We are proud to announce the launch of a new brand for CRA and its committees. As the impact of CRA’s activities are becoming more widely recognized and valued across our industry, we decided to develop a new brand identity that reinforces and amplifies our mission, objectives and programs. Our new brand is part of our larger effort to create a comprehensive communications strategy for CRA and its many activities. After updating our mission statement, last fall we began developing a brand that positions CRA as dynamic and collaborative, while preserving the unique identities of CRA’s distinct committees.
The new CRA symbol is designed to represent great minds coming together. The symbol was created by combining many ovals of different sizes into one symbol to illustrate dynamic collaboration. Each committee’s logo is a different color to both strengthen its individual identity and connect it to the organization as a whole.
Attendees at the 2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird were among the first to view the new brand. We are excited to debut our new visual identity for all of CRA’s committees and programs.
This post was updated on June 1st 2022 with updated links and text.
Did you know that CRA is regularly looking for volunteers to participate in Congressional Visit Days in Washington? Or that we run a workshop designed to give an inside look to computing researchers on how policy is crafted at the Federal level? Have you wanted to learn how you can break into the exciting world of science policy? CRA has tools for all of these and a little bit more.
First, let’s talk about CRAN, or the Computing Research Advocacy Network. This is CRA’s e-mailing list; it’s where our members can get timely information and alerts about key advocacy opportunities. We’re also very careful to not waste your time; we try to keep the alerts to about 4 to 5 a year (ie: less than an email every two months). And it’s not a discussion list; only CRA staff will use the mailing list and only for the purposes of informing our members about policy related matters that will impact the CS community. It’s definitely worth signing up for!
Then there is CRA’s Congressional Visit Days held here in Washington. This is a chance for our membership to meet with the staffs of their Representatives and Senators and to make the case for computer science research directly. CRA provides the materials, the arguments, and the training; volunteers provide the flesh and blood example of the importance of federal research funding to their members of Congress. It’s a great way to be a Citizen Scientist and to take part in your government. This is a very important activity that the community can do to make sure federal support of CS research continues.
The Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI) is part of CRA’s mission, in partnership with CRA’s Computing Community Consortium, to develop the next generation of leaders in the computing research community. It is intended to educate computing researchers on how Federal science policy is formulated and how our government works. It’s a two-day workshop, which features presentations and discussions with science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration personnel. The goal is to walk CS researchers through the basics about the mechanics of the legislative process, interacting with agencies, advisory committees, and the federal case for computing. The goal is to make more people from the CS community consider taking a job, temporary or permanent, in the policy world of Washington. LiSPI isn’t open to everyone; you have to be nominated by a chair or department head and then go through an application process. It’s all explained on the LiSPI website; check it out if you’re interested.
Finally, we have the nuts and bolts of keeping our members informed: the Computing Research Policy Blog (which you’re reading) and Computing Research News (CRN). The Policy Blog is our home for up-to-date information about advocacy and policy analysis for the computing research community. CRN is for more general computing science news in academia, government, and industry. Of particular importance are the job announcements, which are posted regularly. But both are useful for staying informed as to what’s going on.
So there you have it: all of the useful tools that CRA provides, right at your digital fingertips! We’d recommend you check them all out and get involved.
The STEM Ed bill that would explicitly include CS in the definition of STEM will be on the House floor today on the “suspension” calendar, a status that allows the House to consider it in somewhat expedited fashion. This is reserved for non-controversial bills and limits debate on the bill to 40 minutes, doesn’t allow for amendments, and requires a 2/3 majority to pass. So it’s likely it will pass the House today. Whether it will go anywhere in the Senate isn’t known…
There are a total of 4 bills cobbled together from the ashes of FIRST that will be considered today:
HR 5031 — A bill to define STEM education to include computer science, and to support existing STEM education programs at the National Science Foundation.
HR 5035 — A bill to reauthorize the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and for other purposes.
HR 5056 — A bill to improve the efficiency of Federal research and development, and for other purposes.
HR 5029 — A bill to provide for the establishment of a body to identify and coordinate international science and technology cooperation that can strengthen the domestic science and technology enterprise and support United States foreign policy goals.
All are non-controversial. HR 5056 sounds ominous, given the committee’s recent efforts to “improve NSF accountability” in FIRST, but it’s just a bill calling on OSTP to put together a working group to study how to “harmonize, streamline, and eliminate duplicative Federal regulations and reporting requirements, and minimize the regulatory burden on US institutions of higher education performing federally funded research while maintaining accountability for Federal tax dollars.”
Today the chairman of the House Science Committee introduced H.R. 5031, the “STEM Education Act of 2014’”, to promote STEM education at NSF. The computer science community is a direct beneficiary: the first item in the bill would require federal agencies to include computer science in their definition of STEM.
You’ll recall Science Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) has been trying to move a reauthorization of the COMPETES Act, called the FIRST Act, but had met with much resistance from both the science advocacy community and the Democrats in the committee minority. That bill’s route to passage promised to be challenging, and ever since a rather contentious markup of the bill its progress has stalled.
However, in the interests of still wanting to do something legislatively, Smith decided to work with the Democratic minority on his committee to break out parts of FIRST to use as stand alone bills. These would be the least contentious and most bipartisan parts of the FIRST Act. This STEM bill is the first of possibly three total bills (the other possible bills are NIST reauthorization and international science cooperation).
As for specifics of the bill, it has three parts (it is actually a very short bill). The first part, which is of most importance to the CS community, is the explicit inclusion of Computer Science in the definition of “STEM education.” The inclusion of CS in STEM is aimed at ensuring that CS won’t get left out of future STEM Ed initiatives at the Federal level (at least at NSF, NASA, NOAA, Energy, and NIST…the agencies under the jurisdiction of the Science Committee). The bill also authorizes STEM agencies to fund research that advances the field of informal STEM education and expands the NSF Noyce Scholarship Program to include awardees with bachelor’s degrees (currently only people with master degrees qualify) and provide funding authorization to support NSF Master Teacher Fellows for a year. All three of these provisions are largely bipartisan and funding neutral.
