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.
Update (11/17/11): The minibus was approved in both the House and Senate and will head to the President for his signature!
Original Post: Congressional appropriators tonight filed the final conference report for the so-called “minibus” FY12 appropriations bill, representing the final agreed-upon spending numbers for FY12 for the Agriculture; Commerce, Justice, Science; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bills — and NSF fared much better than expected in the final negotiation. You’ll recall we were somewhat pleased when the House appropriators approved their version of the Commerce, Justice, Science bill and managed to hold NSF’s funding flat for FY12. In a bill where essentially every other account got cut, this was seen as a win. We were also disappointed when the Senate released its version of the CJS bill, which included a cut of 2.4 percent to the agency, a reduction of $162 million vs. FY11. Those figured to be the MAX and MIN case for NSF in the negotiations.
But, in a bit of a surprise, NSF actually received an increase in the conference agreement of $172 million in FY 12, compared to FY11. Of that $172 million increase, $155 million is slated for the agency’s Research and Related Activities directorate “to enhance basic research critical innovation and U.S. economic competitiveness.”
Also faring well is NIST, which would receive an additional $33 million over FY11 “to support core NIST scientific research programs that help advance U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and economic growth.”
NASA would see a decrease of about $648 million, which is not quite as bad as first thought. NASA will also be able to continue work on the James Webb Space Telescope, but funding for cost overruns in the program will have to come out of other existing programs at the agency, which may make a lot of non-telescope people unhappy.
So, this is a very good thing, especially when considering the alternatives we thought were on the table. It’s clear the basic research -> competitiveness argument still has legs in Congress, and that’s very important in this overall atmosphere of belt-tightening. There’s still a recognition among both parties that federal support for basic research is an investment with real payoff for the country’s future.
Both chambers still have to approve the conference report, but it’s unlikely much will change in it as that would restart the negotiation process in both the House and Senate. The bill also contains a needed extension of the stop-gap continuing resolution currently required to keep government operating, but set to expire on November 18th. Without the extension, much of government would be forced to shut down midnight Friday. The minibus includes an extension of the CR through December 16th. By then, congressional leaders will have to figure out the remaining nine funding bills and square those with spending caps put in place by the debt limit agreement last August, or pass another CR. My money is on another CR.
We’ll have more detail as we actually get in and take a look at the 400 page report. Until then, the House Appropriations Committee has posted a summary.
Yesterday the Senate managed passage of its first so-called “minibus” appropriation bill — a combination of FY12 Agriculture Appropriation; Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriation; and Transportation-HUD Appropriations bills — and retained the cuts to the FY12 budget of the National Science Foundation budget we covered back when the bill was first approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Those cuts would amount to a 2.4 percent reduction to NSF’s budget, a cut of nearly $162 million compared to the agency’s FY11 level. In addition, the Senate minibus includes cuts to both NASA (2.8 percent reduction, or $509 million less than FY11) and NIST (9.3 percent or $70.1 million less than FY11).
Though the House hasn’t passed its versions of all three appropriations bills, it will nevertheless go forward with a conference with the Senate on the minibus (technically, the minibus is based on the FY12 Agriculture Appropriation, which the House did manage to pass back in June — the other two bills have been added to the Agriculture bill). House conferees will use CJS and Transportation-HUD bills approved by the House Appropriations committee, but not approved by the full House, as the basis for their negotiations with the Senate. House appropriators approved essentially level funding for NSF in their version of the bill, along with a smaller reduction for NIST (6.6 percent, or $49.3 million less than FY11) and a much larger reduction for NASA (8.9 percent or $1.6 billion less than FY11), so there may be some challenging negotiations. One significant difference between the two versions that may impact funding available for other programs is that the Senate approved more than half a billion dollars for NASA’s James Webb Telescope, while the House zeroed the program. Should the conferees agree to move forward with the telescope, that will likely mean less funding available for other science programs within the minibus.
The House and Senate leadership are under some pressure to get the conference done quickly. Since October 1st, the start of the 2012 Fiscal Year, the government has been operating under a “continuing resolution” — a stop-gap spending measure designed to keep agencies funded at current levels until Congress can approve their FY12 appropriations. That continuing resolution is set to expire November 18th. It appears that the plan is to conference the current minibus expeditiously and attach a new continuing resolution that would keep government running through mid-December. For his part, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has named a slate of fairly moderate, but very experienced appropriators as conferees from the House majority, which suggests he isn’t necessarily interested in scoring ideological points with this bill as much as he is in just getting it done.
