The full House Committee on Appropriations today approved its version of the FY 12 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill, which includes funding for the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We focused on some of the funding levels included in the bill in our last post. The committee also released the legislative report accompanying the bill, which provides some insight into the funding decisions made by the committee. Some highlights:
Despite funding levels well below the President’s requested increases for FY12, science agencies in the bill were still a high priority, according to the committee’s report:
In the context of reducing overall discretionary spending in this bill, the Committee’s funding recommendations focus resources on the areas of highest priority, reflecting the Committee’s assessment of national priorities and ongoing challenges.
Law Enforcement and National Security. …<snip>…
American innovation and competitiveness. As stated in the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report of the National Research Council, healthy levels of investment in scientific research are the key to long-term economic growth that exceeds population growth. These investments lead to innovation and improve the competitiveness of American businesses, leading, in turn, to positive impacts on the quality of life for all Americans. The bill includes $6.9 billion for the National Science Foundation, including an increase of $43 million above fiscal year 2011 for basic scientific research, and $701 million for research and standards work at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, including $128 million for Manufacturing Extension Partnerships to increase the competitiveness of the Nation’s manufacturers. An efficient patent process is also critical for innovation and economic growth. The bill provides $2.7 billion for the Patent and Trademark Office, the full estimate of fee collections for fiscal year 2012. Finally, the bill includes over $1 billion for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education programs across NSF, NASA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The committee also included $43 million in additional funding for NSF’s Research and Related Activities Account, one of the few accounts in the bill to receive an increase. The committee expects NSF to prioritize research on cybersecurity, cyber infrastructure and advanced manufacturing in FY 12, as well as place an emphasis on neuroscience. In addition, the committee reminds NSF that it has the authority to fund prize competitions to stimulate research and makes it clear that the $150 million the President requested to fund wireless research under the Wireless Innovation Fund won’t exist unless Congress passes separate legislation to authorize spectrum auctions. Here’s the verbiage:
Research priorities.—The National Science Foundation (NSF) can maximize the amount of money available in fiscal year 2012 for new activities by carrying out the various reduction and termination proposals contained in the R&RA budget request. The funds made available through these reductions and terminations, together with the increase provided by the Committee, will allow NSF to expand or enhance its activities across a range of research areas with significant impacts on national security or economic competitiveness. The Committee directs NSF to prioritize these new activities towards cybersecurity and cyberinfrastructure improvements; advanced manufacturing (as further discussed below); materials research; and disciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the natural and physical sciences, math and engineering.
Advanced manufacturing.—The Committee encourages NSF’s planned activities related to the Advanced Manufacturing initiative. Future economic prosperity in the United States will depend largely on our ability to develop and manufacture new products based on advanced technologies, both for the domestic market and for export. Basic research supported through the NSF and other Federal science agencies is critical to this effort because it will help provide the foundation for the development of such new products and technologies by the private sector.
…<snip>…
Wireless Innovation Fund.—NSF’s request included $150,000,000
of mandatory funding for research on access to the radio spectrum,
wireless testbeds and cyber-physical systems. This funding is dependent on legislation being enacted to authorize incentive auctions that would reallocate Federal agency and commercial spectrum bands over the next ten years.
As we mentioned in the last post, the funding level for NSF in this bill isn’t nearly as good as the President requested, but given the current fiscal uncertainty and the political climate for cutting discretionary spending to the bone, the fact that NSF and NIST fared as well as they did is evidence of the committee’s belief of the importance of federal support for research. We’ll see if the whole House follows suit when the bill makes its way to the floor.
The House Appropriations Subcommittee for Commerce, Justice, Science today released its draft of the FY12 CJS appropriations bill, containing funding for the National Science Foundation at the same level the agency received in FY11. The bill totals over $50 billion for FY12 spending in programs at the Department of Commerce, Department of Justice, NASA, NSF, and other agencies — down $3 billion from FY11 levels, and down more than $7.4 billion from levels requested by the President for FY12. Though NSF holds ground compared to FY11, the committee’s plan for FY12 is well below the President’s requested levels for the agency ($907 million less). While not a good result for NSF — a “flat” budget is essentially a cut when inflation is factored in — it’s also not nearly as bad as it could have been given the current climate and cuts elsewhere within the bill. NASA, for example, would absorb a $1.6 billion cut vs. FY11, if the House appropriators plan is approved.
Though they flat-funded the agency overall, House appropriators included an increase to NSF’s core research account (R&RA) of $43 million compared to FY12 to “enhance basic research that is critical to innovation and U.S. economic competitiveness,” according to a statement released by the committee today. At the same time, the bill calls for cuts to both the Education and Human Resources directorate ($26 million vs. FY11) and Major Research Equipment and Facilities account ($17 million vs. FY11).
The subcommittee is set to mark up the bill tomorrow, where it may undergo further changes. We’ll have the details here as soon as we learn them.
In the meantime, the committee has prepared a summary chart featuring the funding levels contained in the bill for all the major programs, as well as a comparison to FY11 and the President’s FY12 Budget Request.
It’s worth noting that the CCC Robotics Roadmap is a core part of this new initiative and $70 million of the $500 million Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) will go toward advancing robotics.
(Editor’s note: We’re pleased to have Max Cho, CRA’s Tisdale Fellow, working at CRA World HQ this summer. Max is a student at Yale with a keen interest in the intersection of technology and policy and will be posting frequently on the blog!)
