The House and Senate Appropriations Committees have just released their drafts (House – Senate) of the FY2013 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Bill, and the numbers look pretty decent for NSF and NIST.
Short version: NSF would see an increase of 4.3 percent overall in FY13; NIST would see increases of $54-56 million to its core research accounts; NASA would see cuts.
Here are the slightly more detailed summaries (House – Senate):
On NSF, from the House —
National Science Foundation (NSF) – The legislation funds NSF at $7.3 billion, which is $299 million above fiscal year 2012 and $41 million below the President’s request. NSF’s entire increase is provided to core research and education activities, which are critical to innovation and U.S. economic competitiveness, including funding for an advanced manufacturing science initiative and for research in cyber-security and cyber-infrastructure.
That’s a 4.3 percent increase over FY12, 1 percent less than the President’s Budget Request. NSF’s Research and Related Activities Account would receive a 4.5 percent increase in the bill.
From the Senate —
National Science Foundation (NSF) — The National Science Foundation (NSF) is funded at $7.3 billion, an increase of $240 million above the fiscal year 2012 enacted level.
Same overall level.
On NIST, from the House —
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – NIST is funded at $830 million in the bill, which is $79 million above fiscal year 2012 and $27 million below the President’s request. Within this total, important core research activities to help advance U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and economic growth are increased by $54 million above fiscal year 2012. In addition, the bill includes $128 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program – which provides training and technical assistance to U.S. manufacturers – and $21 million for an Advanced Manufacturing competitive research initiative.
From the Senate —
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – NIST is funded at $826 million, which is $75 million above the fiscal year 2012 enacted level. The bill provides an increase of $56 million for NIST’s laboratories and technical research while maintaining strong support with industry partners including $128.5 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and $14.5 million for the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia (AMTech)
So, both have healthy increases for NIST core research.
NASA doesn’t fare as well in the House. On NASA, from the House —
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) – NASA is funded at $17.6 billion in the bill, which is $226 million below fiscal year 2012 and $138 million below the President’s request. This funding includes:
$3.7 billion for Exploration – $59 million below fiscal year 2012. This includes funding to keep NASA on schedule for upcoming Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and Space Launch System flight milestones and to maintain progress in a reconfigured commercial crew program.
$4 billion for Space Operations – $249 million below fiscal year 2012. The legislation will continue the closeout of the Space Shuttle program for a savings of $503 million.
$5.1 billion for NASA Science programs – $5 million above fiscal year 2012. This includes $1.4 billion for planetary science to ensure the continuation of critical research and development programs that were imperiled by the President’s request. This also includes $628 million, as requested, for the James Webb Space Telescope.
NASA research also sees cuts in the Senate bill —
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is funded at $19.4 billion, an increase of $1.6 billion over the fiscal year 2012 enacted level. The large increase results from a reorganization of operational weather satellite procurement from NOAA into NASA. Without the funds for weather satellite procurement, this level represents a $41.5 million cut from the fiscal year 2012 enacted level.
The bill provides $5 billion for Science which is $69 million less than fiscal year 2012. Within Science, the bill restores $100 million of a proposed cut to robotic Mars science programs, resulting in a total of $461 million for Mars robotic science.
So, on the whole, good news for the agencies we care most about in this bill, except for NASA. The bills have some marked differences in the way they treat other programs in the bill — NOAA satellites paid for by NASA, for example and differences in the way some Dept of Justice programs are funded — that might cause some rejiggering of funding levels as these bills go to the floor and into conference. But it’s always better to start with a big-ish number and work from there, rather than starting with a smaller number. Also important is the verbiage used by both committees in summarizing the increases. Our arguments about the importance of NSF and NIST in promoting US innovation and competitiveness still resonate loudly with both sides of the aisle.
Enrollments in undergraduate computer science programs rose 9.6 percent in the 2011-12 school year, the fourth straight year of increase, according to new data released today by the Computing Research Association.
The data, found in the CRA Taulbee Survey report Computing Degree and Enrollment Trends, 2010-2011, compares schools that responded to both this year’s survey and last. Overall enrollment — including schools that did not participate in the survey last year — increased by 11.5 percent per department compared to the 2010-11 school year. The report also suggests that student interest in computer science may even be higher than the enrollment statistics indicate, noting that enrollments at some schools are constrained by enrollment caps in computer science departments. Free of these caps, in place because of faculty or infrastructure limitations, the report suggests that enrollments might have reflected even larger increases.
The number of bachelors degrees in computer science awarded by U.S. schools also increased by 10.5 percent in the 2010-11 school year, according to the report. Among schools who responded to both year’s surveys, the increase was 12.9 percent.
Total Ph.D. production in computing programs held steady in 2010-11, with 1,782 degrees granted.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is conducted annually by the Computing Research Association to document trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE) or information (I). CRA today released its Computing Degrees and Enrollment Trends, 2010-2011 report. The full Taulbee dataset will be released to the public in May and published in CRA’s Computing Research News.
Wired News’ Noah Shactman has an exclusive today on DARPA Director Regina Dugan’s announcement that she will be leaving the agency she’s helmed for three years to take a senior executive level position at Google. Here’s a snippet:
Darpa director Regina Dugan will soon be stepping down from her position atop the Pentagon’s premiere research shop to take a job with Google. Dugan, whose controversial tenure at the agency lasted just under three years, was “offered and accepted at senior executive position” with the internet giant, according to Darpa spokesman Eric Mazzacone. She felt she couldn’t say no to such an “innovative company,” he adds.
