central to this agenda is the need to view the promotion of child well-being as both a moral responsibility and an important social and economic investment in our nation’s future.