Senate leaders are hoping to move a second minibus by the end of the month. That bill would include the Energy-Water appropriation — which includes funding for the Office of Science at the Department of Energy — in addition to the Financial Services, and possibly the State-Foreign Operations or Homeland Security appropriations bills. However, complicating the calculus somewhat are the actions of the so-called Supercommittee charged with producing recommendations for dealing with the mounting debt crisis (the compromise solution to the debt limit crisis that garnered many headlines back in August and resulted in a downgrade of the country’s debt rating). The committee has until November 23rd to produce legislation to reduce the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. Failing to enact such legislation would trigger a series of automatic cuts that would guarantee $1.2 trillion in budgetary savings. With the outcome of the debt panel’s recommendations still unknown and, perhaps, in doubt, there’s a fair bit of gamesmanship and political calculation going on in both the majority and minority leadership offices — gamesmanship that could impact final passage of one or both minibuses. Congressional Democrats could opt to let the committee fail to produce recommendations because they view the cuts that would occur automatically to be more preferable than the ones they’re likely to receive at the negotiating table in the supercommittee. At the moment, the committee has stopped meeting, citing lack of progress, so it’s quite possible that there will be no agreed-upon recommendations come November 23rd.
Whatever the outcome, we’ll have all the details here!
Today the Computing Community Consortium is issuing a call for nominations for individuals to serve on the CCC Council for three years beginning January 2012. The deadline for nominations is 11:59pm EST on Nov. 15, 2011. The complete call appears below.
The Computing Community Consortium Seeks Nominations for Council Members
What questions shape our intellectual future? What attracts the best and brightest minds of a new generation? What are the next big computing ideas — the ones that will define the future of computing, galvanize the very best students, and catalyze research investment and public support?
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is charged with catalyzing and empowering the U.S. computing research community to answer these questions by identifying major research opportunities for the field and by creating venues for community participation in the process. The CCC supports these efforts through visioning activities such as workshops, through arranging plenary talks or key topics at major venues, through discussions with Federal agencies, and through other community-building activities.
As one recent example, a CCC-funded robotics visioning activity resulted in a definitive report titled “A Roadmap for U.S. Robotics: From Internet to Robotics,” developed by more than 100 robotics experts from academia and industry. That report eventually served as the basis for a new, multi-agency, $70 million investment in robotics called the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) announced by the Federal government in June 2011.
For complete details about the CCC, including a look at all of our current and ongoing activities, see https://cra.org/ccc and http://cccblog.org/.
The CCC is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under a cooperative agreement with the Computing Research Association (CRA). The work of the CCC is carried out by an active and engaged Council, currently chaired by Ed Lazowska (University of Washington) with Susan Graham (University of California-Berkeley) as vice-chair, reporting to CRA’s Board of Directors. The members of the Council are appointed by CRA in consultation with NSF, with staggered three-year terms. In the aggregate, the Council must reflect the full breadth of the computing research community — research area, institutional character, geographic diversity, etc. The CCC is staffed by a full-time director, Erwin Gianchandani.
The CCC’s Nominating Subcommittee invites nominations (including self-nominations) for members to serve on the CCC Council for the next three years. Please send nominations, together with the information below, to ccc-nominations@cra.org by 11:59pm EDT on Tuesday, November 15, 2011. The subcommittee’s recommendations will serve as input to CRA and NSF, who will make the final selection.
1. Name, affiliation, and email address of the nominee.
2. Research interests.
3. Previous significant service to the research community and other relevant experience, with years it occurred (no more than *five* items).
4. A brief biography or curriculum vitae of the nominee.
5. A statement from the nominee of less than one page, supporting his or her nomination by describing his or her ideas for, and commitment to, advancing the work of the CCC in engaging broader communities, finding wider funding sources, and encouraging new research directions. Recall that the CCC needs truly visionary leaders — people with lots of great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work hard to see things to completion.
