The computing community has had these concerns for quite a while, so it’s not surprising to see other disciplines noting similar issues with DARPA in this OpEd written by David Ignatius in Friday’s Washington Post:

DARPA once liked to boast that it took on impossible problems and wasn’t interested in the merely difficult. But in recent years, the scientists argued, DARPA has become nearly as cautious and prone to micromanagement as the government’s science behemoth, the National Institutes of Health. Before making most of its grants, the NIH demands such detailed evidence of success that it is “funding the past, not the future,” one scientist complained.
“DARPA seems to be shifting to the NIH model — more near-term, more risk-averse,” said Don Ingber, a professor of pathology at Harvard.

For more background, in addition to all the links above, be sure to check out CRA’s Information Technology R&D page which has tons of links to previous press reports on the issue….