Current Deputy Director Ken Gabriel is expected to take on the interim Director role and is a good bet to take on the permanent role, though IARPA head Lisa Porter could also be considered, according to Shactman.
Dugan is responsible for changing a number of policies at the agency that often limited academic researchers from participating in DARPA-sponsored research, including removing the requirement for “go/no-go” decisions on all research and publication pre-clearance review (except in exceptional cases of national security). Dugan also promised the agency would be more cautious in its use of classification and would revamp the proposal process to give office directors and program managers more authority to pursue promising research, and by most indications, has followed through. It’s hard to imagine that Gabriel, who is well known to the academic community having been a professor of electrical and computer engineering and robotics at Carnegie Mellon, wouldn’t continue those policies under his tenure.
As we noted yesterday, science agencies were among the winners in the President’s budget request. The National Science Foundation “fared very well,” according to Director Subra Suresh, garnering an increase in the President’s plan of $340 million or nearly 5 percent compared to FY 12 final levels. Computing research, in particular, did even better. The agency’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate (CISE) — the home for fundamental computing research at the agency — would see an increase of 8.6 percent in the President’s plan, the highest percentage increase among all the major science directorates.
How does computing warrant this seemingly preferential treatment? In large part, the reason lies with the agency’s new priorities — a suite of mostly-new initiatives announced by Suresh under what he called the new “OneNSF Framework.” In each, computing plays a key, or even foundational, role:
Cyber-enabled Materials, Manufacturing, and Smart Systems (CEMMS) — $247 million across the foundation, including $91 million in CISE;
Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) — $106 million NSF-wide, $16 million in CISE;
Expeditions in Education (E2) — $49 million NSF-wide, $4 million in CISE;
NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) — $19 million NSF-wide, $6 million in CISE;
Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) — $63 million NSF-wide, $4 million in CISE;
Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) — $110 million NSF-wide, $69 million in CISE;
Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) — $203 million NSF-wide, $11.5 million in CISE.
While some of this funding represents research already funded under different programs — for example, CISE already supports research in CEMMS through the ongoing work in Cyber-physical Systems National Robotics Initiative, as well as through the now discontinued Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation program — much of it is new money for the directorate. In addition, the directorate is funneling $17 million from three programs that have ended (Network Science and Engineering (NetSE), Social-Computational Systems, and the Interface between Computer Science and Economic and Social Sciences (ICES), into core CISE research areas. This process of identifying new initiatives, securing new funding for them, letting them run their course, then ending them and folding that money back into the CISE core is key to growing the CISE budget, and really the Foundation budget, over time.
So what do the newly announced OneNSF initiatives mean for CISE and computing researchers? Here’s how they break down:
Cyber-enabled Materials, Manufacturing, and Smart Systems (CEMMS) — The overall goal of CEMMS is to accelerate advances in 21st century smart engineered systems — systems that sense, respond, and adapt to the environment. CISE, partnering with NSF’s Biological Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, and Office of Cyber Infrastructure, hopes to establish the scientific basis for engineered systems interdependent with physical world and social systems, model and simulate them in full complexity and dynamics, and develop a technology framework. In doing so, they’ll leverage ongoing research in their CPS and NRI activities.
Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) — Aims to accelerate the progress of scientific discovery and innovation. CISE’s contributions include investments in Advanced Computational Infrastructure (ACI) — foundational research in parallelism and concurrency, as well as distributed systems at scale — and to advance big data science and engineering through foundational research in managing, analyzing, visualizing and extracting useful information from large data sets.
Expeditions in Education (E2) — The goal across the Foundation is to integrate, leverage and expand STEM education. CISE hopes to focus on transforming undergraduate STEM learning though science and engineering, learning and understanding sustainability, and cyberlearning, data and observations for STEM education. CISE hopes to leverage their cross-directorate program in Cyberlearning (wit EHR, SBE, OCI), to design ways that innovative tools can be effectively integrated into learning, understand how people learn with technology, and implement new technologies into learning environments in way so that their potential is fulfilled.
NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) — The Foundation goal is to accelerate innovations from the lab to the market, and as one of the founding directorates in the effort, CISE plans to continue its efforts to show high-impact results from a relatively modest investment ($6 million).
Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) — Aims to catalyze interdisciplinary research.
Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) — A cross-directorate (CISE, EHR, ENG, MPS, OCI, SBE) effort to “build a cybersecure society and provide a strong competitive edge in the Nation’s ability to produce high-quiality digital systems and a well-trained cybersecurity workforce.” The program includes a solicitation that addresses cybersecurity from trustworthy computing systems; social, behavioral and economics; and addressing the transition to practice perspective. It also includes the ongoing Scholarship for Service (SFS) program designed to increase the number of qualified students entering the cyber security field.
Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) — This ongoing program aims to inform the societal actions needed for environmental and economic sustainability and sustainable human well-being. CISE sees multiple roles for computer science in SEES, including in questions of monitoring, data, scalability, addressing complexity, and behavior modeling and change, and is funding $11.5 million in research in response.
