In these times of increasingly tight federal budgets this is an important opportunity to help serve the computing community and ensure that Congress understands the value of computing research going on in their states and districts. We hope you’ll join the computing community as it goes before Congress, virtually, to make the case for computing!

CRA will hold its eighth annual Congressional Fall Fly-in in September of 2022, with a virtual training session on September 13th and virtual meetings with Congressional offices between September 14th and September 30th. This is an important opportunity for representatives from CRA member institutions to meet with their representatives in Congress, and help make the case for federal support of computing research. We hope you, or someone you designate, will join us!

Sign-up for the 2022 Virtual Congressional Fly-In has closed.

At the virtual training session on September 13th (5:30pm to 6:30pm, eastern time), CRA staff will provide training, materials, and information about your Congressional representatives, as well as go through how to schedule your own meetings with the offices of your Senators and Representatives. Attendees will be provided with all the materials they’ll need to have productive meetings, and will be armed with presentation slides that will help them make the relevant policy points to Congressional offices.

This year, we ask that all participants schedule their meetings between September 14th and September 30th. The meetings can be scheduled at your convenience and to fit your schedule; all we ask is for a debrief message to CRA staff covering what you spoke about and if there are any items that CRA needs to contact Congressional staff about.

Why have we gone virtual with this Fly-In? Due to the ongoing COVID Pandemic, as well as continuing post-January 6th security requirements, the US Capitol Building, and other Congressional office buildings, are closed to the public. This makes it impossible to hold a typical, in-person fly-in. Fortunately, Congressional staff have transitioned to virtual constituent meetings. CRA has decided to take this as an opportunity to reevaluate how we conduct our fly-ins and see whether virtual meetings can be another effective tool in our advocacy tool kit.