The OSTP’s Director and their staff almost always work in the White House complex (with the exception of the period immediately after 9/11, when an emphasis on security forced them into an office on nearby Pennsylvania Avenue). “It's one thing to be asked something by the White House. It’s another to be in the room,” says Rosenberg. “They have the opportunity to raise issues and evidence that only a small handful of advisors have.”

During the Obama administration, the OSTP has overseen dozens, perhaps hundreds, of diverse initiatives on charting the microbiome, understanding the brain, using technology to fight sex trafficking, championing open science, and more. Much of that was grounded in Obama’s self-professed love of science, and the close relationship he fostered with Holdren. “It’s an incredibly difficult job,” says Rosenberg. “You need someone who can speak not only about their own discipline but can think very broadly, whether responding to a nuclear reactor meltdown in Japan, or an outbreak of Ebola. John Holdren is very capable and has done the job for 8 years.”

But given the chaotic nature of the current transition period, it remains to be seen if the status quo will remain that way. “Someone said to me, ‘What makes you think there will even be an OSTP?’ But there must be an OSTP. It’s part of the administrative apparatus,” says Rush Holt, CEO of the American Association for Advancement of Science, and a former New Jersey congressman. Indeed, the office was established by Congress, and its Director and up to four Associate Directors all have to be confirmed by the Senate. “Unless the president convinced Congress that there shouldn’t be an OSTP, there will be one,” says Lane.

But amid that certainty, there is also lots of room for variability. (Buckle up; here be acronyms.) Holdren currently wears many different hats. He’s also the president’s Science Advisor or, to quote the formal title, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. He co-chairs (with Obama) the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)—a group of leading scientists and engineers who offer policy recommendations on everything from the reliability of forensic science to preparing for a biological weapons attack. And he sits on the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), a group that coordinates research and development efforts across all federal agencies; it is chaired by the president and includes the vice-president and several cabinet secretaries.

So Holdren’s a busy guy. But of these jobs, only the OSTP directorship is a non-negotiable Senate-confirmed post. The rest are essentially optional, and depend on the president’s attitudes to science and willingness to continue the legacy of past offices. Trump might not convene the PCAST or the NSTC; both are established by Executive Order. He could appoint an OSTP Director and never seek advice from them.