At a subsequent briefing on university research and federal grants, one of the speakers mentioned that most scientists said the most important factor that inspired them to pursue research was excellent undergraduate research opportunities. Not the promise of fame or fortune, but of passion and opportunity. While this kind of anecdotal evidence is exactly that, it’s worth keeping in mind how federal grant monies can inspire young people: not by dangling a benjamin in front of their nose, but with the excitement of discovery.
David Leonhart for the New York Times reports yesterday that trimming research budgets might stunt future economic growth. Leonhart writes that long term economic solutions rely on government investment in innovation:
Perhaps most important, Washington could make more high-return investments in science and education. Only the federal government can afford the large-scale basic science that has often led to breakthrough innovations, like the semiconductor, the Internet and many new drugs. Yet federal spending on basic research, as a share of the economy, has fallen 5 percent in the last five years. Talk about a self-defeating cut.
Federal research dollars pull their own weight, and more.
As we have blogged here before, CRA — the umbrella organization of the CCC — initiated an effort last fall to engage the community in a conversation about PostDocs, at a time when a growing number of new CS PhDs appeared to be going that route. A committee commissioned by CRA prepared a white paper reporting the statistics associated with academic and industry hiring, with the aim of providing a starting point for further discussion throughout the community. The white paper was posted online on Feb. 2 – https://cra.org/postdocs — and we have received some comments on the companion web forum.
New Survey Data
Based on this year’s Taulbee Survey data, the three-year rolling average for the number of new PhDs pursuing PostDocs rose from 159 in 2009 to 218 in 2010 — an increase of 37% in just one year. That’s on top of a tripling in the number of PostDocs observed during the 12-year period from 1998 through 2009, as reported in the white paper, suggesting that the trend toward PostDocs is not only continuing but perhaps also accelerating. Meanwhile, the number of new PhDs who pursued tenure-track faculty appointments declined yet again, from 151 in 2009 to 137 in 2010, or 9% (three-year rolling averages). (The numbers of new PhDs pursuing other positions, including teaching and research appointments in academia, positions in industry, etc., remained essentially flat.)
Here’s a graph showing the hiring of new computer science PhDs from U.S. and Canadian universities from 1998 through 2010 (three-year rolling averages):
And taking a closer look at just the academic positions:
(For comparison purposes, these graphs are updates to Figures 1 and 2 in the original white paper.)
We Need Your Input
What do you think about these trends — and the implications for PostDocs, graduate students, faculty, universities, companies, and the field as a whole? Please discuss the white paper with your colleagues within your departments and labs — and post your views about this trend and PostDocs generally on the companion web forum: https://cra.org/postdocs. Some things to consider:
Should funders increase or decrease the number of PostDocs in response to the economy, or, more explicitly, in response to academic and industrial hiring trends?
Does an increase in funding of PostDocs come at the expense of funding for graduate students? If so, at what point does the growth in PostDoc positions begin to threaten the pipeline of next-generation researchers?
Is the PostDoc the most effective way to encourage interdisciplinary interactions?
Are there reasons to maintain a PostDoc pipeline in one computing subfield at a higher level than in another?
To what degree is a PostDoc experience helpful for a researcher who will take a non-academic position?
Is there a gender difference in terms of the impact on PostDocs?
To what extent should the computer science community be engaged in setting guidelines for the balance between PostDocs and students, if the total amount of funding is roughly constant?
Your input is immensely valuable, as the committee will soon compile and articulate the consensus of the community, if any, on this issue.
(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director, and Member, CRA’s PostDoc Committee)
The Coalition for National Science Funding held another successful Science Exposition on Capitol Hill last night and once again CRA played a part. CRA was ably represented this year by Dr. L. Jean Camp and Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student Carl Brugger from Indiana University who did a fantastic job showing and explaining their work on Ethical Technologies in the Homes of Seniors (ETHOS). ETHOS researches and develops technologies to keep seniors connected to offsite caregivers and to keep seniors safe in their homes. The exhibit received a number of Congressional staff, NSF staff, and other exhibitors interested in learning about the projects displayed. The three technologies exhibited for CRA included an external device to indicate the trustworthiness of web sites, a tablet computer that uses photos of pills to assist in the monitoring of medication doses and interactions, and a clock set that would indicate to an offsite caregiver that a senior was home and active.
Dr. L. Jean Camp and Carl Brugger at the CRA exhibit
The CNSF exhibition, a sort of science fair for Congress and staff, had 32 booths manned by researchers representing universities and scientific societies featuring some of the important research funded by the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Camp and Carl Brugger discuss the displayed research
As we’ve noted before in this space, personal visits to members of Congress and their staff are vital to getting the message about the importance of computing research out. If you are coming to Washington and would like to visit your Representative and Senators, let us know and we’ll be happy to help with appointments and provide materials for your use!
The first day of the Forum opened with a morning of R&D budget presentations including one from Dr. John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. Highlights from Dr. Holdren’s talk can be viewed here. There were concurrent sessions on Communication Science for Policy, Emerging Issues in Scientific Integrity, and The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill as well as the annual William Carey Lecture given this year by Dr. Charles Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering.
