Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) worries (sub. may be req’d?) in the latest issue of Science that the U.S. isn’t doing what it could to continue the pace of innovation and “nuture the next Einsteins.” All revolutions begin with a seminal moment. This year, we will celebrate one of the greatest in the history of science: […]
With a new Congress comes a new organization of congressional committees and memberships. We’ve covered the reorganization of the Appropriations committees and its impact on science funding. USACM’s Cameron Wilson has a great writeup on some of the other IT policy implications on USACM’s Technology Policy Weblog. It’s a good look at the new congressional […]
Lots going on today. The House Science Committee will hold the first of its hearings on the FY 2006 Science Budget today at 11 am. Scheduled to appear are: John Marburger, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy; Samuel Bodman, Secretary of Energy; Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation; Charles McQueary, […]
Just a quick note to point out an editorial in today’s New York Times commending the State Department for finally “bringing some sanity” to the student visa issue. CRA has been urging this sort of reform since it became clear shortly after 9/11 that it was having a real impact on our member institutions. Thanks […]
Computerworld has a story today that, I think, helps contribute to the common misunderstanding in some policy circles that “IT funding” is the same as “IT R&D funding.” The story combines budget news about the president’s proposed increases in federal IT funding — in this case, funding for IT procurement — with news about some […]
Michael Mandel notes in today’s BusinessWeek Online op-ed that President Bush’s proposed cuts to federal support of R&D in his FY 06 budget request are shortsighted because of the impact they’ll have on the U.S. economy. He focuses on multifactor productivity (MFP). a measure of productivity that, when it goes up, means “output per hour […]
USACM’s David Padgham has a good post on House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner’s “Real ID Act,” a bill inteded to disrupt terrorist travel and bolster U.S. border security. Among privacy and civil liberties advocates, the bill has renewed worries about the development of a national identification system. Indeed, critics of the bill assert that […]
Just a quick note on an otherwise busy Friday to point to a piece from the editors of MIT’s Technology Review about concerns in the high-tech VC community about the federal government’s commitment to funding fundamental research. Here’s the opening: The appetite of venture capitalists for investing in new technologies is rebounding: in 2004, venture […]
The Berkeleyan, a publication of UC Berkeley, has a great, in-depth piece on a trend we’ve noted and complained about in this space quite often: the increasing use of restrictions on federally supported fundamental research and its impact on university-based research. I’ll just cite a little bit, but I urge you to read the article. […]
House Appropriations Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA) is apparently proposing the most radical restructuring of the Appropriations Committee in decades, according to an article appearing in today’s Congress Daily (sub. req’d). Peter Cohn, writes (sorry, I can’t find it online), that the proposal would pare the 13 appropriations committees down to 10 and would move NASA […]