In addition to the cross-agency priorities, CISE maintains a number of CISE-level cross-cutting programs, including the Expeditions in Computing program (see this recent post on the CCC Blog), the Computing Education for the 21st Century program (which includes CISE efforts in computing education, research on teaching and learning, and broadening participation), Smart Health and Wellbeing, Enhancing Access to the Radio Spectrum (EARS), and Mid-scale Research Infrastructure, which includes increasing the “GENI footprint” and pushing ahead with US Ignite.
Finally, in his detailed briefing on the CISE directorate yesterday, CISE AD Farnam Jahanian stressed that while there’s a focus on the initiatives on this budget, the net result for the CISE “core” research areas is very positive. Put simply, as CISE grows, so grows the CISE core. And CISE will continue to grow as long as computing continues to stay relevant to national priorities and the priorities of the Foundation. Even in difficult budget climes….
As we noted earlier today, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science did fairly well in the President’s Budget Request considering the fiscal climate we remain mired in. Overall, the Office of Science request is for an increase of 2.4 percent over the FY12 enacted appropriations to a total of $5 billion.
The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program would see a 3.3 percent increase to $455.6 million. Basic Energy Sciences would also receive an increase to $1.8 billion, a 6.6 percent increase. The biggest decrease in the Office of Science would be to the Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists program. It would lose $4 million or 21.6 percent of it’s FY12 funding.
ARPA-E would see a significant increase to it’s project funding of 27.5 percent for a total of $325 million. This is a $70 million increase over the enacted FY12 funding and does not include the requested increase for “program direction” of 25 percent to $25 million. This would bring the total ARPA-E funding to $350 million. DoE states that the program direction funding would allow them to hire more federal employees, support contractors, lease space, and increase IT purchases. It is unlikely that Congress will approve of such increases for personnel, space, and equipment given the spending climate in Washington.
Secretary Chu’s statement on the Department of Energy budget can be found here. The full budget document can be found here.
As expected, these aren’t huge increases, but in the context of the current fiscal climate, they demonstrate that the Administration continues to make investments in research and development a priority. It’s certainly a better position from which to start the annual budget process than if they’d proposed cuts.
We’ll have more on the DOE Office of Science budget and NSF CISE budget today after budget briefings at those agencies.
Yesterday was STEM education day for the Administration. In the morning at a White House Science Fair, President Obama announced he will seek $80 million in the FY13 budget of the Department of Education to help train 100,000 more STEM teachers along with policies to recruit, retain, and reward STEM teachers. The full announcement can be found here.
In the afternoon, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released “Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics”, a report focusing on ways to increase the attraction and retention of undergraduates majoring in the STEM fields. During the release, members of PCAST spoke to the difficulties of keeping interested students in the STEM fields particularly when they are not prepared for college level math and when they find the introductory level courses to be “uninspiring”. Additionally, many underrepresented groups leave STEM courses because the atmosphere is unwelcoming.
“PCAST found that economic forecasts point to a need for producing, over the next decade, approximately 1 million more college graduates in STEM fields than expected under current assumptions. Fewer than 40% of students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field complete a STEM degree. Merely increasing the retention of STEM majors from 40% to 50% would generate three-quarters of the targeted 1 million additional STEM degrees over the next decade,” according to the introductory letter to the President.
The report listed five recommendations for improving the attraction and retention of undergraduates.
Catalyze widespread adoption of empirically validated teaching practices
Advocate and provide support for replacing standard laboratory classes with discovery based research courses
Launch a national experiment in postsecondary mathematics education to address the math preparation gap
Encourage partnerships among stakeholders to diversify pathways to STEM careers
Create a Presidential Council on STEM Education with leadership from the academic and business communities to provide strategic leadership for transformative and sustainable change in STEM undergraduate education
A fact sheet, executive summary, and the full report are all available as PDFs at the PCAST website.
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee today first marked up, then passed unanimously a reauthorization of the Federal government’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program. Called the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2012, (H.R. 3834) the bill sets policies for the 15 Federal agencies who participate in the $3.6 billion a year program, which represents the sum total of the Federal investment in unclassified computing research.
The bill is substantially similar to the NITRD Act of 2009 from the last Congress that CRA endorsed, with a few reservations. While we appreciated that bill’s focus on enacting the recommendations of a review of the NITRD program by the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, we thought the bill could have been made stronger with some additional focus on computer science education and diversity issues throughout the NITRD program. The sponsors of the bill have apparently taken that to heart and added language that addresses three of the four points we raised. (The remaining point dealt with the Department of Education and its lack of participation in the NITRD program, but that’s not something the House Science, Space and Tech Committee has jurisdiction over, so it’s not something they could add to the bill at this point.)
The core of the new bill, as in the old bill, is aimed at fostering greater coordination between the 15 participating agencies and codifying an advisory committee of experts from industry and academia charged with reviewing the program’s progress and recommending new directions to reflect changes in the field or in national priorities. Both elements are key recommendations of the most recent review of the NITRD program, undertaken by the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST) and released in December 2010. In an effort to aid coordination among the agencies in setting priorities and research agendas, the bill requires that the program create a five-year strategic plan, updated every three years. The advisory committee will review the strategic plan on a three-year schedule (changed at the markup from 2 years in the original bill) and report the results to Congress.