Computing’s own Richard Tapia, University Professor and Maxfield-Oshman Professor in Engineering at Rice University, will receive the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony this fall. The National Medal of Science is the highest government honor the United States bestows on scientists and engineers. Six other scientists will also receive the award this year. They are Jacqueline K. Barton, Ralph L. Brinster, Shu Chien, Rudolf Jaenisch, Peter J. Stang, and Srinivasa S.R. Varadhan. More about the Medal and the other recipients can be found here.
Among Dr. Tapia’s previous numerous honors and awards are the inaugural A. Nico Habermann award from CRA in 1994, the Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement from AAAS in 1997, the Reginald H. Jones Distinguished Service Award by NACME in 2001, and the SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession in 2004. His work with increasing diversity in computing is celebrated every other year with the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing conference. More on his work and life can be found on his website.
The bill is designed to ensure quality courses and teaching in computer science and computational thinking at the K-12 level. This includes assessing current computer science courses, creating teacher preparation programs, reviewing teacher certification, and implementing computer science standards, as well as addressing other issues at the state and district level.
The CSEA is supported by Computing in the Core, a coalition started to increase the presence of computing in K-12 education and of which CRA is a member. More information on the legislation can be found here.
It was a busy day on Capitol Hill yesterday for members of the computing research community as they worked to make the case to Congress of the importance of the federal investment in research from a couple of different angles. From one direction, a panel of current and former CRA board members joined the head of the National Coordinating Office for IT R&D (George Strawn) at a hearing of the Research and Science Education subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee to comment on the adequacy of the federal effort in IT research. CRA’s Computing Community Consortium Chair (and University of Washington CS professor) Edward Lazowska, current CCC council member and former Oracle Labs head Bob Sproull, and former CRA board member and current head of ACM’s Education Policy Committee Bobby Schnabel all carried the message to the subcommittee that the federal investment is critical to the overall IT ecosystem, and that the payoff from that investment has been extraordinary.
From another direction, computing research community members Luis von Ahn (from Carnegie Mellon) and Ben Bederson (from UMD) joined Physics Nobelist William Phillips and Texas Instruments Vice President of R&D Martin Izzard at a series of briefings for Members of Congress and their staffs intended to make the case for the federal investment in early-stage scientific research by telling the story of the federal role in some of the key technologies of the iPad. Called “Deconstructing the iPad: How Federally-Supported Research Leads to Game-Changing Innovation” the well-attended briefings sought to take an object familiar to most Members and staffers and show that it didn’t spring wholly from the minds of engineers at Apple, but that the key technologies that enable it all bear the clear stamp of federal support.
Both events were received very well and probably helped the case for computing generate a little more traction in Congress. We’ll break down the iPad event in the next post (though Pat Thibodeau has a bit of coverage of the event in Computerworld today). In this one, we’ll summarize yesterday’s hearing.
Lazowska, Sproull and Schnabel were all invited to testify to help the committee members, who have jurisdiction over the federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program — the ~$3.6 billion, 15 agency effort that comprises the federal investment in IT research — understand whether the program is delivering on its goals, or whether there are areas in which the federal government’s effort might better be directed. These sort of informational hearings — as opposed to a hearing focused on advancing a specific piece of legislation or a particular aspect of a program — are especially useful this Congress, as the membership of the Science, Space and Technology Committee is comprised in large part by freshmen members who are largely unfamiliar with the programs they oversee. Even the Chair of the Subcommittee, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), is serving in his first term — so the need for “educating” the members about the nature of the federal investment and its importance to the overall ecosystem is pretty crucial.
Lazowska began by noting the incredible pervasiveness of computing in our lives and it’s role in driving our economy, competitiveness, and in creating new industries and literally millions of new jobs. “Federal support is a key part of the vibrant ecosystem that drives IT innovation,” he said. “While the vast majority of industry R&D is focused on the engineering of the next release of products, it’s the role of Federally funded research to take the long view, creating the ideas that can later be turned into game-changers like the Internet, the Web browser and GPS.”
As the “industry” witness on the panel, Sproull amplified this point by noting that research funded by industry alone will not sustain the IT economy. “The explosive growth and dramatic advances in [the IT] sector over the last 50 years have depended on long-term research, mostly performed in academia and funded by the U.S. government. Industry works closely with academic researchers to harness their finding and expertise.”