Dr. Vest’s address was titled “US Competitiveness in the 21st Century: Why an Eternal Optimist is Worried”. He started with his three key points: 1) We know what the problems are. 2) We know how to solve them. 3) We do not know how to develop the political will to implement the solutions. He pointed to the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report released in 2005 and the nearly unanimous support in Congress for the passage of the America COMPETES Act. However, this was followed by a lack of appropriations and then the Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Rapidly Approaching Category Five follow up report in 2010. Dr. Vest starkly stated that we are no longer number one in any of the measurable indexes (education, competitiveness, etc). He likened the current situation to the one the US faced against the rise of Japan as a manufacturing powerhouse and said that during that time we learned from Japan and implemented changes that allowed both countries to prosper. He was clear that basic research is an economic necessity and without it we have no chance to compete. He ended by saying that the US needs to “reconnect what we do with what we dream.”
Toby Smith began the panel by stating that universities are necessary for basic research and that US universities are the envy of the world for a couple of reasons. First, projects are funded by merit as chosen by other scientists. Second, research funding supports not only the research itself but also the education and training of the next generation of researchers and scientists. He stated that the role of the federal government in funding basic research must be reaffirmed while at the same time critically examining the unsustainable or broken parts of the system such as academic stovepipes and the loss of students from research fields early on in their academic careers.
Dr. Debra Stewart noted that graduate education is dependent on research universities but stated that global competition for the best and brightest, domestic restrictions on foreign-born students and research, and fiscal problems could destroy the current form of graduate education in the US if the problems are not tackled. She encouraged more evaluation of graduate education programs including rigorous assessment of such things as time to degree and degree completion and attrition. She also stated that it’s important to recognize that most doctoral students go into non-academic jobs and that additional training and skills for these jobs needs to be incorporated.
Dr. Irwin Feller discussed research capacity from his standpoint as an economist. He noted, and got a chuckle from the audience, that universities will always have enough capacity to do all the research the government funds. He said this was not the first time that federal budget issues had cut into research at universities but that this was the first time that state government support for public universities was being cut so significantly as well. His example was that the governor of Pennsylvania has proposed a budget with a cut of 52 percent to universities. Feller noted this is a devolution of higher education from a public good to a private good and encourages the privatization of costs for an undergraduate and graduate education. His solution to all of these problems was fairly simple: always vote for the politician who will fund higher education and research.
Today, the Computing Community Consortium, a standing committee of the Computing Research Association, is pleased to announce a call for 2011-12 Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows). The CIFellows Project, established in 2009 with support from the National Science Foundation, offers recent Ph.D. graduates in computer science, computer engineering, information science, or a closely related field an exciting opportunity to obtain one- to two-year positions at universities, industrial research laboratories, and other organizations that are pursuing innovation in computing and its positive impact on society. I encourage applications from recently graduated/graduating Ph.D.s by the May 31, 2011, deadline!
Program details
The goals of the CIFellows Project are to retain new Ph.D. scholars in research and teaching during challenging economic times, while also supporting intellectual renewal and diversity in the computing fields at U.S. organizations. A total of 107 Ph.D.s have been supported through the program since 2009. These CIFellows have received outstanding research and teaching enrichment experiences, and several have landed permanent positions (including tenure-track faculty appointments) in academia and industry as a result of their experiences. (For more details, see here and here for previous blog posts about our CIFellows.)
CRA/CCC will make awards for the 2011-12 academic year. The exact number of awards will be contingent upon the quality of applications received as well as the outcome of a proposal for funding that we have submitted.
For prospective applicants
Graduates awarded the Ph.D. or equivalent from U.S. institutions between May 1, 2010, and Aug. 31, 2011, have until 5 p.m. EDT on May 31, 2011, to apply to be a 2011-12 CIFellow. Applications must be submitted online (through the CIFellows Project website).
All applicants must secure and submit written commitments from one to three prospective hosts/mentors at U.S. institutions. Each prospective mentor must be with an organization other than the institution of the applicant’s graduate research, and the CIFellow is expected to be in residence at the mentor’s organization during the CIFellowship period. (You can find possible mentors at a matchmaking website we’ve created.) Applicants must also provide (a) statements describing their research accomplishments and goals for the CIFellowship; (b) a letter from the Ph.D. advisor or department chair affirming their graduation date; and (c) two confidential letters of recommendation that are to be submitted separately by the application deadline.
CRA/CCC will announce the awards by July 15, 2011, and the positions will begin this fall.
For prospective mentors
If you are interested in hosting a 2011-12 CIFellow, please create a profile on the CIFellows Project matchmaking website as soon as possible. You need only specify your name, location, personal research webpage URL (if you have one), a few keywords describing your research interests, and your e-mail address. We are pointing candidates to this website as a resource for finding mentors.
Those of you who may have already created a profile on this website in past years, please visit the website and review your information as soon as possible. Any updates may be submittedhere. If you have previously created a profile but are no longer able to host a CIFellow, please tell us that through the update form so that we may archive your profile.
More information
For more information, please visit the CIFellows Project website. Complete details on the submission procedures for applicants and mentors as well as the eligibility requirements can be found there. Again, all application materials must be received by 5 p.m. EDT on May 31, 2011.
(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC & CIFellows Project Director, and Frans Kaashoek, Chair of the 2011-12 CIFellows Project Steering Committee)
CRA annually contributes a chapter to the AAAS R&D Budget book. Our chapter, which is below, focuses on the policy issues surrounding computing and the NITRD budget cross-cut. The entire book is available at AAAS R&D site next week.