This bill is very good news for the CS community and the science community as a whole, and hopefully indicates a new embrace of bipartisanship on the committee, after a fairly discordant period.
[Editor’s Note: This post marks the debut of CRA’s new Tisdale Policy Fellow for Summer 2014, Yiyang Shen. Yiyang is a sophomore at NYU, with an interest in Mathematics and Computer Science, and will spend this summer with CRA working on science policy issues, including tracking the progress of efforts to reauthorize the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Expect to see more of him on the blog!]
On June 11th the Energy Subcommittee, of the House Science, Technology, & Space Committee, held a markup of the Department of Energy Research and Development Act of 2014. Surprisingly, this hearing was very contentious and Democratic members used procedural tactics to obstruct consideration of this bill to reauthorize research and development (R&D) programs at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The hearing was finally adjourned by the Republicans on a party line vote after Democrats refused to waive the reading of the bill.
The markup was originally scheduled at noon, but the subcommittee chairwoman, Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), did not convene the hearing until ~12:10pm. Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) surprisingly started the “parliamentary game” then, interrupting the chairwoman’s opening remarks by requesting a recorded vote to change the official start time in the subcommittee records. His point of order was ultimately tabled by vote but it signaled Democrats’ strong opposition to the bill.
In her opening statement, Lummis stated that, “the draft bill provides a $250 million increase in funding for basic research. The bill provides deficit reduction by making cuts to outdated, wasteful and duplicative programs within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.” The main point, as Republicans hold for the previous FIRST Act of 2014, is to use money wisely, provided the limited resources.
In response, the Ranking Member Eric Swalwell (D-CA) conveyed two central problems with this “premature” markup in his opening statement. The first relates to process: the bill was not shared with Democratic members of the Subcommittee until the last Friday before the markup. Given that this 103-page bill proposes to reauthorize all of DOE’s research and development programs, Mr. Swalwell said, “that means we’re being asked to make tough decisions about how to allocate billions of taxpayers’ dollars after having less than three business days to consider the bill.”
Mr. Swalwell then pointed out the second problem the minority has with the bill. The budget for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is substantially cut; ARPA-E funding is largely reduced; and the bill includes burdensome limitations on what research DOE can fund. In addition, it includes particularly objectionable language that bars the results of DOE-funded R&D activity from being, “used for regulatory assessments or determinations by Federal regulatory authorities.” Specifically, this language is meant to keep the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from using research data to support their operations and any environmental regulations. Of interest to computing researchers, the bill does include increased authorizations for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research activity, ramping the authorization for the program up to $600 million in FY 2015, $59 million more than the President requested.
After hearing the opening remarks from both sides, Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) also gave a brief comment on the markup that day. She criticized how dysfunctional the committee has become, and strongly opposed the consideration and passage of the bill.
The markup ended awkwardly. After the opening remarks, the bill is then read into the record, a procedural process which is usually dispensed with under unanimous consent. However, in this instance the Democrats used it to their advantage: they withheld their consent and required that the bill be read, in full, into the record. As this would have tied up the subcommittee for hours, the Republicans instead adjourned the meeting.
The prospect of the bill moving forward this summer is unlikely. The real news from this markup is that the House Science Committee has become increasingly polarized and neither side intends to cooperate with the other. This does not bode well for future science legislation.
On May 22nd the House Science Committee took up the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (or FIRST) Act of 2014. The bill’s lead sponsor is the House Science Committee chairman, Lamar Smith (R-TX). This bill is to reauthorize the majority of the America COMPETES Act of 2010, and focuses on the non-energy agencies (NSF, NIST, and OSTP). Sadly, this piece of legislation is neither as visionary for American science, nor as supportive of said science, as its predecessor bill.
To get right into the problems with the bill, first, it only authorizes the agencies for two years; one of which is the current fiscal year (FY14) we are operating in and have approved appropriations. The previous versions of the COMPETES Act authorized the agencies for three years. There were attempts by the Democratic minority to amend the legislation to include a third year, but those were defeated on a party line vote.
In addition, the FIRST Act authorizes very small increases (~1.5 percent) for NSF and NIST (1 percent) in FY15. The FY14 authorized numbers are the same as what was appropriated in the Omnibus, but with one exception: it strips $100 million in authorization from the Social, Behavioral, & Economic Sciences Directorate at NSF. That money seems to be spread around within the other NSF directorates, including about $70 million for CISE in FY15. Again, there were amendments offered by Democrats to reverse these cuts, but they ultimately failed as all the Republicans voted against them. Though these authorized levels are slightly higher than what is in the President’s FY15 budget request, they still don’t keep up with inflation.
Here is a more complete look at the comparison of the FIRST Act budget numbers versus the last reauthorization of the COMPETES Act.
In addition, the Chairman included troubling language requiring NSF to affirm that all grant awards funded by the Foundation are “worthy of Federal funding” and in the national interest “as indicated by having the potential to achieve:”
increased economic competitiveness in the US;
advancement of the health and welfare of the American public;
development of a STEM workforce and increased public scientific literacy in the US;
increased partnerships between academia and industry;
support for the national defense;
promotion of the progress of science.
This is being referred to as “NSF Accountability,” and is an improvement over what had been circulated in draft versions of the bill. Smith’s original draft was problematic because it required that prior to the award of any funding NSF had to publish on a website the justification for that award (based on the above criteria), along with the name of the employee or employees who made the determination. The version that was included in the final bill strips that language and just requires that public announcement of the award include “a written justification from a responsible Foundation official” that the grant meets the criteria. It’s somewhat better, though it still provides a hook for Congress to call that “responsible Foundation official” on the carpet for any dubious (in their, i.e. Congressional, minds) grant. Of course, Congress already has that power.
In one point of good news for the CS community, the bill includes reauthorization of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. CRA, along with IEEE-USA, SIAM, and USACM, endorsed this a year ago when it was introduced in a stand-alone bill as the Advancing America’s NITRD Act.