The bill would also create a new NITRD activity called “Large-scale Research in Areas of National Importance.” Included under this activity would be:
… large-scale, long-term, interdisciplinary research and development activities in networking and information technology directed toward application areas that have the potential for significant contributions to national economic competitiveness and for other societal benefits. Such activities, ranging from basic research to the demonstration of technical solutions, shall be designed to advance the development of research discoveries.
The President’s advisory committee is required to make recommendations to NITRD for research to support under this activity. The bill also requires that if two agencies are working on research in the same area, “they must strive to collaborate through joint solicitations and selection of applications,” a dicey requirement, given how difficult can be to get a single-agency solicitation out the door. (But there is wiggle room in that “strive to collaborate” language.)
The bill also adds a new research area in Cyber-Physical Systems to the NITRD research portfolio. To help figure out how best to carry out research in this area, the bill calls for the creation of “University/Industry Task Force” to explore mechanisms for collaborative research, set an agenda focused on “national significant challenges and requiring collaboration, as well as figuring out everyone’s role in the activity, figuring out the intellectual property issues, and figuring out how to pay for it. And after answering these challenges, the committee shall disband.
New to the bill are sections on Cloud Computing Services for Research, and Improving Networking and Information Technology Education. The former requires the NITRD national coordinating office (NCO) to convene an interagency working group to examine “issues around funding mechanisms and policies for the use of cloud computing services for federally-funded science and engineering research.” In addition, the committee during the markup today added language that requires the working group to also examine the needs of research focused on cloud computing.
The latter new section adds a responsibility to NSF to “use its existing program, in collaboration with other agencies, as appropriate to improved the teaching and learning of NIT at all levels of education and to increase participation in NIT fields, including by women and underrepresented minorities.”
CRA was pleased to offer its support for H.R. 3834 before today’s markup. Here’s what we said:
February 6, 2012
Chairman Hall and Ranking Member Johnson:
As an organization representing over 240 industry and academic institutions involved in computing research and six affiliated professional societies, together representing over 150,000 computing professionals, the Computing Research Association is pleased to support your efforts to bolster federal information technology research through the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act (H.R. 3834). We supported a substantially similar bill, the NITRD Act of 2009 (H.R. 2020), in the previous Congress, and believe the changes you have made to the bill – particularly to add a greater emphasis on computer science education and diversity throughout the NITRD programs – make this a much improved bill.
We also believe H.R. 3834 will make federal IT R&D stronger by enacting several of the recommendations from the most recent review of the program by the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (in December 2010). In particular, we are pleased that the bill requires the NITRD agencies to create a five-year strategic plan for the program, and to have the program’s progress periodically reviewed by a committee of experts from academia and industry. Doing so will help ensure that the research priorities of the program reflect changes in the field and national priorities.
We believe that given the size and scope of the NITRD program, its importance to the Nation, and the rapidly-changing nature of the field, it is crucial that this advisory committee be comprised of the leading minds in the academic and industrial research communities, and that the committee be free-standing, independent and able to report its findings directly to the President’s Science Advisor. We are pleased that the bill language does not preclude this, but would appreciate additional emphasis of these characteristics in the bill or the report accompanying the bill.
Thank you for your work on this legislation and for your long-standing support of the federal investment in networking and information technology research. We look forward to working with you and your colleagues as you endeavor to move this legislation forward this session.
Sincerely,
Eric Grimson
Chair
The bill will likely head to the House floor very soon, where it’s expected to pass overwhelming, just like the NITRD Act of 2009 did (though stranger things have happened). The task is more challenging the Senate, which has failed to act on the House bill in each of the last three Congresses and hasn’t produced a version of its own. Whatever the result, we’ll let you know!
Secretary Bryson opened the event with a keynote address saying that the report contains three areas of focus: federal funding of basic research, STEM education, and infrastructure investment. He discussed that these are areas of investment that payoff in the future and that they need to be encouraged even during difficult economic times.
The Secretary’s brief remarks were followed by a panel discussion with Deputy Secretary of Commerce and Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Rebecca Blank, US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, and McKinsey Global Institute Director James Manyika.
Deputy Secretary Blank began the discussion by talking about the need for competitiveness and job growth to be part of the same conversation. She spoke to the fact that many people don’t see college education, particularly in STEM fields, to be pertinent to their lives and that we need to change the overall picture so they can make the connection.
Manyika pointed out that the concern over jobs was not just because of the recession and that wage growth matters because consumer spending is such a heavy driver of economic growth in the US. He answered a question regarding the US competitiveness standing by saying that the US economy is still the most innovative and attractive in the world, as it has been since World War II, but that change is starting to happen around the globe with other countries trying to rise to the same level of innovation. Manyika also noted that there are market failures in research and development because of the long-term nature of basic research and the private sector cannot fund that kind of research without the government.
Chopra gave examples of the payoff of federally funded R&D. He specifically called out the list of billion dollar sectors within IT that can trace their starts back to federally funded research. He also discussed the success of commercializing a great deal of research that originally started at DARPA and the need to emulate that kind of model and the need to have public-private partnerships.
There was little time for audience questions but one question that did get asked was if all the jobs of the future require computing knowledge and skills, why isn’t computer science being taught at the K – 12 level. Chopra answered by saying that the engineering and technology (the E&T in STEM) need more investment and more emphasis because the science and math portions are already well established.
