In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy, researchers at Penn State University determined that the National Science Foundation is the “most acknowledged” agency in computing research. The researchers “text-mined” 335,000 papers in computer science in the CiteSeer database and discovered the science agency had been acknowledged 12,287 times. DARPA was second with 4,712 acknowledgments (though, using a different metric — citations to acknowledgements — DARPA came in first and NSF third, “suggesting that DARPA funds only established researchers who already have done high impact work.”)
I suppose, given the current trends in IT R&D funding, NSF’s top rank shouldn’t be surprising….
Here’s the PSU press release. Thanks to Tim Finin for the head’s up!