Some other news that came out of this markup:
An amendment by Rep. Broun (R-GA) passed on a voice vote to cut the FY15 authorized levels for the Office of Science Technology Policy by $1M (original it would $5.55M; now it is $4.55M);
There was a bipartisan amendment to change the Open Access provisions in the bill to be more in line with what OSTP and the Obama Administration are already doing on this subject.
To get a fuller picture of what happened at the hearing, here are twogood articles by Jeffrey Mervis at Science.
The next step for the FIRST Act will be consideration on the full House floor. Passage is likely, though in what form is an interesting question. There is always a possibility that fiscally conservative elements of the Republican Party will propose amendments to strip out even more funding. As well, there could be other amendments to restrict what types of research the science agencies can spend Federal funds on. Whether any of those types of amendments will pass the full House is an open question. As well, it’s unlikely that there will be any successful amendments to restore or increase funding; the environment of Washington is one of austerity right now.
The two possible silver linings in all this is that, first, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee is expected to release their version of a COMPETES reauthorization any week now. The hope within the science community is that it will be a more true reauthorization of COMPETES and will be more bipartisan in nature. The second silver lining is that FIRST is an authorizing bill, which means this is only covers how NSF can spend its money (rather than an appropriations bill which determines how much money NSF gets). Current year funding for NSF has already been determined and is unlikely to be impacted by this bill, assuming it gets signed into law. As well, next year’s funding levels have already passed the House Appropriations Committee, and they did not incorporate the FIRST Act levels in what they approved (FYI: The CJS bill will be on the House floor today for voting; we are expecting amendments to be offered to bring it in line with the SBE authorizations in FIRST, but it’s an open question as to whether they will pass). We’ll keep our readers posted on further developments with this legislation.
On Wednesday evening, the Coalition for National Science Funding (or CNSF) held their yearly Exhibition on Capitol Hill. The exhibition, probably best described as a science fair with some really smart people, is a showcase of research and education projects supported by the National Science Foundation. It gives a great venue to show members of Congress and Congressional staff what the American people have funded.
From left to right: Joseph DelPreto, Ankur Mehta, Farnam Jahanian (Director of CISE at NSF), and Robert Katzschmann.
CRA, a member of CNSF, sponsored two grad students and a postdoc from MIT to come to Washington to talk about their work. Joseph DelPreto and Ankur Mehta talked about their printable robots; super cheap, 3D robots that can be printed on a 2D printer. Robert Katzschmann demonstrated his autonomous, self-contained soft robotic fish, which is considered a “soft robot”. Check out some demonstrations of his work in these twovideos. All three young researchers are advised by Daniela Rus at MIT, who is also a CCC Council member.
Joseph DelPreto of MIT explains his printable robots to Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ).
All of this research and work is supported from the CISE directorate at NSF. Both projects were well received by the attendees of the exhibition; in fact, two members of Congress stopped by their table, as did the head of the NSF CISE directorate, and multiple Congressional staffers and NSF employees.
Ankur Mehta, center, of MIT, explains his printable robots to an attendee at the 2014 CNSF Exhibition.
A number of other organizations had tables and were showing off NSF funded research. From Tufts University’s “Engineering Solutions to Clean Water;” to the Entomological Society of America’s “Optimizing Crop Yields: Pollinators, Pests and Pathogens;” to American Psychological Association and Vanderbilt University’s joint table of “Russell the Robot: Engaging Children with Autism through Psychological and Engineering Research,” the event was a great display of the different types of research being supported by the Foundation. Click here to see a full list of participating organizations and what each exhibitor was presenting.
The title of this post was the last question, asked by Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), at the Senate Appropriations hearing Tuesday afternoon. It was a telling question and got to the root of the budgetary problems facing the Federal science agencies at this point in time: would it be better to have more (modest) funding right now, which will only be cut back when the paused Sequestration starts back up in two years; or would it be best to have lower numbers now but an end to Sequestration (meaning more certainty) to allow the agencies to plan? Mikulski was clear that they couldn’t have both, as she explicitly said that the committee would be following the Murray/Ryan Budget Agreement . After she made her question, the Senator did give the witnesses an out, saying “you may not want to answer that.”
For the most part, the witnesses answered that question by saying: more certainty. Director Collins pointed out that because of the Sequester NIH lost, taking into account inflation, about 10% of its budget. He said, “a stable predictable trajectory,” for the agency’s budget was a necessity. Director Prabhakar, in saying that she needed more certainty, pointed out that DARPA is not trying to grow significantly. That combined with an 8% Sequester cut and a 12% decline in recent years means that DARPA has been hit very hard. Secretary Moniz echoed both of those positions and said DOE needs certainty. The only person who said more funding would be best was Director Cordova; she made the point that we should, “do now what we can do now.” She illustrated that by pointing out the Foundation was not able to fund about 700 proposals and that impacted around 800 scientists. That answer also made the point that there is no good/right answer here.
As for the rest of the hearing, there was very little political posturing and ideologically based questions, and both sides of the aisle felt more had to be done to get money to scientists. In fact, the next day Director Holdren was quoted as calling the hearing, “nearly a love fest.” The only instances of anything that could be called an ideological statement was when Senator Shelby (R-AL), the highest ranked Republican on the committee, said in his opening statement, “if we cannot practice fiscal discipline today, we will pay a much higher price in the future,”? while pointing out that the committee can’t simply increase funding for these agencies (in his closing statement, Senator Shelby did say he was open to giving the science agencies “leeway” with their budgets). However, Senator Blunt (R-MO), a long time supporter of research at NIH, made the counterpoint, “is the health of our country discretionary?” Neither of these statements is a surprise, given the budgetary environment of Congress; but they do demonstrate the constraints that the committee is working with and what the science agencies have to work under.