Sproull also took a couple of minutes to detail for the subcommittee members the National Research Council’s “Tire Tracks” chart, which tries to illustrate some of the complex interactions between federally supported researchers and efforts in the private sector, making the point that federally supported research (usually in universities) doesn’t supplant industry research, there’s often a long lead time between the initial investments in fundamental research and the payoff in terms of a commercial product (though those products often turn into billion-dollar sectors of the economy), and that research often pays off in unexpected ways (another reason investments there aren’t attractive to industry).
Schnabel focused most of his comments on the computing workforce and education issues, in particular the need for the NITRD program to focus more attention on computer science education issues, especially K-12.
The panelists generally received a favorable reception from the Members in attendance. Chairman Brooks wanted the community to be mindful of the dire budget situation facing the country when they come to Congress asking for more money for Science. He made reference to a briefing he’d attended as a member of the Armed Services Committee in which he learned the devastating impact of some of the cuts proposed for the Defense Department — 1000s of defense contractors out of work, cuts to the naval fleet, etc. So, how ought we prioritize our spending?, he asked. Lazowska, in a moment of relative drama for the hearing, hopped on his iPhone and determined that the projected cost overrun of just one of the Navy’s submarines was equal to four years worth of spending in total at DARPA and NSF for computer science. And yet the payoff from that “rounding error” in the overall budget was extraordinary in its impact.
Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) was very supportive of the overall case, but raised concerns about the workforce issues in computing. Specifically, he raised concerns about whether we were training students now for jobs that might not exist in the future — either because the technology moves so fast or because companies were moving those jobs offshore. The panelists didn’t get much time to answer the questions (a vote was pending on the House floor), but brought up the generally optimistic projections for job growth in the sector — Lazowska testified that “the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 60% of all new jobs in all fields of science and engineering in the current decade will be jobs for computer specialists – more than all of the physical sciences, all of the life sciences, all of the social sciences, and all other fields of engineering combined” — and Schnabel shared that demand for graduates, including those at his own institution, was exceptionally strong.
The committee seems interested in moving another version of a reauthorization bill for the NITRD program, especially now that PCAST has reviewed the program and come up with a series of recommendations. However, its unlikely anything will come of it this year. Lipinski suggested that he’d still like to push for something before the end of this Congress next year. As that process moves forward, we’ll have all the details.
Chick-fil-A and the iPad – what more could you want at lunch? Well, that’s exactly what the Task Force on American Innovation, along with Rep. Hultgren (R-IL), Rep. McCaul (R-TX), and Rep. Quayle (R-AZ), are offering at tomorrow’s briefing, “Deconstructing the iPad: How Federally Supported Research Leads to Game-Changing Innovation” in 2325 Rayburn at noon. Speakers include Luis von Ahn from Carnegie Mellon University, Martin Izzard from Texas Instruments, Nobel Laureate William Phillips from NIST, and Benjamin Bederson from University of Maryland. All the details are available here (PDF) along with the RSVP contact. This will be a widely attended event.
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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.
Somewhat Surprisingly, NSF Fares Well in FY12 Final Approps Agreement
/In: Funding, FY12 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaUpdate (11/17/11): The minibus was approved in both the House and Senate and will head to the President for his signature!
Original Post: Congressional appropriators tonight filed the final conference report for the so-called “minibus” FY12 appropriations bill, representing the final agreed-upon spending numbers for FY12 for the Agriculture; Commerce, Justice, Science; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development bills — and NSF fared much better than expected in the final negotiation. You’ll recall we were somewhat pleased when the House appropriators approved their version of the Commerce, Justice, Science bill and managed to hold NSF’s funding flat for FY12. In a bill where essentially every other account got cut, this was seen as a win. We were also disappointed when the Senate released its version of the CJS bill, which included a cut of 2.4 percent to the agency, a reduction of $162 million vs. FY11. Those figured to be the MAX and MIN case for NSF in the negotiations.
But, in a bit of a surprise, NSF actually received an increase in the conference agreement of $172 million in FY 12, compared to FY11. Of that $172 million increase, $155 million is slated for the agency’s Research and Related Activities directorate “to enhance basic research critical innovation and U.S. economic competitiveness.”
Also faring well is NIST, which would receive an additional $33 million over FY11 “to support core NIST scientific research programs that help advance U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and economic growth.”
