Computing Research Policy Blog


Posts categorized under: Policy

Gates to Testify Before Congress on Innovation


Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will testify before the House Science and Technology Committee tomorrow morning to “share his thoughts on efforts needed to further strengthen our country’s competitiveness in the global marketplace, discuss what policies are needed to encourage innovation, and address the role of technology in our country’s economic growth.” (That’s according to the […]

Computing Education and the Infinite Onion


[The following guest post by CRA Chair Dan Reed originally appeared on Dan’s blog, Reed’s Ruminations. We’re pleased to repost it here.] Much has been written about declining enrollments in computer science, the image of computing among secondary school students, and the depressingly small numbers of women and minorities enrolled in computer science programs. There […]

FY 09 Budget Close-Up: National Science Foundation


The National Science Foundation (along with all other federal agencies) released its FY 09 Budget Request to Congress on Monday. We’ve already had some preliminary coverage of it, noting that, on the whole, computing research does pretty well. Late Monday afternoon NSF hosted a briefing on its budget to provide a little finer resolution look […]

Computing Research Appears to Do Well in First Look at FY 09 Budget Numbers


The President’s budget request for FY 2009 is now online and we’ve done a quick read through to glean some numbers of interest to the computing research community. These will likely be refined over the next few days as we figure out exactly what’s in there and what’s not, but it’s a pretty good indication […]

Craig Barrett’s Upset About the Omnibus (and who can blame him?)


Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel, comes out swinging over the debacle that was the FY 08 Omnibus Appropriations Act and it’s impact on federal support for the physical sciences, computing, mathematics and engineering, in a piece that runs today in the San Francisco Chronicle (which should get Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) attention). The whole piece […]

NSB Releases 2008 S&E Indicators


The National Science Board released the 2008 Science and Engineering Indicators today at an event on Capitol Hill. Board Chair Steven Beering, Subcommittee Chair Louis Lanzerotti, and Arthur Reilly presented the Science and Engineering Indicators, the Digest of Key S&E Indicators, and a companion policy recommendation document, Research and Development: Essential Foundation for US Competitiveness […]

The Long Nose of Innovation


There’s an interesting piece running now in BusinessWeek by Microsoft Researcher Bill Buxton that capitalizes on the buzz around the concept of the “long tail” in business by arguing that there’s an equally important “long nose” in business innovation that represents the long period of research and development that’s required to bring innovative products to […]

More On the Awful Omnibus


Cameron Wilson at USACM’s Technology Policy Blog has a great dissection of the FY2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill in which Congress managed to reverse two years worth of positive efforts in science and innovation funding policy. His piece is titled “Congress Abandons Commitment to Basic Research; Puts NIST in the Construction Business” and it’s a must […]

NSF, NIST Lose Out in Final (?) Omnibus


Update: (12/17/07 1:30 pm) — It appears this bill is even worse than we initially thought. It turns out that the 3.3 percent increase for NSF’s research accounts (“Research and Related Activities”) is artificially inflated by some bookkeeping — namely the shifting of the EPSCoR program from the Education and Human Resources directorate to R&RA. […]