The Democratic side mainly focused on specific areas that concerned them and their state specific constituents. However, one of the more interesting exchanges was between Senator Harkin (D-IA) and Director Collins of NIH, where the Senator pointed out that it was almost impossible to get private sector funding for the Genome Initiative until the early successes of the Federally backed science showed promise. Senator Harkin, speaking off the cuff, said that an “initial Federal investment of around $3.5B produced an estimated $900B market in return.” The implication was that this is an example that shows private money will follow only when the Federally backed basic research shows promise. Beyond that, Chairwoman Mikulski had many of the best points, such as when she said she “wanted to make sure they (American scientists) can do what they’re educated to do;” which is research.
On the whole, the hearing was positive. It showed that the Federal science agencies have a good reputation with Senate Appropriators (also demonstrated with the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science subcommittee passing a bill favorable to NSF and NIST). Also, there are leaders in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, who want to protect science in the budget process. This is an on-going process; the specter of Sequestration starting up again in two years is hanging over everyone. And Chairwoman Mikulski’s question is still sitting there: which would be more helpful, more money or an end to Sequestration?
Tomorrow the full Senate Appropriations Committee will be holding an major hearing on “Driving Innovation through Federal Investments.” This is important news as the list of witnesses being called is a who’s-who of Federal science agencies: the Secretary of Energy, the President’s science advisor, and the Directors of NSF, DARPA, and NIH. Of course, you might remember the Senate Appropriations Committee from being one half of being in charge of funding the Federal Government. As I said, MAJOR hearing next week.
The Appropriations Committee chairwoman, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), is a huge champion for science, and it’s clear that she feels the Federal Government can be doing more to spur innovation through investing in the science agencies. The science advocacy community in Washington is very excited, because our issues haven’t had such a high profile venue like this for some time.
To take advantage of that venue, CRA is joining with fifty other organizations in submitting testimony for the hearing. These organizations are organizing around the message “Close the Innovation Deficit,” which the Senate Appropriations Committee has picked up on. The term “Innovation Deficit” means the, “the widening gap between the actual level of federal government funding for research and higher education and what the investment needs to be if the United States is to remain the world’s innovation leader.” We’d highly recommend going to their website, checking out the video, and reading the testimony (it includes the other organizations which have signed on). We’ll have a recap of the hearing later in the week as well.
Given the relatively austere budget caps for FY2015 the President and Congress agreed to as part of last December’s budget agreement, the President’s relatively flat budget request for the National Science Foundation in FY2015 isn’t unexpected. In fact, the President’s request for NSF would have the agency grow just 1 percent over FY14 (to $7.3 billion), while research at the agency would actually decrease by $3 million under the President’s plan ($5.191 billion in FY14 vs. $5.188 billion in FY15).
Funding for NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate, the home of the great bulk of NSF’s computing research and infrastructure investments, follows a similar trajectory in the President’s budget. Under the President’s plan, the CISE budget would remain at essentially the same level ($893 million) as in FY14 ($894 million). Coming after two years in which CISE did disproportionately “well” in the budget calculus, this flat budget is a little easier to bear. But it does mean that CISE AD Farnam Jahanian had to do a little reshuffling to protect priorities within the CISE budget. In particular, the directorate’s contributions to a number of cross-agency initiatives would be scaled back somewhat in order to take care of “core” research funding within the directorate.
In his letter to the computing research community, Jahanian noted four areas of priority within the directorate request: expansions of CISE foundational research; investments in crosscutting programs led by CISE; investments in advanced cyberinfrastructure, and education and workforce development.
In addition to CISE’s investments in its core foundational research, the directorate will remain a player in a number of key cross-agency programs, albeit in a slightly reduced role in some cases. Here are some details:
Cyber Enabled Materials, Manufacturing, and Smart Systems (CEMMSS): This is a $213 million program across the Foundation geared towards accelerating advances in “21st century smart engineered systems.” CISE’s investment of $81.5 million in FY15 (down from $85 million in FY14) would focus on advanced manufacturing, cyber physical systems, the National Robotics Initiative, Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISP) and their interaction and synthesis.
Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21): The Foundation would spend $125 million across all the major research directorates in FY15, with CISE contributing $80 million (down from $85 million in FY14). CISE’s focus includes work on Big Data, data infrastructure building blocks, building new computational and data-enabled science and engineering research communities, advancing new computational infrastructure and building partnerships.
Cognitive Science and Neuroscience: NSF’s contribution to the White House’s BRAIN initiative (with NSF, NIH and DARPA), would be $29 million foundation-wide in FY15. CISE would contribute $5.65 million vs. $3.5 million in FY14. CISE’s focus is on addressing the challenges of research integration across multiple scales and builds on ongoing NSF investments like the Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience collaboration with NIH, Germany and France.
Innovation Corps (I-Corps): The Foundation would invest $25 million in this program designed to accelerate innovations from the lab to the market. CISE’s contribution would grow to $10 million (up from $8 million in FY14), and Jahanian noted that given the level of interest in the program from the community, the directorate could easily invest twice as much.
Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC): The Foundation would spend $100 million on SaTC in FY15 under the President’s plan, and $67 million of that investment would be in the CISE directorate. The focus of CISE’s effort in this space is to support fundamental scientific advances and technologies to protect cyber-systems from malicious behavior, while preserving privacy and promoting usability.
Jahanian’s presentation from the NSF budget roll-out goes into additional detail about these programs and the other efforts the directorate plans for FY15, and the official justification to Congress contains even more detail. The President’s “Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative” — his supplemental budget request, should Congress feel the need to spend more than the caps they agreed to — includes $552 million in new spending for NSF, some of which would find its way into CISE for investments in cybersecurity, clean energy/sustainable computing, and core research activities. However, this is essentially dead on arrival in Congress. Sorry.
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New Look for CRA Unveiled at the 2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird
/In: General /by Shar SteedWe are proud to announce the launch of a new brand for CRA and its committees. As the impact of CRA’s activities are becoming more widely recognized and valued across our industry, we decided to develop a new brand identity that reinforces and amplifies our mission, objectives and programs. Our new brand is part of our larger effort to create a comprehensive communications strategy for CRA and its many activities. After updating our mission statement, last fall we began developing a brand that positions CRA as dynamic and collaborative, while preserving the unique identities of CRA’s distinct committees.
