Computing Research Policy Blog


Posts categorized under: R&D in the Press

Science Funding’s Unintended Consequences


There’s an interesting article by Sallie Baliunas at Tech Central Station today on research funding. The piece notes a recent Nature article that suggests scientific misbehavior might be linked to “perceptions of inequities in the [science] resource distribution process” and connects that with tendency among federal funding agencies to shift emphasis from basic to applied […]

FCW Covers PITAC’s Expiration


Aliya Sternstein of Federal Computer Week has a piece today on the demise of the latest iteration of PITAC. It’s a good summary of the situation, which we’ve covered in this space previously. Plus, it’s got a good quote from Dan Reed, the incoming Chair of CRA: “People are a little demoralized about the fact […]

NY Times OpEd on Cyber Security: “Virtually Unprotected”


The New York Times editorializes today that, despite the very real threat, the nation continues to be woefully unprepared to defend against a “cyberattack” on our critical infrastructure. Power grids, water treatment and distribution systems, major dams, and oil and chemical refineries are all controlled today by networked computers. Computers make the nation’s infrastructure far […]

Surrendering U.S. leadership in IT


ACM president and former CRA board chair David Patterson writes a pointed Op-Ed at C-Net today about whether the U.S. will lead critical IT innovation in the 21st Century, or whether the changing landscape for support of fundamental IT research will constrain that innovation pipeline. If declining U.S. research funding simply slowed the pace of […]

LA Times on DARPA R&D: “The Imagination Drain”


Apparently inspired by this week’s Science editorial by Ed Lazowska and Dave Patterson (covered here), the Los Angeles Times today editorializes on DARPA and university IT research. Since 1961, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, has distributed IT research dollars in largely open-ended grants to universities. The grants encouraged basic research aimed not […]

Science OpEd: An Endless Frontier Postponed


Edward Lazowska and David Patterson (both former CRA board members and current members of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee) have penned an excellent OpEd (sub. req’d) in this week’s issue of Science magazine on the impact of the changing federal landscape for support of computing research. The OpEd makes a case that will be […]

Ball Keeps Rolling: Ornstein Writes in Support of Basic Research and IT R&D at DARPA


This OpEd (free link) by Norman Ornstein, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (a reasonably influential conservative think tank — Newt Gingrich is also a fellow), ran today in Roll Call (sub req’d), “the Newspaper of Capitol Hill.” It’s a strong defense of federal support of basic research that cites DARPA’s declining support for […]