HIGHLIGHTS
Funding for the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program would increase 1.9 percent, to $3.87 billion, in the President’s FY 2012 Budget Request versus the FY 2010 level.
The President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology reviewed the NITRD program in 2010 and determined that the $3.79 billion reported for FY 2010 probably significantly overstates the federal investment in IT research due to investments in technology misclassified by agencies as research.
The National Science Foundation (NSF), the primary supporter of university-led computer science research in the United States, would see its share of the NITRD program increase $152 million to $1.26 billion, or 13.8 percent, in FY 2012 under the President’s request.
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
The importance of computing research in enabling the new economy is well documented. The resulting advances in information technology have led to significant improvements in product design, development and distribution for American industry, provided instant communications for people worldwide, and enabled new scientific disciplines like bioinformatics and nanotechnology.
Information technology has also changed the conduct of research. Innovations in computing and networking technologies are enabling scientific discovery across every scientific discipline – from mapping the human brain to modeling climatic change. Researchers, faced with research problems that are ever more complex and interdisciplinary in nature, are using IT to collaborate across the globe, simulate experiments, visualize large and complex datasets, and collect and manage massive amounts of data.
As of FY 2010, the Federal IT R&D effort is now a $3.8 billion multi-agency enterprise called the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program and coordinated by the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Information Technology Research and Development of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). NITRD is the successor of the High Performance Computing and Communications Program established by Congress in 1991. NITRD agencies now coordinate research in eight Program Component Areas (PCAs): High End Computing Infrastructure and Applications; High End Computing Research and Development; Human Computer Interaction and Information Management (HCI&IM); Large Scale Networking (LSN); Software Design and Productivity; High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS); Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT; and Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA). The NSF is the lead agency out of 13 member agencies in NITRD. Additionally, NITRD intends to formally recognize the Department of Homeland Security as a member agency this year after several years as a participating agency.
CURRENT POLICY ENVIRONMENT
The most notable change in the policy environment for federal investments in computing research was the release in December 2010 of a PCAST review of the NITRD program. The review, Designing a Digital Future: Federally Funded Research and Development in Networking and Information Technology, concluded that federal investments in computing research have yielded enormous benefits for the Nation’s economic competitiveness, national security, and quality of life. The panel found that advances in computing research are crucial to achieving major national and global priorities in energy and transportation, education and life-long learning, healthcare, and national and homeland security.
The committee also found that the federal government’s investment in IT research and development – the $3.8 billion figure released by the NITRD coordinating office and cited here – may be overstated by a significant margin. While the committee expressed some confidence in the investment levels cited by NSF and DARPA, they found that NIH, an agency reporting one of the largest shares of NITRD investment, was likely investing far less in actual IT research than the numbers would suggest. The committee reviewed the top 100 awards in NIH’s NITRD portfolio – totaling nearly $600 million, nearly half of NIH’s NITRD crosscut total – and concluded that only between 2 percent and 11 percent (by dollar value) should be considered IT R&D. The remainder, the committee found, was spent on “various forms of NIT infrastructure that provide essential support for biomedical research, but not on NIT R&D.”
Given this apparent under investment in IT research, one of the key recommendations of the report is to immediately increase the overall NITRD investment in IT research by $1 billion per year – some of which may be achieved by redirecting NITRD funds currently being used for activities other than research and development. The committee also noted the need to prioritize research in particular areas, including large-scale data analysis, the development of robotic sensors, novel approaches to more robustly protecting our nation’s cyber infrastructure, and making human-computer interactions more seamless.
In the High Performance Computing space, the committee recommended the federal government rely less on certain metrics, like the popular Top 500 ranking of supercomputers worldwide, that capture only some of the capabilities that are relevant to current priorities. An over-reliance on these metrics, the committee concluded, can lead to “disproportionate expenditures for the procurement of supercomputers” and displace “the fundamental research that will be required to develop ‘game-changing’ future-generation HPC technologies.”
Finally, the committee noted that the NITRD program is well run by its working group and coordinating office, but that the program is chartered and staffed to coordinate multi-agency programs, and not develop long-term strategies. To handle this strategic role, the committee recommends the creation of a standing committee of IT experts “to provide the NITRD program with strategic vision and leadership.”
Whether any of the PCAST recommendations will find their way into legislation this session remains to be seen. An obvious vehicle would be a NITRD reauthorization act, such as ones that have failed to pass in the last two Congresses. While there is some interest in both chambers for such a measure, it is unclear whether there exists the consensus on what that bill should contain that would be necessary for final passage. In the absence of consensus, it appears neither chamber may have an appetite for moving ahead with a reauthorization this year.
FY 2012 BUDGET REQUEST
Nine agencies included requests for FY 2012 funding as part of the NITRD activity. Under the President’s plan, NSF would once again be designated the lead agency for the initiative. For FY 2012, the President has requested $3.87 billion for the NITRD initiative.
National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation would spend $1.26 billion on NITRD-related research in FY 2012, an increase of $152 million, or 13.8 percent, over its FY 2010 actual level.
The locus of NSF’s NITRD activity is the Foundation’s Computing and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate, which would account for $728 million of NSF’s NITRD-related funding in FY 2012, an increase of $110 million (or 17.7 percent) over the FY 2010 level.