The full report is available online at the Department of Commerce website. The video of the event will be posted to the Center for American Progress website in the near future.
As noted over at the CCC blog as well as in CRN, the third annual Computer Science Education Week is December 4 -10, 2011 and you can join with the more than 1800 people who have pledged to participate!
CSEdWeek 2011 is a call to action to raise awareness about computer science education and computing careers. Held annually the week of Admiral Grace Hopper’s birthday (December 9, 1906), CSEdWeek brings together parents, students, teachers and others in celebrating the endless opportunities a computer science education offers students in K-12, higher education, and in their careers.
The week will also feature activities designed to provide information and activities for students, educators, parents, and corporations to advocate for computer science education at all levels and eliminate misperceptions about computer science and computing careers
Join In! Everyone can participate!
Take the CSEdWeek pledge! Register your support and share your plans to celebrate by selecting the Red Ribbon at the CS Ed Week website.
‘Like’ CSEdWeek on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CSEdWeek and join the conversation.
Blog, tweet, and post to spread the word and raise awareness. Use the #CSEdWeek hashtag.
Celebrate CSEdWeek in your school, club, or workplace.
Visit the CS Ed Week website for other suggested activities and resources.
Why Computer Science Education?
Computer science education is essential to: expose students to critical thinking and problem solving; instill understanding of computational thinking for success in the digital age; train students for computing careers that are exciting, plentiful and financially rewarding; and prepare students to tackle the world’s most challenging problems.
Yet as the role and significance of computing has grown, the teaching of computer science in our K-12 education system has dramatically declined. There is insufficient innovative computing curricula for students at all levels; few students have the opportunity to study computer science in an engaging and rigorous way; there is a lack of ethnic and gender diversity among those who do take computer science courses; and teachers have few opportunities for professional development and certification in computer science education.
Please use the Category and Archive Filters below, to find older posts. Or you may also use the search bar.
NSF, NIST Fare OK in First FY13 Spending Bill Drafts
/In: Funding, FY13 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThe House and Senate Appropriations Committees have just released their drafts (House – Senate) of the FY2013 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Bill, and the numbers look pretty decent for NSF and NIST.
Short version: NSF would see an increase of 4.3 percent overall in FY13; NIST would see increases of $54-56 million to its core research accounts; NASA would see cuts.
Here are the slightly more detailed summaries (House – Senate):
On NSF, from the House —
That’s a 4.3 percent increase over FY12, 1 percent less than the President’s Budget Request. NSF’s Research and Related Activities Account would receive a 4.5 percent increase in the bill.
From the Senate —
Same overall level.
On NIST, from the House —
From the Senate —
So, both have healthy increases for NIST core research.
NASA doesn’t fare as well in the House. On NASA, from the House —
NASA research also sees cuts in the Senate bill —
So, on the whole, good news for the agencies we care most about in this bill, except for NASA. The bills have some marked differences in the way they treat other programs in the bill — NOAA satellites paid for by NASA, for example and differences in the way some Dept of Justice programs are funded — that might cause some rejiggering of funding levels as these bills go to the floor and into conference. But it’s always better to start with a big-ish number and work from there, rather than starting with a smaller number. Also important is the verbiage used by both committees in summarizing the increases. Our arguments about the importance of NSF and NIST in promoting US innovation and competitiveness still resonate loudly with both sides of the aisle.
More details as they become available!
Undergrad Computer Science Enrollments Rise for Fourth Straight Year — CRA Taulbee Report
/In: Computing Education, CRA, Diversity in Computing, People /by Peter HarshaEnrollments in undergraduate computer science programs rose 9.6 percent in the 2011-12 school year, the fourth straight year of increase, according to new data released today by the Computing Research Association.
The data, found in the CRA Taulbee Survey report Computing Degree and Enrollment Trends, 2010-2011, compares schools that responded to both this year’s survey and last. Overall enrollment — including schools that did not participate in the survey last year — increased by 11.5 percent per department compared to the 2010-11 school year. The report also suggests that student interest in computer science may even be higher than the enrollment statistics indicate, noting that enrollments at some schools are constrained by enrollment caps in computer science departments. Free of these caps, in place because of faculty or infrastructure limitations, the report suggests that enrollments might have reflected even larger increases.
The number of bachelors degrees in computer science awarded by U.S. schools also increased by 10.5 percent in the 2010-11 school year, according to the report. Among schools who responded to both year’s surveys, the increase was 12.9 percent.
Total Ph.D. production in computing programs held steady in 2010-11, with 1,782 degrees granted.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is conducted annually by the Computing Research Association to document trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in academic units in the United States and Canada that grant the Ph.D. in computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE) or information (I). CRA today released its Computing Degrees and Enrollment Trends, 2010-2011 report. The full Taulbee dataset will be released to the public in May and published in CRA’s Computing Research News.
DARPA Director Dugan to Leave Agency for Google
/In: General /by Peter HarshaWired News’ Noah Shactman has an exclusive today on DARPA Director Regina Dugan’s announcement that she will be leaving the agency she’s helmed for three years to take a senior executive level position at Google. Here’s a snippet:
Current Deputy Director Ken Gabriel is expected to take on the interim Director role and is a good bet to take on the permanent role, though IARPA head Lisa Porter could also be considered, according to Shactman.