The new CRA symbol is designed to represent great minds coming together. The symbol was created by combining many ovals of different sizes into one symbol to illustrate dynamic collaboration. Each committee’s logo is a different color to both strengthen its individual identity and connect it to the organization as a whole.
Attendees at the 2014 CRA Conference at Snowbird were among the first to view the new brand. We are excited to debut our new visual identity for all of CRA’s committees and programs.
Click here to view our new CRA brochure.
Regular Reminder of CRA Advocacy Tools!
/In: CRA, People /by Brian MosleyThis post was updated on June 1st 2022 with updated links and text.
Did you know that CRA is regularly looking for volunteers to participate in Congressional Visit Days in Washington? Or that we run a workshop designed to give an inside look to computing researchers on how policy is crafted at the Federal level? Have you wanted to learn how you can break into the exciting world of science policy? CRA has tools for all of these and a little bit more.
First, let’s talk about CRAN, or the Computing Research Advocacy Network. This is CRA’s e-mailing list; it’s where our members can get timely information and alerts about key advocacy opportunities. We’re also very careful to not waste your time; we try to keep the alerts to about 4 to 5 a year (ie: less than an email every two months). And it’s not a discussion list; only CRA staff will use the mailing list and only for the purposes of informing our members about policy related matters that will impact the CS community. It’s definitely worth signing up for!
Then there is CRA’s Congressional Visit Days held here in Washington. This is a chance for our membership to meet with the staffs of their Representatives and Senators and to make the case for computer science research directly. CRA provides the materials, the arguments, and the training; volunteers provide the flesh and blood example of the importance of federal research funding to their members of Congress. It’s a great way to be a Citizen Scientist and to take part in your government. This is a very important activity that the community can do to make sure federal support of CS research continues.
The Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI) is part of CRA’s mission, in partnership with CRA’s Computing Community Consortium, to develop the next generation of leaders in the computing research community. It is intended to educate computing researchers on how Federal science policy is formulated and how our government works. It’s a two-day workshop, which features presentations and discussions with science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration personnel. The goal is to walk CS researchers through the basics about the mechanics of the legislative process, interacting with agencies, advisory committees, and the federal case for computing. The goal is to make more people from the CS community consider taking a job, temporary or permanent, in the policy world of Washington. LiSPI isn’t open to everyone; you have to be nominated by a chair or department head and then go through an application process. It’s all explained on the LiSPI website; check it out if you’re interested.
Finally, we have the nuts and bolts of keeping our members informed: the Computing Research Policy Blog (which you’re reading) and Computing Research News (CRN). The Policy Blog is our home for up-to-date information about advocacy and policy analysis for the computing research community. CRN is for more general computing science news in academia, government, and industry. Of particular importance are the job announcements, which are posted regularly. But both are useful for staying informed as to what’s going on.
So there you have it: all of the useful tools that CRA provides, right at your digital fingertips! We’d recommend you check them all out and get involved.
That Was Quick — CS/STEM Ed bill on the Floor Today
/In: Computing Education, Policy, STEM /by Peter HarshaThe STEM Ed bill that would explicitly include CS in the definition of STEM will be on the House floor today on the “suspension” calendar, a status that allows the House to consider it in somewhat expedited fashion. This is reserved for non-controversial bills and limits debate on the bill to 40 minutes, doesn’t allow for amendments, and requires a 2/3 majority to pass. So it’s likely it will pass the House today. Whether it will go anywhere in the Senate isn’t known…
There are a total of 4 bills cobbled together from the ashes of FIRST that will be considered today:
HR 5031 — A bill to define STEM education to include computer science, and to support existing STEM education programs at the National Science Foundation.
HR 5035 — A bill to reauthorize the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and for other purposes.
HR 5056 — A bill to improve the efficiency of Federal research and development, and for other purposes.
HR 5029 — A bill to provide for the establishment of a body to identify and coordinate international science and technology cooperation that can strengthen the domestic science and technology enterprise and support United States foreign policy goals.
All are non-controversial. HR 5056 sounds ominous, given the committee’s recent efforts to “improve NSF accountability” in FIRST, but it’s just a bill calling on OSTP to put together a working group to study how to “harmonize, streamline, and eliminate duplicative Federal regulations and reporting requirements, and minimize the regulatory burden on US institutions of higher education performing federally funded research while maintaining accountability for Federal tax dollars.”
We’ll let you know how the vote turns out!
STEM Education Bill Introduced in the House
/In: STEM /by Brian MosleyToday the chairman of the House Science Committee introduced H.R. 5031, the “STEM Education Act of 2014’”, to promote STEM education at NSF. The computer science community is a direct beneficiary: the first item in the bill would require federal agencies to include computer science in their definition of STEM.
You’ll recall Science Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) has been trying to move a reauthorization of the COMPETES Act, called the FIRST Act, but had met with much resistance from both the science advocacy community and the Democrats in the committee minority. That bill’s route to passage promised to be challenging, and ever since a rather contentious markup of the bill its progress has stalled.
However, in the interests of still wanting to do something legislatively, Smith decided to work with the Democratic minority on his committee to break out parts of FIRST to use as stand alone bills. These would be the least contentious and most bipartisan parts of the FIRST Act. This STEM bill is the first of possibly three total bills (the other possible bills are NIST reauthorization and international science cooperation).
As for specifics of the bill, it has three parts (it is actually a very short bill). The first part, which is of most importance to the CS community, is the explicit inclusion of Computer Science in the definition of “STEM education.” The inclusion of CS in STEM is aimed at ensuring that CS won’t get left out of future STEM Ed initiatives at the Federal level (at least at NSF, NASA, NOAA, Energy, and NIST…the agencies under the jurisdiction of the Science Committee). The bill also authorizes STEM agencies to fund research that advances the field of informal STEM education and expands the NSF Noyce Scholarship Program to include awardees with bachelor’s degrees (currently only people with master degrees qualify) and provide funding authorization to support NSF Master Teacher Fellows for a year. All three of these provisions are largely bipartisan and funding neutral.