Under the President’s plan, CISE would be the lead agency in a new National Robotics Initiative, with the directorate contributing $17 million to the $30 million Foundation-wide amount. Also participating in the NRI are NASA, NIH, and USDA. Cyber Physical Systems would also be led by CISE with the directorate contributing $35 million of the Foundation-wide $44 million. Additionally, CISE would also contribute $16 million to the NSF-wide $117 million for the Cyberinfrastructure Framework for the 21st Century program.
NSF’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) would also see an increase in the President’s budget for FY 2012. Under the Administration’s plan, the office would grow 9.9 percent over FY 2010 to $236 million.
Department of Defense. Overall funding for IT RD at the Department of Defense agencies would once again decrease significantly in FY 2012 compared to FY 2010, with cuts of $96.1 million for NSA (or 61.7 percent), bringing its budget to $59.7 million; a $114.2 million reduction (18.2 percent) for the service agencies and OSD, bringing their collective budget to $511.8 million; and $50.8 million reduction (9.6 percent) at the Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA), bringing its budget to $480.2 million under the President’s plan. The planned decrease at DARPA is largely due to a decrease in the HEC R&D, HCI&IM, and LSN program component areas. The NSA decrease is the removal of Congressionally mandated spending and the end of the DARPA HPCS program.
Health and Human Services (HHS). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) constitutes the bulk of funding in IT R&D at HHS. For FY 2012, the President’s plan includes $653 million in IT R&D funding at HHS, an increase of $7 million compared to FY 2010.
Department of Energy. IT R&D activities in DOE’s Office of Science (DOE SC), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and the Office of Nuclear Energy constitute DOE’s participation in NITRD. Under the President’s plan DOE’s non-NNSA NITRD funding would be $529.9 million, an increase of 26.6 percent, or $111.5 million, from FY 2010. NNSA would see a decrease of $3.9 million in NITRD-related funding to $25.9 million for FY 2012.
The DOE SC’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program constitutes the majority of the department’s participation in NITRD. For FY 2012, ASCR requested $465.6 million, up 21.5 percent from FY 2010. ASCR’s mission is to underpin and enable the efforts of programs within the DOE SC, as well as “to provide the high-performance computational and networking resources that are required for world leadership in science.” The DOE also requested increases in funding for Mathematical, Computational, and Computer Science research ($174 million) and for HPC and Network Facilities ($291.6 million).
Department of Commerce (DOC). The DOC request for FY 2012 contains NITRD-related funding requests from two agencies: NOAA and NIST. NIST IT R&D efforts include working with industry, educational, and government organizations to make IT systems more useable, secure, scalable, and interoperable. In addition, NIST works to apply IT to specialized areas like biotechnology and manufacturing, and to encourage industry to accelerate development of IT innovations. The President’s request includes $133.9 million for NIST IT R&D in FY 2012, an increase of $52.9 million over FY 2010. The increase is for NIST’s Ensuring a Secure and Robust Cyber Infrastructure program.
NOAA supports IT research in emerging computer technologies for improved climate modeling and weather forecasting, and for improved communications technologies to disseminate weather products and warnings to emergency responders, policymakers, and the general public. The President’s request includes $26.3 million for NOAA IT R&D in FY 2012, flat funding compared to FY 2010.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA IT R&D would receive $5.9 million in FY 2012 under the President’s plan, a decrease of $400 thousand from FY 2010. EPA uses its IT funding to support technologies that facilitate ecosystem modeling, risk assessment, and environmental decision making at the federal, state, and local levels.
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NARA research focuses on the management and preservation of electronic records and fosters the development of advanced technologies for the management of electronic records for the current and future operations needs of government. For IT R&D, the agency requests $2.5 million, $2 million less than it received in FY 2010.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS was included in the NITRD crosscut as a member agency for the first time in FY 2012. The President requested $57.1 million in IT R&D funding for DHS, compared to $49.9 million the agency reported spending in FY 2010. As might be expected, the bulk of that spending – $41.0 million – will be in the Cyber Security and Information Assurance space.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA requested $94.7 million in the FY 2012 budget, an increase of $9.4 million, or 11.0 percent, from FY 2010.
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More Detail on Science Funding in House CJS Bill
/In: Funding, FY12 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThe full House Committee on Appropriations today approved its version of the FY 12 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill, which includes funding for the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We focused on some of the funding levels included in the bill in our last post. The committee also released the legislative report accompanying the bill, which provides some insight into the funding decisions made by the committee. Some highlights:
As we mentioned in the last post, the funding level for NSF in this bill isn’t nearly as good as the President requested, but given the current fiscal uncertainty and the political climate for cutting discretionary spending to the bone, the fact that NSF and NIST fared as well as they did is evidence of the committee’s belief of the importance of federal support for research. We’ll see if the whole House follows suit when the bill makes its way to the floor.
NSF Flat-funded in House FY12 Approps Draft
/In: Funding, FY12 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThough they flat-funded the agency overall, House appropriators included an increase to NSF’s core research account (R&RA) of $43 million compared to FY12 to “enhance basic research that is critical to innovation and U.S. economic competitiveness,” according to a statement released by the committee today. At the same time, the bill calls for cuts to both the Education and Human Resources directorate ($26 million vs. FY11) and Major Research Equipment and Facilities account ($17 million vs. FY11).
