Computing Research Policy Blog


Posts categorized under: Policy

President Continues Push for Innovation


President Obama yesterday invoked the specter of a “Sputnik moment” in competitiveness facing the country and re-emphasized his commitment to invest in innovation, infrastructure and education during a speech in North Carolina. Here’s the meat: You go to Shanghai, China, and they’ve built more high-speed rail in the last year than we’ve built in the […]

President’s Deficit Commission Co-Chairs Say R&D Investments Should Be Protected


The two co-Chairs of the President’s “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” — a bi-partisan committee charged by the President with coming up with solutions to the “fiscal challenges” the nation faces over the medium and long term — set off quite a kerfuffle today by releasing a set of draft recommendations that call […]

PCAST Calls for More Investment in IT, Advisory Committee, and Better IT Spending Figures


The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) today approved a draft review of the federal government’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program in which they call for significant new investment in federal IT research support, the establishment of a standing committee of networking and IT specialists to oversee the […]

Cybersecurity R&D in review


Now that it’s August and Members of Congress have, for the most part, gone home to their districts or states for some much-needed campaigning (though they may be coming back early), we thought we’d take the opportunity to take a look at one particularly key area of interest to the computing research community that’s generated […]

Computer Science Education Act Introduced in House


HR 5929, the Computer Science Education Act, was introduced in Congress today by Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO). CRA, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Computer Science Teachers Association, the National Center for Women and Information Technology, the Anita Borg Institute, Microsoft, Google, Intel and SAS are all organizations that support this bill to address the […]

PCAST Desires Public Input on Critical Infrastructures for Technology Innovation


The President’s Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) is looking for advice regarding infrastructures paramount to innovation in information technology, nanotechnology, and biotechnology. Comments can be submitted to the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) through the online portal OpenPCAST. Specifically, PITAC asks: What are the critical infrastructures that only government can […]

COMPETES Gets Derailed (Temporarily?)


The COMPETES bill we discussed yesterday just got derailed – at the moment it’s just temporary, but it’s unclear how it goes forward from this point. Republican Ranking Member Ralph Hall (R-TX) introduced a “Motion to Recommit with Instructions” that, to just about everyone’s surprise, passed. The motion has had the effect of forcing the […]