This bill is very good news for the CS community and the science community as a whole, and hopefully indicates a new embrace of bipartisanship on the committee, after a fairly discordant period.
A Fruitless Markup on Department of Energy R&D Act of 2014
/In: Research /by Brian Mosley[Editor’s Note: This post marks the debut of CRA’s new Tisdale Policy Fellow for Summer 2014, Yiyang Shen. Yiyang is a sophomore at NYU, with an interest in Mathematics and Computer Science, and will spend this summer with CRA working on science policy issues, including tracking the progress of efforts to reauthorize the Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Expect to see more of him on the blog!]
On June 11th the Energy Subcommittee, of the House Science, Technology, & Space Committee, held a markup of the Department of Energy Research and Development Act of 2014. Surprisingly, this hearing was very contentious and Democratic members used procedural tactics to obstruct consideration of this bill to reauthorize research and development (R&D) programs at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The hearing was finally adjourned by the Republicans on a party line vote after Democrats refused to waive the reading of the bill.
The markup was originally scheduled at noon, but the subcommittee chairwoman, Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), did not convene the hearing until ~12:10pm. Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) surprisingly started the “parliamentary game” then, interrupting the chairwoman’s opening remarks by requesting a recorded vote to change the official start time in the subcommittee records. His point of order was ultimately tabled by vote but it signaled Democrats’ strong opposition to the bill.
In her opening statement, Lummis stated that, “the draft bill provides a $250 million increase in funding for basic research. The bill provides deficit reduction by making cuts to outdated, wasteful and duplicative programs within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.” The main point, as Republicans hold for the previous FIRST Act of 2014, is to use money wisely, provided the limited resources.
In response, the Ranking Member Eric Swalwell (D-CA) conveyed two central problems with this “premature” markup in his opening statement. The first relates to process: the bill was not shared with Democratic members of the Subcommittee until the last Friday before the markup. Given that this 103-page bill proposes to reauthorize all of DOE’s research and development programs, Mr. Swalwell said, “that means we’re being asked to make tough decisions about how to allocate billions of taxpayers’ dollars after having less than three business days to consider the bill.”
Mr. Swalwell then pointed out the second problem the minority has with the bill. The budget for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) is substantially cut; ARPA-E funding is largely reduced; and the bill includes burdensome limitations on what research DOE can fund. In addition, it includes particularly objectionable language that bars the results of DOE-funded R&D activity from being, “used for regulatory assessments or determinations by Federal regulatory authorities.” Specifically, this language is meant to keep the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from using research data to support their operations and any environmental regulations. Of interest to computing researchers, the bill does include increased authorizations for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research activity, ramping the authorization for the program up to $600 million in FY 2015, $59 million more than the President requested.
After hearing the opening remarks from both sides, Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) also gave a brief comment on the markup that day. She criticized how dysfunctional the committee has become, and strongly opposed the consideration and passage of the bill.
The markup ended awkwardly. After the opening remarks, the bill is then read into the record, a procedural process which is usually dispensed with under unanimous consent. However, in this instance the Democrats used it to their advantage: they withheld their consent and required that the bill be read, in full, into the record. As this would have tied up the subcommittee for hours, the Republicans instead adjourned the meeting.
The prospect of the bill moving forward this summer is unlikely. The real news from this markup is that the House Science Committee has become increasingly polarized and neither side intends to cooperate with the other. This does not bode well for future science legislation.
FIRST Act Marked Up By the Full House Science Committee
/In: Policy /by Brian MosleyOn May 22nd the House Science Committee took up the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology (or FIRST) Act of 2014. The bill’s lead sponsor is the House Science Committee chairman, Lamar Smith (R-TX). This bill is to reauthorize the majority of the America COMPETES Act of 2010, and focuses on the non-energy agencies (NSF, NIST, and OSTP). Sadly, this piece of legislation is neither as visionary for American science, nor as supportive of said science, as its predecessor bill.
To get right into the problems with the bill, first, it only authorizes the agencies for two years; one of which is the current fiscal year (FY14) we are operating in and have approved appropriations. The previous versions of the COMPETES Act authorized the agencies for three years. There were attempts by the Democratic minority to amend the legislation to include a third year, but those were defeated on a party line vote.
In addition, the FIRST Act authorizes very small increases (~1.5 percent) for NSF and NIST (1 percent) in FY15. The FY14 authorized numbers are the same as what was appropriated in the Omnibus, but with one exception: it strips $100 million in authorization from the Social, Behavioral, & Economic Sciences Directorate at NSF. That money seems to be spread around within the other NSF directorates, including about $70 million for CISE in FY15. Again, there were amendments offered by Democrats to reverse these cuts, but they ultimately failed as all the Republicans voted against them. Though these authorized levels are slightly higher than what is in the President’s FY15 budget request, they still don’t keep up with inflation.
Here is a more complete look at the comparison of the FIRST Act budget numbers versus the last reauthorization of the COMPETES Act.
In addition, the Chairman included troubling language requiring NSF to affirm that all grant awards funded by the Foundation are “worthy of Federal funding” and in the national interest “as indicated by having the potential to achieve:”
This is being referred to as “NSF Accountability,” and is an improvement over what had been circulated in draft versions of the bill. Smith’s original draft was problematic because it required that prior to the award of any funding NSF had to publish on a website the justification for that award (based on the above criteria), along with the name of the employee or employees who made the determination. The version that was included in the final bill strips that language and just requires that public announcement of the award include “a written justification from a responsible Foundation official” that the grant meets the criteria. It’s somewhat better, though it still provides a hook for Congress to call that “responsible Foundation official” on the carpet for any dubious (in their, i.e. Congressional, minds) grant. Of course, Congress already has that power.