NASA would see a decrease of about $648 million, which is not quite as bad as first thought. NASA will also be able to continue work on the James Webb Space Telescope, but funding for cost overruns in the program will have to come out of other existing programs at the agency, which may make a lot of non-telescope people unhappy.
So, this is a very good thing, especially when considering the alternatives we thought were on the table. It’s clear the basic research -> competitiveness argument still has legs in Congress, and that’s very important in this overall atmosphere of belt-tightening. There’s still a recognition among both parties that federal support for basic research is an investment with real payoff for the country’s future.
Both chambers still have to approve the conference report, but it’s unlikely much will change in it as that would restart the negotiation process in both the House and Senate. The bill also contains a needed extension of the stop-gap continuing resolution currently required to keep government operating, but set to expire on November 18th. Without the extension, much of government would be forced to shut down midnight Friday. The minibus includes an extension of the CR through December 16th. By then, congressional leaders will have to figure out the remaining nine funding bills and square those with spending caps put in place by the debt limit agreement last August, or pass another CR. My money is on another CR.
We’ll have more detail as we actually get in and take a look at the 400 page report. Until then, the House Appropriations Committee has posted a summary.
Senate Minibus Cuts NSF, NASA and NIST
/In: Funding, FY12 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaYesterday the Senate managed passage of its first so-called “minibus” appropriation bill — a combination of FY12 Agriculture Appropriation; Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriation; and Transportation-HUD Appropriations bills — and retained the cuts to the FY12 budget of the National Science Foundation budget we covered back when the bill was first approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee. Those cuts would amount to a 2.4 percent reduction to NSF’s budget, a cut of nearly $162 million compared to the agency’s FY11 level. In addition, the Senate minibus includes cuts to both NASA (2.8 percent reduction, or $509 million less than FY11) and NIST (9.3 percent or $70.1 million less than FY11).
Though the House hasn’t passed its versions of all three appropriations bills, it will nevertheless go forward with a conference with the Senate on the minibus (technically, the minibus is based on the FY12 Agriculture Appropriation, which the House did manage to pass back in June — the other two bills have been added to the Agriculture bill). House conferees will use CJS and Transportation-HUD bills approved by the House Appropriations committee, but not approved by the full House, as the basis for their negotiations with the Senate. House appropriators approved essentially level funding for NSF in their version of the bill, along with a smaller reduction for NIST (6.6 percent, or $49.3 million less than FY11) and a much larger reduction for NASA (8.9 percent or $1.6 billion less than FY11), so there may be some challenging negotiations. One significant difference between the two versions that may impact funding available for other programs is that the Senate approved more than half a billion dollars for NASA’s James Webb Telescope, while the House zeroed the program. Should the conferees agree to move forward with the telescope, that will likely mean less funding available for other science programs within the minibus.
The House and Senate leadership are under some pressure to get the conference done quickly. Since October 1st, the start of the 2012 Fiscal Year, the government has been operating under a “continuing resolution” — a stop-gap spending measure designed to keep agencies funded at current levels until Congress can approve their FY12 appropriations. That continuing resolution is set to expire November 18th. It appears that the plan is to conference the current minibus expeditiously and attach a new continuing resolution that would keep government running through mid-December. For his part, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has named a slate of fairly moderate, but very experienced appropriators as conferees from the House majority, which suggests he isn’t necessarily interested in scoring ideological points with this bill as much as he is in just getting it done.
Senate leaders are hoping to move a second minibus by the end of the month. That bill would include the Energy-Water appropriation — which includes funding for the Office of Science at the Department of Energy — in addition to the Financial Services, and possibly the State-Foreign Operations or Homeland Security appropriations bills. However, complicating the calculus somewhat are the actions of the so-called Supercommittee charged with producing recommendations for dealing with the mounting debt crisis (the compromise solution to the debt limit crisis that garnered many headlines back in August and resulted in a downgrade of the country’s debt rating). The committee has until November 23rd to produce legislation to reduce the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade. Failing to enact such legislation would trigger a series of automatic cuts that would guarantee $1.2 trillion in budgetary savings. With the outcome of the debt panel’s recommendations still unknown and, perhaps, in doubt, there’s a fair bit of gamesmanship and political calculation going on in both the majority and minority leadership offices — gamesmanship that could impact final passage of one or both minibuses. Congressional Democrats could opt to let the committee fail to produce recommendations because they view the cuts that would occur automatically to be more preferable than the ones they’re likely to receive at the negotiating table in the supercommittee. At the moment, the committee has stopped meeting, citing lack of progress, so it’s quite possible that there will be no agreed-upon recommendations come November 23rd.