The subcommittee is set to mark up the bill tomorrow, where it may undergo further changes. We’ll have the details here as soon as we learn them.
In the meantime, the committee has prepared a summary chart featuring the funding levels contained in the bill for all the major programs, as well as a comparison to FY11 and the President’s FY12 Budget Request.
National Robotics Initiative Announced
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), Funding /by MelissaNorrOur colleague, Erwin Gianchandani, has written a great piece on the President’s announcement on robotics and advanced manufacturing over at the CCC blog.
It’s worth noting that the CCC Robotics Roadmap is a core part of this new initiative and $70 million of the $500 million Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) will go toward advancing robotics.
American Innovation, a day in the House
/In: Computing Education /by MelissaNorr(Editor’s note: We’re pleased to have Max Cho, CRA’s Tisdale Fellow, working at CRA World HQ this summer. Max is a student at Yale with a keen interest in the intersection of technology and policy and will be posting frequently on the blog!)
This morning I attended the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology hearing on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education.
One of the hearing’s themes was how to motivate students to study science. Motivation’s a tricky business, especially for young students: the payoffs are distant, and high-level thinking tasks have a negative correlation between payoff and effective learning. For whatever reason, engineering, while perceived as a worthwhile and high paying profession, isn’t motivating enough students to pursue it to meet industry demand.
At a subsequent briefing on university research and federal grants, one of the speakers mentioned that most scientists said the most important factor that inspired them to pursue research was excellent undergraduate research opportunities. Not the promise of fame or fortune, but of passion and opportunity. While this kind of anecdotal evidence is exactly that, it’s worth keeping in mind how federal grant monies can inspire young people: not by dangling a benjamin in front of their nose, but with the excitement of discovery.
Save a buck now, lose two later? The Cost of Research Cuts
/In: R&D in the Press /by MelissaNorrDavid Leonhart for the New York Times reports yesterday that trimming research budgets might stunt future economic growth. Leonhart writes that long term economic solutions rely on government investment in innovation:
Federal research dollars pull their own weight, and more.
CS PostDoc Numbers Surge — We Need Your Input!
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), People /by Peter Harsha(The following is cross-posted with CRA’s Computing Community Consortium blog)
The Computing Research Association recently published the results of its annual Taulbee Survey, and the numbers of PostDocs rose to record levels, continuing a trend that we have witnessed for more than a decade — and bringing new meaning to the CRA’s PostDoc white paper effort.
Background
As we have blogged here before, CRA — the umbrella organization of the CCC — initiated an effort last fall to engage the community in a conversation about PostDocs, at a time when a growing number of new CS PhDs appeared to be going that route. A committee commissioned by CRA prepared a white paper reporting the statistics associated with academic and industry hiring, with the aim of providing a starting point for further discussion throughout the community. The white paper was posted online on Feb. 2 – https://cra.org/postdocs — and we have received some comments on the companion web forum.
New Survey Data
Based on this year’s Taulbee Survey data, the three-year rolling average for the number of new PhDs pursuing PostDocs rose from 159 in 2009 to 218 in 2010 — an increase of 37% in just one year. That’s on top of a tripling in the number of PostDocs observed during the 12-year period from 1998 through 2009, as reported in the white paper, suggesting that the trend toward PostDocs is not only continuing but perhaps also accelerating. Meanwhile, the number of new PhDs who pursued tenure-track faculty appointments declined yet again, from 151 in 2009 to 137 in 2010, or 9% (three-year rolling averages). (The numbers of new PhDs pursuing other positions, including teaching and research appointments in academia, positions in industry, etc., remained essentially flat.)
Here’s a graph showing the hiring of new computer science PhDs from U.S. and Canadian universities from 1998 through 2010 (three-year rolling averages):
And taking a closer look at just the academic positions:
(For comparison purposes, these graphs are updates to Figures 1 and 2 in the original white paper.)
We Need Your Input
What do you think about these trends — and the implications for PostDocs, graduate students, faculty, universities, companies, and the field as a whole? Please discuss the white paper with your colleagues within your departments and labs — and post your views about this trend and PostDocs generally on the companion web forum: https://cra.org/postdocs. Some things to consider:
Your input is immensely valuable, as the committee will soon compile and articulate the consensus of the community, if any, on this issue.
(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC Director, and Member, CRA’s PostDoc Committee)
CNSF Exhibition
/In: Events, General, People, Research /by MelissaNorrThe Coalition for National Science Funding held another successful Science Exposition on Capitol Hill last night and once again CRA played a part. CRA was ably represented this year by Dr. L. Jean Camp and Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) student Carl Brugger from Indiana University who did a fantastic job showing and explaining their work on Ethical Technologies in the Homes of Seniors (ETHOS). ETHOS researches and develops technologies to keep seniors connected to offsite caregivers and to keep seniors safe in their homes. The exhibit received a number of Congressional staff, NSF staff, and other exhibitors interested in learning about the projects displayed. The three technologies exhibited for CRA included an external device to indicate the trustworthiness of web sites, a tablet computer that uses photos of pills to assist in the monitoring of medication doses and interactions, and a clock set that would indicate to an offsite caregiver that a senior was home and active.