In one point of good news for the CS community, the bill includes reauthorization of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. CRA, along with IEEE-USA, SIAM, and USACM, endorsed this a year ago when it was introduced in a stand-alone bill as the Advancing America’s NITRD Act.
Some other news that came out of this markup:
To get a fuller picture of what happened at the hearing, here are two good articles by Jeffrey Mervis at Science.
The next step for the FIRST Act will be consideration on the full House floor. Passage is likely, though in what form is an interesting question. There is always a possibility that fiscally conservative elements of the Republican Party will propose amendments to strip out even more funding. As well, there could be other amendments to restrict what types of research the science agencies can spend Federal funds on. Whether any of those types of amendments will pass the full House is an open question. As well, it’s unlikely that there will be any successful amendments to restore or increase funding; the environment of Washington is one of austerity right now.
The two possible silver linings in all this is that, first, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee is expected to release their version of a COMPETES reauthorization any week now. The hope within the science community is that it will be a more true reauthorization of COMPETES and will be more bipartisan in nature. The second silver lining is that FIRST is an authorizing bill, which means this is only covers how NSF can spend its money (rather than an appropriations bill which determines how much money NSF gets). Current year funding for NSF has already been determined and is unlikely to be impacted by this bill, assuming it gets signed into law. As well, next year’s funding levels have already passed the House Appropriations Committee, and they did not incorporate the FIRST Act levels in what they approved (FYI: The CJS bill will be on the House floor today for voting; we are expecting amendments to be offered to bring it in line with the SBE authorizations in FIRST, but it’s an open question as to whether they will pass). We’ll keep our readers posted on further developments with this legislation.
Printable Robots and Soft Robots Wow Attendees at the 2014 CNSF Exhibition
/In: CRA /by Brian MosleyOn Wednesday evening, the Coalition for National Science Funding (or CNSF) held their yearly Exhibition on Capitol Hill. The exhibition, probably best described as a science fair with some really smart people, is a showcase of research and education projects supported by the National Science Foundation. It gives a great venue to show members of Congress and Congressional staff what the American people have funded.
From left to right: Joseph DelPreto, Ankur Mehta, Farnam Jahanian (Director of CISE at NSF), and Robert Katzschmann.
CRA, a member of CNSF, sponsored two grad students and a postdoc from MIT to come to Washington to talk about their work. Joseph DelPreto and Ankur Mehta talked about their printable robots; super cheap, 3D robots that can be printed on a 2D printer. Robert Katzschmann demonstrated his autonomous, self-contained soft robotic fish, which is considered a “soft robot”. Check out some demonstrations of his work in these two videos. All three young researchers are advised by Daniela Rus at MIT, who is also a CCC Council member.
Joseph DelPreto of MIT explains his printable robots to Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ).
All of this research and work is supported from the CISE directorate at NSF. Both projects were well received by the attendees of the exhibition; in fact, two members of Congress stopped by their table, as did the head of the NSF CISE directorate, and multiple Congressional staffers and NSF employees.
Ankur Mehta, center, of MIT, explains his printable robots to an attendee at the 2014 CNSF Exhibition.
A number of other organizations had tables and were showing off NSF funded research. From Tufts University’s “Engineering Solutions to Clean Water;” to the Entomological Society of America’s “Optimizing Crop Yields: Pollinators, Pests and Pathogens;” to American Psychological Association and Vanderbilt University’s joint table of “Russell the Robot: Engaging Children with Autism through Psychological and Engineering Research,” the event was a great display of the different types of research being supported by the Foundation. Click here to see a full list of participating organizations and what each exhibitor was presenting.
“Which would you rather have: more money or end of Sequestration?”
/In: FY15 Appropriations, Policy /by Brian MosleyThe title of this post was the last question, asked by Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), at the Senate Appropriations hearing Tuesday afternoon. It was a telling question and got to the root of the budgetary problems facing the Federal science agencies at this point in time: would it be better to have more (modest) funding right now, which will only be cut back when the paused Sequestration starts back up in two years; or would it be best to have lower numbers now but an end to Sequestration (meaning more certainty) to allow the agencies to plan? Mikulski was clear that they couldn’t have both, as she explicitly said that the committee would be following the Murray/Ryan Budget Agreement . After she made her question, the Senator did give the witnesses an out, saying “you may not want to answer that.”
For the most part, the witnesses answered that question by saying: more certainty. Director Collins pointed out that because of the Sequester NIH lost, taking into account inflation, about 10% of its budget. He said, “a stable predictable trajectory,” for the agency’s budget was a necessity. Director Prabhakar, in saying that she needed more certainty, pointed out that DARPA is not trying to grow significantly. That combined with an 8% Sequester cut and a 12% decline in recent years means that DARPA has been hit very hard. Secretary Moniz echoed both of those positions and said DOE needs certainty. The only person who said more funding would be best was Director Cordova; she made the point that we should, “do now what we can do now.” She illustrated that by pointing out the Foundation was not able to fund about 700 proposals and that impacted around 800 scientists. That answer also made the point that there is no good/right answer here.
As for the rest of the hearing, there was very little political posturing and ideologically based questions, and both sides of the aisle felt more had to be done to get money to scientists. In fact, the next day Director Holdren was quoted as calling the hearing, “nearly a love fest.” The only instances of anything that could be called an ideological statement was when Senator Shelby (R-AL), the highest ranked Republican on the committee, said in his opening statement, “if we cannot practice fiscal discipline today, we will pay a much higher price in the future,”? while pointing out that the committee can’t simply increase funding for these agencies (in his closing statement, Senator Shelby did say he was open to giving the science agencies “leeway” with their budgets). However, Senator Blunt (R-MO), a long time supporter of research at NIH, made the counterpoint, “is the health of our country discretionary?” Neither of these statements is a surprise, given the budgetary environment of Congress; but they do demonstrate the constraints that the committee is working with and what the science agencies have to work under.