Dugan is responsible for changing a number of policies at the agency that often limited academic researchers from participating in DARPA-sponsored research, including removing the requirement for “go/no-go” decisions on all research and publication pre-clearance review (except in exceptional cases of national security). Dugan also promised the agency would be more cautious in its use of classification and would revamp the proposal process to give office directors and program managers more authority to pursue promising research, and by most indications, has followed through. It’s hard to imagine that Gabriel, who is well known to the academic community having been a professor of electrical and computer engineering and robotics at Carnegie Mellon, wouldn’t continue those policies under his tenure.
We’ll have more detail as it’s available.
Budget Drilldown FY13: National Science Foundation
/In: Funding, FY13 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaAs we noted yesterday, science agencies were among the winners in the President’s budget request. The National Science Foundation “fared very well,” according to Director Subra Suresh, garnering an increase in the President’s plan of $340 million or nearly 5 percent compared to FY 12 final levels. Computing research, in particular, did even better. The agency’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate (CISE) — the home for fundamental computing research at the agency — would see an increase of 8.6 percent in the President’s plan, the highest percentage increase among all the major science directorates.
How does computing warrant this seemingly preferential treatment? In large part, the reason lies with the agency’s new priorities — a suite of mostly-new initiatives announced by Suresh under what he called the new “OneNSF Framework.” In each, computing plays a key, or even foundational, role:
While some of this funding represents research already funded under different programs — for example, CISE already supports research in CEMMS through the ongoing work in Cyber-physical Systems National Robotics Initiative, as well as through the now discontinued Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation program — much of it is new money for the directorate. In addition, the directorate is funneling $17 million from three programs that have ended (Network Science and Engineering (NetSE), Social-Computational Systems, and the Interface between Computer Science and Economic and Social Sciences (ICES), into core CISE research areas. This process of identifying new initiatives, securing new funding for them, letting them run their course, then ending them and folding that money back into the CISE core is key to growing the CISE budget, and really the Foundation budget, over time.
So what do the newly announced OneNSF initiatives mean for CISE and computing researchers? Here’s how they break down:
Cyber-enabled Materials, Manufacturing, and Smart Systems (CEMMS) — The overall goal of CEMMS is to accelerate advances in 21st century smart engineered systems — systems that sense, respond, and adapt to the environment. CISE, partnering with NSF’s Biological Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, and Office of Cyber Infrastructure, hopes to establish the scientific basis for engineered systems interdependent with physical world and social systems, model and simulate them in full complexity and dynamics, and develop a technology framework. In doing so, they’ll leverage ongoing research in their CPS and NRI activities.
Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) — Aims to accelerate the progress of scientific discovery and innovation. CISE’s contributions include investments in Advanced Computational Infrastructure (ACI) — foundational research in parallelism and concurrency, as well as distributed systems at scale — and to advance big data science and engineering through foundational research in managing, analyzing, visualizing and extracting useful information from large data sets.
Expeditions in Education (E2) — The goal across the Foundation is to integrate, leverage and expand STEM education. CISE hopes to focus on transforming undergraduate STEM learning though science and engineering, learning and understanding sustainability, and cyberlearning, data and observations for STEM education. CISE hopes to leverage their cross-directorate program in Cyberlearning (wit EHR, SBE, OCI), to design ways that innovative tools can be effectively integrated into learning, understand how people learn with technology, and implement new technologies into learning environments in way so that their potential is fulfilled.
NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) — The Foundation goal is to accelerate innovations from the lab to the market, and as one of the founding directorates in the effort, CISE plans to continue its efforts to show high-impact results from a relatively modest investment ($6 million).
Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) — Aims to catalyze interdisciplinary research.
Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) — A cross-directorate (CISE, EHR, ENG, MPS, OCI, SBE) effort to “build a cybersecure society and provide a strong competitive edge in the Nation’s ability to produce high-quiality digital systems and a well-trained cybersecurity workforce.” The program includes a solicitation that addresses cybersecurity from trustworthy computing systems; social, behavioral and economics; and addressing the transition to practice perspective. It also includes the ongoing Scholarship for Service (SFS) program designed to increase the number of qualified students entering the cyber security field.
Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) — This ongoing program aims to inform the societal actions needed for environmental and economic sustainability and sustainable human well-being. CISE sees multiple roles for computer science in SEES, including in questions of monitoring, data, scalability, addressing complexity, and behavior modeling and change, and is funding $11.5 million in research in response.
In addition to the cross-agency priorities, CISE maintains a number of CISE-level cross-cutting programs, including the Expeditions in Computing program (see this recent post on the CCC Blog), the Computing Education for the 21st Century program (which includes CISE efforts in computing education, research on teaching and learning, and broadening participation), Smart Health and Wellbeing, Enhancing Access to the Radio Spectrum (EARS), and Mid-scale Research Infrastructure, which includes increasing the “GENI footprint” and pushing ahead with US Ignite.
Finally, in his detailed briefing on the CISE directorate yesterday, CISE AD Farnam Jahanian stressed that while there’s a focus on the initiatives on this budget, the net result for the CISE “core” research areas is very positive. Put simply, as CISE grows, so grows the CISE core. And CISE will continue to grow as long as computing continues to stay relevant to national priorities and the priorities of the Foundation. Even in difficult budget climes….
