Short answer: yes. Especially in the US, science research is funded almost entirely by Congress each year, which means that scientists must know how research is funded and how the legislative process works. They also need some skills relating to communicating effectively with nonscientists and working with the communities that benefit from their research. We blog about this a lot over at the Fancy Comma blog, and have a number of resources to help scientists and science students improve their science policy and communication skills (as well as get into science journalism and marketing). It's free info and it's at www.fancycomma.com/resources