The Democratic side mainly focused on specific areas that concerned them and their state specific constituents. However, one of the more interesting exchanges was between Senator Harkin (D-IA) and Director Collins of NIH, where the Senator pointed out that it was almost impossible to get private sector funding for the Genome Initiative until the early successes of the Federally backed science showed promise. Senator Harkin, speaking off the cuff, said that an “initial Federal investment of around $3.5B produced an estimated $900B market in return.” The implication was that this is an example that shows private money will follow only when the Federally backed basic research shows promise. Beyond that, Chairwoman Mikulski had many of the best points, such as when she said she “wanted to make sure they (American scientists) can do what they’re educated to do;” which is research.
On the whole, the hearing was positive. It showed that the Federal science agencies have a good reputation with Senate Appropriators (also demonstrated with the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science subcommittee passing a bill favorable to NSF and NIST). Also, there are leaders in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, who want to protect science in the budget process. This is an on-going process; the specter of Sequestration starting up again in two years is hanging over everyone. And Chairwoman Mikulski’s question is still sitting there: which would be more helpful, more money or an end to Sequestration?
Major Senate Hearing on Federal Science Investments
/In: Policy /by Brian MosleyTomorrow the full Senate Appropriations Committee will be holding an major hearing on “Driving Innovation through Federal Investments.” This is important news as the list of witnesses being called is a who’s-who of Federal science agencies: the Secretary of Energy, the President’s science advisor, and the Directors of NSF, DARPA, and NIH. Of course, you might remember the Senate Appropriations Committee from being one half of being in charge of funding the Federal Government. As I said, MAJOR hearing next week.
The Appropriations Committee chairwoman, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), is a huge champion for science, and it’s clear that she feels the Federal Government can be doing more to spur innovation through investing in the science agencies. The science advocacy community in Washington is very excited, because our issues haven’t had such a high profile venue like this for some time.
To take advantage of that venue, CRA is joining with fifty other organizations in submitting testimony for the hearing. These organizations are organizing around the message “Close the Innovation Deficit,” which the Senate Appropriations Committee has picked up on. The term “Innovation Deficit” means the, “the widening gap between the actual level of federal government funding for research and higher education and what the investment needs to be if the United States is to remain the world’s innovation leader.” We’d highly recommend going to their website, checking out the video, and reading the testimony (it includes the other organizations which have signed on). We’ll have a recap of the hearing later in the week as well.
NSF’s Budget Request Flat for FY15
/In: Funding, FY15 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaGiven the relatively austere budget caps for FY2015 the President and Congress agreed to as part of last December’s budget agreement, the President’s relatively flat budget request for the National Science Foundation in FY2015 isn’t unexpected. In fact, the President’s request for NSF would have the agency grow just 1 percent over FY14 (to $7.3 billion), while research at the agency would actually decrease by $3 million under the President’s plan ($5.191 billion in FY14 vs. $5.188 billion in FY15).
Funding for NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate, the home of the great bulk of NSF’s computing research and infrastructure investments, follows a similar trajectory in the President’s budget. Under the President’s plan, the CISE budget would remain at essentially the same level ($893 million) as in FY14 ($894 million). Coming after two years in which CISE did disproportionately “well” in the budget calculus, this flat budget is a little easier to bear. But it does mean that CISE AD Farnam Jahanian had to do a little reshuffling to protect priorities within the CISE budget. In particular, the directorate’s contributions to a number of cross-agency initiatives would be scaled back somewhat in order to take care of “core” research funding within the directorate.
In his letter to the computing research community, Jahanian noted four areas of priority within the directorate request: expansions of CISE foundational research; investments in crosscutting programs led by CISE; investments in advanced cyberinfrastructure, and education and workforce development.
In addition to CISE’s investments in its core foundational research, the directorate will remain a player in a number of key cross-agency programs, albeit in a slightly reduced role in some cases. Here are some details:
Cyber Enabled Materials, Manufacturing, and Smart Systems (CEMMSS): This is a $213 million program across the Foundation geared towards accelerating advances in “21st century smart engineered systems.” CISE’s investment of $81.5 million in FY15 (down from $85 million in FY14) would focus on advanced manufacturing, cyber physical systems, the National Robotics Initiative, Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISP) and their interaction and synthesis.
Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21): The Foundation would spend $125 million across all the major research directorates in FY15, with CISE contributing $80 million (down from $85 million in FY14). CISE’s focus includes work on Big Data, data infrastructure building blocks, building new computational and data-enabled science and engineering research communities, advancing new computational infrastructure and building partnerships.
Cognitive Science and Neuroscience: NSF’s contribution to the White House’s BRAIN initiative (with NSF, NIH and DARPA), would be $29 million foundation-wide in FY15. CISE would contribute $5.65 million vs. $3.5 million in FY14. CISE’s focus is on addressing the challenges of research integration across multiple scales and builds on ongoing NSF investments like the Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience collaboration with NIH, Germany and France.
Innovation Corps (I-Corps): The Foundation would invest $25 million in this program designed to accelerate innovations from the lab to the market. CISE’s contribution would grow to $10 million (up from $8 million in FY14), and Jahanian noted that given the level of interest in the program from the community, the directorate could easily invest twice as much.
Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC): The Foundation would spend $100 million on SaTC in FY15 under the President’s plan, and $67 million of that investment would be in the CISE directorate. The focus of CISE’s effort in this space is to support fundamental scientific advances and technologies to protect cyber-systems from malicious behavior, while preserving privacy and promoting usability.
Jahanian’s presentation from the NSF budget roll-out goes into additional detail about these programs and the other efforts the directorate plans for FY15, and the official justification to Congress contains even more detail. The President’s “Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative” — his supplemental budget request, should Congress feel the need to spend more than the caps they agreed to — includes $552 million in new spending for NSF, some of which would find its way into CISE for investments in cybersecurity, clean energy/sustainable computing, and core research activities. However, this is essentially dead on arrival in Congress. Sorry.