Whatever the outcome, we’ll have all the details here!
CCC Wants You!
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC) /by MelissaNorrFrom our colleague Erwin Gianchandani, at the blog of CRA’s Computing Community Consortium:
Richard Tapia Awarded Natl. Medal of Science
/In: Diversity in Computing, People /by MelissaNorrComputing’s own Richard Tapia, University Professor and Maxfield-Oshman Professor in Engineering at Rice University, will receive the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama at a White House ceremony this fall. The National Medal of Science is the highest government honor the United States bestows on scientists and engineers. Six other scientists will also receive the award this year. They are Jacqueline K. Barton, Ralph L. Brinster, Shu Chien, Rudolf Jaenisch, Peter J. Stang, and Srinivasa S.R. Varadhan. More about the Medal and the other recipients can be found here.
Among Dr. Tapia’s previous numerous honors and awards are the inaugural A. Nico Habermann award from CRA in 1994, the Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement from AAAS in 1997, the Reginald H. Jones Distinguished Service Award by NACME in 2001, and the SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession in 2004. His work with increasing diversity in computing is celebrated every other year with the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing conference. More on his work and life can be found on his website.
Computer Science Education Act Introduced
/In: Computing Education, Diversity in Computing, Policy /by MelissaNorrFollowing the theme of computing taking over the Hill this week, Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) and Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced the Computer Science Education Act (CSEA) yesterday. In the House, the bill is co-sponsored by Representative Bob Filner (D-CA), Representative James Langevin (D-RI), and Representative Silvestre Reyes (D-TX).
The bill is designed to ensure quality courses and teaching in computer science and computational thinking at the K-12 level. This includes assessing current computer science courses, creating teacher preparation programs, reviewing teacher certification, and implementing computer science standards, as well as addressing other issues at the state and district level.
The CSEA is supported by Computing in the Core, a coalition started to increase the presence of computing in K-12 education and of which CRA is a member. More information on the legislation can be found here.
Computing Community Takes Case to Hill
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), CRA, Events, Policy /by Peter HarshaIt was a busy day on Capitol Hill yesterday for members of the computing research community as they worked to make the case to Congress of the importance of the federal investment in research from a couple of different angles. From one direction, a panel of current and former CRA board members joined the head of the National Coordinating Office for IT R&D (George Strawn) at a hearing of the Research and Science Education subcommittee of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee to comment on the adequacy of the federal effort in IT research. CRA’s Computing Community Consortium Chair (and University of Washington CS professor) Edward Lazowska, current CCC council member and former Oracle Labs head Bob Sproull, and former CRA board member and current head of ACM’s Education Policy Committee Bobby Schnabel all carried the message to the subcommittee that the federal investment is critical to the overall IT ecosystem, and that the payoff from that investment has been extraordinary.
From another direction, computing research community members Luis von Ahn (from Carnegie Mellon) and Ben Bederson (from UMD) joined Physics Nobelist William Phillips and Texas Instruments Vice President of R&D Martin Izzard at a series of briefings for Members of Congress and their staffs intended to make the case for the federal investment in early-stage scientific research by telling the story of the federal role in some of the key technologies of the iPad. Called “Deconstructing the iPad: How Federally-Supported Research Leads to Game-Changing Innovation” the well-attended briefings sought to take an object familiar to most Members and staffers and show that it didn’t spring wholly from the minds of engineers at Apple, but that the key technologies that enable it all bear the clear stamp of federal support.
Both events were received very well and probably helped the case for computing generate a little more traction in Congress. We’ll break down the iPad event in the next post (though Pat Thibodeau has a bit of coverage of the event in Computerworld today). In this one, we’ll summarize yesterday’s hearing.
