Each February, CRA organizes an annual summit of the presidents, executive directors and other senior policy leadership of CRA, its six affiliate societies—AAAI, ACM, CACS/AIC, IEEE-CS, SIAM, and USENIX—and the NRC’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) to discuss issues of common concern. Immediately following the summit, CRA’s winter board meeting begins. This year the major topics of both the summit and board meeting were computing’s image, research funding, the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), and education.

Like many of you, I serve on a multiplicity of U.S. and international panels that offer advice and suggestions on science policy and computing. Indeed, there are times when it feels as if we are a proximate cause of deforestation, due to the number of voluminous reports we produce. The good ones are even read and have influence— sometimes! Recently, during the question-and-answer period for one of these panels, a U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) examiner noted that rarely do people come to Washington to plead, “I’m dumb, and I have too much federal money. Can you help me?” The comment generated a healthy laugh and knowing nods, but the OMB examiner was making a serious point.

In response to a Congressional request and stimulated by a set of earlier studies (notably the National Innovation Initiative’s “Innovate America” report), the National Academies recently issued a report entitled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Future.” This report was produced in response to growing concern that a weakening of U.S. leadership (and, by extension, North American leadership) in science and technology would jeopardize future prosperity. This concern was based on the fact that a major fraction of economic growth in recent decades has been a direct consequence of prior investment in basic research.