Dr. L. Jean Camp and Carl Brugger at the CRA exhibit
The CNSF exhibition, a sort of science fair for Congress and staff, had 32 booths manned by researchers representing universities and scientific societies featuring some of the important research funded by the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Camp and Carl Brugger discuss the displayed research
As we’ve noted before in this space, personal visits to members of Congress and their staff are vital to getting the message about the importance of computing research out. If you are coming to Washington and would like to visit your Representative and Senators, let us know and we’ll be happy to help with appointments and provide materials for your use!
AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy
/In: Events /by MelissaNorrThe AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy took place on May 5 and 6 this year. The Forum is the official release of the AAAS Report XXXVI: Research and Development FY 2012 to which CRA contributes a chapter. Presentations and audio of most sessions should be available here in a couple of weeks.
The first day of the Forum opened with a morning of R&D budget presentations including one from Dr. John Holdren, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. Highlights from Dr. Holdren’s talk can be viewed here. There were concurrent sessions on Communication Science for Policy, Emerging Issues in Scientific Integrity, and The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill as well as the annual William Carey Lecture given this year by Dr. Charles Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering.
Dr. Vest’s address was titled “US Competitiveness in the 21st Century: Why an Eternal Optimist is Worried”. He started with his three key points: 1) We know what the problems are. 2) We know how to solve them. 3) We do not know how to develop the political will to implement the solutions. He pointed to the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report released in 2005 and the nearly unanimous support in Congress for the passage of the America COMPETES Act. However, this was followed by a lack of appropriations and then the Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Rapidly Approaching Category Five follow up report in 2010. Dr. Vest starkly stated that we are no longer number one in any of the measurable indexes (education, competitiveness, etc). He likened the current situation to the one the US faced against the rise of Japan as a manufacturing powerhouse and said that during that time we learned from Japan and implemented changes that allowed both countries to prosper. He was clear that basic research is an economic necessity and without it we have no chance to compete. He ended by saying that the US needs to “reconnect what we do with what we dream.”
The second day included an innovation roundtable and a plenary titled “US Research Universities: How Many Do We Need? How Many Can We Afford?” The plenary panelists were Toby Smith of the Association of American Universities, Debra Stewart of the Council of Graduate Schools, and Irwin Feller of Pennsylvania State University.
Toby Smith began the panel by stating that universities are necessary for basic research and that US universities are the envy of the world for a couple of reasons. First, projects are funded by merit as chosen by other scientists. Second, research funding supports not only the research itself but also the education and training of the next generation of researchers and scientists. He stated that the role of the federal government in funding basic research must be reaffirmed while at the same time critically examining the unsustainable or broken parts of the system such as academic stovepipes and the loss of students from research fields early on in their academic careers.
Dr. Debra Stewart noted that graduate education is dependent on research universities but stated that global competition for the best and brightest, domestic restrictions on foreign-born students and research, and fiscal problems could destroy the current form of graduate education in the US if the problems are not tackled. She encouraged more evaluation of graduate education programs including rigorous assessment of such things as time to degree and degree completion and attrition. She also stated that it’s important to recognize that most doctoral students go into non-academic jobs and that additional training and skills for these jobs needs to be incorporated.
Dr. Irwin Feller discussed research capacity from his standpoint as an economist. He noted, and got a chuckle from the audience, that universities will always have enough capacity to do all the research the government funds. He said this was not the first time that federal budget issues had cut into research at universities but that this was the first time that state government support for public universities was being cut so significantly as well. His example was that the governor of Pennsylvania has proposed a budget with a cut of 52 percent to universities. Feller noted this is a devolution of higher education from a public good to a private good and encourages the privatization of costs for an undergraduate and graduate education. His solution to all of these problems was fairly simple: always vote for the politician who will fund higher education and research.
Calling for 2011-12 Computing Innovation Fellows – Applications Due May 31
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), CRA, People /by Peter Harsha(Crossposted with the CCC Blog!)
Today, the Computing Community Consortium, a standing committee of the Computing Research Association, is pleased to announce a call for 2011-12 Computing Innovation Fellows (CIFellows). The CIFellows Project, established in 2009 with support from the National Science Foundation, offers recent Ph.D. graduates in computer science, computer engineering, information science, or a closely related field an exciting opportunity to obtain one- to two-year positions at universities, industrial research laboratories, and other organizations that are pursuing innovation in computing and its positive impact on society. I encourage applications from recently graduated/graduating Ph.D.s by the May 31, 2011, deadline!
Program details
The goals of the CIFellows Project are to retain new Ph.D. scholars in research and teaching during challenging economic times, while also supporting intellectual renewal and diversity in the computing fields at U.S. organizations. A total of 107 Ph.D.s have been supported through the program since 2009. These CIFellows have received outstanding research and teaching enrichment experiences, and several have landed permanent positions (including tenure-track faculty appointments) in academia and industry as a result of their experiences. (For more details, see here and here for previous blog posts about our CIFellows.)
CRA/CCC will make awards for the 2011-12 academic year. The exact number of awards will be contingent upon the quality of applications received as well as the outcome of a proposal for funding that we have submitted.
For prospective applicants
Graduates awarded the Ph.D. or equivalent from U.S. institutions between May 1, 2010, and Aug. 31, 2011, have until 5 p.m. EDT on May 31, 2011, to apply to be a 2011-12 CIFellow. Applications must be submitted online (through the CIFellows Project website).