Lazowska, Sproull and Schnabel were all invited to testify to help the committee members, who have jurisdiction over the federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program — the ~$3.6 billion, 15 agency effort that comprises the federal investment in IT research — understand whether the program is delivering on its goals, or whether there are areas in which the federal government’s effort might better be directed. These sort of informational hearings — as opposed to a hearing focused on advancing a specific piece of legislation or a particular aspect of a program — are especially useful this Congress, as the membership of the Science, Space and Technology Committee is comprised in large part by freshmen members who are largely unfamiliar with the programs they oversee. Even the Chair of the Subcommittee, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL), is serving in his first term — so the need for “educating” the members about the nature of the federal investment and its importance to the overall ecosystem is pretty crucial.
Lazowska began by noting the incredible pervasiveness of computing in our lives and it’s role in driving our economy, competitiveness, and in creating new industries and literally millions of new jobs. “Federal support is a key part of the vibrant ecosystem that drives IT innovation,” he said. “While the vast majority of industry R&D is focused on the engineering of the next release of products, it’s the role of Federally funded research to take the long view, creating the ideas that can later be turned into game-changers like the Internet, the Web browser and GPS.”
As the “industry” witness on the panel, Sproull amplified this point by noting that research funded by industry alone will not sustain the IT economy. “The explosive growth and dramatic advances in [the IT] sector over the last 50 years have depended on long-term research, mostly performed in academia and funded by the U.S. government. Industry works closely with academic researchers to harness their finding and expertise.”
Sproull also took a couple of minutes to detail for the subcommittee members the National Research Council’s “Tire Tracks” chart, which tries to illustrate some of the complex interactions between federally supported researchers and efforts in the private sector, making the point that federally supported research (usually in universities) doesn’t supplant industry research, there’s often a long lead time between the initial investments in fundamental research and the payoff in terms of a commercial product (though those products often turn into billion-dollar sectors of the economy), and that research often pays off in unexpected ways (another reason investments there aren’t attractive to industry).
Schnabel focused most of his comments on the computing workforce and education issues, in particular the need for the NITRD program to focus more attention on computer science education issues, especially K-12.
The panelists generally received a favorable reception from the Members in attendance. Chairman Brooks wanted the community to be mindful of the dire budget situation facing the country when they come to Congress asking for more money for Science. He made reference to a briefing he’d attended as a member of the Armed Services Committee in which he learned the devastating impact of some of the cuts proposed for the Defense Department — 1000s of defense contractors out of work, cuts to the naval fleet, etc. So, how ought we prioritize our spending?, he asked. Lazowska, in a moment of relative drama for the hearing, hopped on his iPhone and determined that the projected cost overrun of just one of the Navy’s submarines was equal to four years worth of spending in total at DARPA and NSF for computer science. And yet the payoff from that “rounding error” in the overall budget was extraordinary in its impact.
Rep. Daniel Lipinski (D-IL) was very supportive of the overall case, but raised concerns about the workforce issues in computing. Specifically, he raised concerns about whether we were training students now for jobs that might not exist in the future — either because the technology moves so fast or because companies were moving those jobs offshore. The panelists didn’t get much time to answer the questions (a vote was pending on the House floor), but brought up the generally optimistic projections for job growth in the sector — Lazowska testified that “the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 60% of all new jobs in all fields of science and engineering in the current decade will be jobs for computer specialists – more than all of the physical sciences, all of the life sciences, all of the social sciences, and all other fields of engineering combined” — and Schnabel shared that demand for graduates, including those at his own institution, was exceptionally strong.
The committee seems interested in moving another version of a reauthorization bill for the NITRD program, especially now that PCAST has reviewed the program and come up with a series of recommendations. However, its unlikely anything will come of it this year. Lipinski suggested that he’d still like to push for something before the end of this Congress next year. As that process moves forward, we’ll have all the details.
Deconstructing the iPad
/In: Events, People, Policy, Research /by MelissaNorrChick-fil-A and the iPad – what more could you want at lunch? Well, that’s exactly what the Task Force on American Innovation, along with Rep. Hultgren (R-IL), Rep. McCaul (R-TX), and Rep. Quayle (R-AZ), are offering at tomorrow’s briefing, “Deconstructing the iPad: How Federally Supported Research Leads to Game-Changing Innovation” in 2325 Rayburn at noon. Speakers include Luis von Ahn from Carnegie Mellon University, Martin Izzard from Texas Instruments, Nobel Laureate William Phillips from NIST, and Benjamin Bederson from University of Maryland. All the details are available here (PDF) along with the RSVP contact. This will be a widely attended event.