FY2013 Department of Energy Budget Request
/In: Funding, FY13 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrAs we noted earlier today, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science did fairly well in the President’s Budget Request considering the fiscal climate we remain mired in. Overall, the Office of Science request is for an increase of 2.4 percent over the FY12 enacted appropriations to a total of $5 billion.
The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program would see a 3.3 percent increase to $455.6 million. Basic Energy Sciences would also receive an increase to $1.8 billion, a 6.6 percent increase. The biggest decrease in the Office of Science would be to the Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists program. It would lose $4 million or 21.6 percent of it’s FY12 funding.
ARPA-E would see a significant increase to it’s project funding of 27.5 percent for a total of $325 million. This is a $70 million increase over the enacted FY12 funding and does not include the requested increase for “program direction” of 25 percent to $25 million. This would bring the total ARPA-E funding to $350 million. DoE states that the program direction funding would allow them to hire more federal employees, support contractors, lease space, and increase IT purchases. It is unlikely that Congress will approve of such increases for personnel, space, and equipment given the spending climate in Washington.
Secretary Chu’s statement on the Department of Energy budget can be found here. The full budget document can be found here.
Federal R&D Investments Up Overall in President’s FY13 Budget Request
/In: Funding, FY13 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThe President’s budget request for FY 2013 is out and the White House has prepared a handy summary of the R&D portions.
Some highlights:
As expected, these aren’t huge increases, but in the context of the current fiscal climate, they demonstrate that the Administration continues to make investments in research and development a priority. It’s certainly a better position from which to start the annual budget process than if they’d proposed cuts.
We’ll have more on the DOE Office of Science budget and NSF CISE budget today after budget briefings at those agencies.
STEM Education Initiatives Announced
/In: Computing Education, Diversity in Computing, Funding, Policy /by MelissaNorrYesterday was STEM education day for the Administration. In the morning at a White House Science Fair, President Obama announced he will seek $80 million in the FY13 budget of the Department of Education to help train 100,000 more STEM teachers along with policies to recruit, retain, and reward STEM teachers. The full announcement can be found here.
In the afternoon, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released “Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics”, a report focusing on ways to increase the attraction and retention of undergraduates majoring in the STEM fields. During the release, members of PCAST spoke to the difficulties of keeping interested students in the STEM fields particularly when they are not prepared for college level math and when they find the introductory level courses to be “uninspiring”. Additionally, many underrepresented groups leave STEM courses because the atmosphere is unwelcoming.
“PCAST found that economic forecasts point to a need for producing, over the next decade, approximately 1 million more college graduates in STEM fields than expected under current assumptions. Fewer than 40% of students who enter college intending to major in a STEM field complete a STEM degree. Merely increasing the retention of STEM majors from 40% to 50% would generate three-quarters of the targeted 1 million additional STEM degrees over the next decade,” according to the introductory letter to the President.
The report listed five recommendations for improving the attraction and retention of undergraduates.
A fact sheet, executive summary, and the full report are all available as PDFs at the PCAST website.
House Committee Passes IT Research Authorization
/In: General /by Peter HarshaThe House Science, Space and Technology Committee today first marked up, then passed unanimously a reauthorization of the Federal government’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program. Called the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2012, (H.R. 3834) the bill sets policies for the 15 Federal agencies who participate in the $3.6 billion a year program, which represents the sum total of the Federal investment in unclassified computing research.
The bill is substantially similar to the NITRD Act of 2009 from the last Congress that CRA endorsed, with a few reservations. While we appreciated that bill’s focus on enacting the recommendations of a review of the NITRD program by the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, we thought the bill could have been made stronger with some additional focus on computer science education and diversity issues throughout the NITRD program. The sponsors of the bill have apparently taken that to heart and added language that addresses three of the four points we raised. (The remaining point dealt with the Department of Education and its lack of participation in the NITRD program, but that’s not something the House Science, Space and Tech Committee has jurisdiction over, so it’s not something they could add to the bill at this point.)
The core of the new bill, as in the old bill, is aimed at fostering greater coordination between the 15 participating agencies and codifying an advisory committee of experts from industry and academia charged with reviewing the program’s progress and recommending new directions to reflect changes in the field or in national priorities. Both elements are key recommendations of the most recent review of the NITRD program, undertaken by the President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST) and released in December 2010. In an effort to aid coordination among the agencies in setting priorities and research agendas, the bill requires that the program create a five-year strategic plan, updated every three years. The advisory committee will review the strategic plan on a three-year schedule (changed at the markup from 2 years in the original bill) and report the results to Congress.
The bill would also create a new NITRD activity called “Large-scale Research in Areas of National Importance.” Included under this activity would be:
The President’s advisory committee is required to make recommendations to NITRD for research to support under this activity. The bill also requires that if two agencies are working on research in the same area, “they must strive to collaborate through joint solicitations and selection of applications,” a dicey requirement, given how difficult can be to get a single-agency solicitation out the door. (But there is wiggle room in that “strive to collaborate” language.)
The bill also adds a new research area in Cyber-Physical Systems to the NITRD research portfolio. To help figure out how best to carry out research in this area, the bill calls for the creation of “University/Industry Task Force” to explore mechanisms for collaborative research, set an agenda focused on “national significant challenges and requiring collaboration, as well as figuring out everyone’s role in the activity, figuring out the intellectual property issues, and figuring out how to pay for it. And after answering these challenges, the committee shall disband.
New to the bill are sections on Cloud Computing Services for Research, and Improving Networking and Information Technology Education. The former requires the NITRD national coordinating office (NCO) to convene an interagency working group to examine “issues around funding mechanisms and policies for the use of cloud computing services for federally-funded science and engineering research.” In addition, the committee during the markup today added language that requires the working group to also examine the needs of research focused on cloud computing.
The latter new section adds a responsibility to NSF to “use its existing program, in collaboration with other agencies, as appropriate to improved the teaching and learning of NIT at all levels of education and to increase participation in NIT fields, including by women and underrepresented minorities.”
You can find a link to the bill text here. We’ve also uploaded a “Section by Section Analysis,” of the bill, which may be easier to parse.
CRA was pleased to offer its support for H.R. 3834 before today’s markup. Here’s what we said:
The bill will likely head to the House floor very soon, where it’s expected to pass overwhelming, just like the NITRD Act of 2009 did (though stranger things have happened). The task is more challenging the Senate, which has failed to act on the House bill in each of the last three Congresses and hasn’t produced a version of its own. Whatever the result, we’ll let you know!
Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States Report Released
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Computing Education, Events, General, People, Policy /by MelissaNorrThe Department of Commerce and National Economic Council today released a new report on “The Competitiveness and Innovation Capacity of the United States” at an event featuring Secretary of Commerce John Bryson followed by a panel of speakers and small group breakout sessions. The report was a Congressional mandate in the COMPETES reauthorization last year.
Secretary Bryson opened the event with a keynote address saying that the report contains three areas of focus: federal funding of basic research, STEM education, and infrastructure investment. He discussed that these are areas of investment that payoff in the future and that they need to be encouraged even during difficult economic times.
The Secretary’s brief remarks were followed by a panel discussion with Deputy Secretary of Commerce and Under Secretary for Economic Affairs Rebecca Blank, US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, and McKinsey Global Institute Director James Manyika.
Deputy Secretary Blank began the discussion by talking about the need for competitiveness and job growth to be part of the same conversation. She spoke to the fact that many people don’t see college education, particularly in STEM fields, to be pertinent to their lives and that we need to change the overall picture so they can make the connection.
Manyika pointed out that the concern over jobs was not just because of the recession and that wage growth matters because consumer spending is such a heavy driver of economic growth in the US. He answered a question regarding the US competitiveness standing by saying that the US economy is still the most innovative and attractive in the world, as it has been since World War II, but that change is starting to happen around the globe with other countries trying to rise to the same level of innovation. Manyika also noted that there are market failures in research and development because of the long-term nature of basic research and the private sector cannot fund that kind of research without the government.
Chopra gave examples of the payoff of federally funded R&D. He specifically called out the list of billion dollar sectors within IT that can trace their starts back to federally funded research. He also discussed the success of commercializing a great deal of research that originally started at DARPA and the need to emulate that kind of model and the need to have public-private partnerships.
There was little time for audience questions but one question that did get asked was if all the jobs of the future require computing knowledge and skills, why isn’t computer science being taught at the K – 12 level. Chopra answered by saying that the engineering and technology (the E&T in STEM) need more investment and more emphasis because the science and math portions are already well established.
The full report is available online at the Department of Commerce website. The video of the event will be posted to the Center for American Progress website in the near future.
Join Computer Science Education Week!
/In: Computing Education, Events /by MelissaNorrAs noted over at the CCC blog as well as in CRN, the third annual Computer Science Education Week is December 4 -10, 2011 and you can join with the more than 1800 people who have pledged to participate!
CSEdWeek 2011 is a call to action to raise awareness about computer science education and computing careers. Held annually the week of Admiral Grace Hopper’s birthday (December 9, 1906), CSEdWeek brings together parents, students, teachers and others in celebrating the endless opportunities a computer science education offers students in K-12, higher education, and in their careers.
The week will also feature activities designed to provide information and activities for students, educators, parents, and corporations to advocate for computer science education at all levels and eliminate misperceptions about computer science and computing careers
Join In! Everyone can participate!
Take the CSEdWeek pledge! Register your support and share your plans to celebrate by selecting the Red Ribbon at the CS Ed Week website.
‘Like’ CSEdWeek on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CSEdWeek and join the conversation.
Blog, tweet, and post to spread the word and raise awareness. Use the #CSEdWeek hashtag.
Celebrate CSEdWeek in your school, club, or workplace.
Visit the CS Ed Week website for other suggested activities and resources.
Why Computer Science Education?
Computer science education is essential to: expose students to critical thinking and problem solving; instill understanding of computational thinking for success in the digital age; train students for computing careers that are exciting, plentiful and financially rewarding; and prepare students to tackle the world’s most challenging problems.
Yet as the role and significance of computing has grown, the teaching of computer science in our K-12 education system has dramatically declined. There is insufficient innovative computing curricula for students at all levels; few students have the opportunity to study computer science in an engaging and rigorous way; there is a lack of ethnic and gender diversity among those who do take computer science courses; and teachers have few opportunities for professional development and certification in computer science education.