All applicants must secure and submit written commitments from one to three prospective hosts/mentors at U.S. institutions. Each prospective mentor must be with an organization other than the institution of the applicant’s graduate research, and the CIFellow is expected to be in residence at the mentor’s organization during the CIFellowship period. (You can find possible mentors at a matchmaking website we’ve created.) Applicants must also provide (a) statements describing their research accomplishments and goals for the CIFellowship; (b) a letter from the Ph.D. advisor or department chair affirming their graduation date; and (c) two confidential letters of recommendation that are to be submitted separately by the application deadline.
CRA/CCC will announce the awards by July 15, 2011, and the positions will begin this fall.
For prospective mentors
If you are interested in hosting a 2011-12 CIFellow, please create a profile on the CIFellows Project matchmaking website as soon as possible. You need only specify your name, location, personal research webpage URL (if you have one), a few keywords describing your research interests, and your e-mail address. We are pointing candidates to this website as a resource for finding mentors.
Those of you who may have already created a profile on this website in past years, please visit the website and review your information as soon as possible. Any updates may be submittedhere. If you have previously created a profile but are no longer able to host a CIFellow, please tell us that through the update form so that we may archive your profile.
More information
For more information, please visit the CIFellows Project website. Complete details on the submission procedures for applicants and mentors as well as the eligibility requirements can be found there. Again, all application materials must be received by 5 p.m. EDT on May 31, 2011.
(Contributed by Erwin Gianchandani, CCC & CIFellows Project Director, and Frans Kaashoek, Chair of the 2011-12 CIFellows Project Steering Committee)
Computing R&D in the President’s Budget Request
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY12 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrCRA annually contributes a chapter to the AAAS R&D Budget book. Our chapter, which is below, focuses on the policy issues surrounding computing and the NITRD budget cross-cut. The entire book is available at AAAS R&D site next week.
HIGHLIGHTS
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
The importance of computing research in enabling the new economy is well documented. The resulting advances in information technology have led to significant improvements in product design, development and distribution for American industry, provided instant communications for people worldwide, and enabled new scientific disciplines like bioinformatics and nanotechnology.
Information technology has also changed the conduct of research. Innovations in computing and networking technologies are enabling scientific discovery across every scientific discipline – from mapping the human brain to modeling climatic change. Researchers, faced with research problems that are ever more complex and interdisciplinary in nature, are using IT to collaborate across the globe, simulate experiments, visualize large and complex datasets, and collect and manage massive amounts of data.
As of FY 2010, the Federal IT R&D effort is now a $3.8 billion multi-agency enterprise called the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program and coordinated by the Interagency Working Group (IWG) on Information Technology Research and Development of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). NITRD is the successor of the High Performance Computing and Communications Program established by Congress in 1991. NITRD agencies now coordinate research in eight Program Component Areas (PCAs): High End Computing Infrastructure and Applications; High End Computing Research and Development; Human Computer Interaction and Information Management (HCI&IM); Large Scale Networking (LSN); Software Design and Productivity; High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS); Social, Economic, and Workforce Implications of IT; and Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA). The NSF is the lead agency out of 13 member agencies in NITRD. Additionally, NITRD intends to formally recognize the Department of Homeland Security as a member agency this year after several years as a participating agency.
CURRENT POLICY ENVIRONMENT
The most notable change in the policy environment for federal investments in computing research was the release in December 2010 of a PCAST review of the NITRD program. The review, Designing a Digital Future: Federally Funded Research and Development in Networking and Information Technology, concluded that federal investments in computing research have yielded enormous benefits for the Nation’s economic competitiveness, national security, and quality of life. The panel found that advances in computing research are crucial to achieving major national and global priorities in energy and transportation, education and life-long learning, healthcare, and national and homeland security.
The committee also found that the federal government’s investment in IT research and development – the $3.8 billion figure released by the NITRD coordinating office and cited here – may be overstated by a significant margin. While the committee expressed some confidence in the investment levels cited by NSF and DARPA, they found that NIH, an agency reporting one of the largest shares of NITRD investment, was likely investing far less in actual IT research than the numbers would suggest. The committee reviewed the top 100 awards in NIH’s NITRD portfolio – totaling nearly $600 million, nearly half of NIH’s NITRD crosscut total – and concluded that only between 2 percent and 11 percent (by dollar value) should be considered IT R&D. The remainder, the committee found, was spent on “various forms of NIT infrastructure that provide essential support for biomedical research, but not on NIT R&D.”
Given this apparent under investment in IT research, one of the key recommendations of the report is to immediately increase the overall NITRD investment in IT research by $1 billion per year – some of which may be achieved by redirecting NITRD funds currently being used for activities other than research and development. The committee also noted the need to prioritize research in particular areas, including large-scale data analysis, the development of robotic sensors, novel approaches to more robustly protecting our nation’s cyber infrastructure, and making human-computer interactions more seamless.
In the High Performance Computing space, the committee recommended the federal government rely less on certain metrics, like the popular Top 500 ranking of supercomputers worldwide, that capture only some of the capabilities that are relevant to current priorities. An over-reliance on these metrics, the committee concluded, can lead to “disproportionate expenditures for the procurement of supercomputers” and displace “the fundamental research that will be required to develop ‘game-changing’ future-generation HPC technologies.”
Finally, the committee noted that the NITRD program is well run by its working group and coordinating office, but that the program is chartered and staffed to coordinate multi-agency programs, and not develop long-term strategies. To handle this strategic role, the committee recommends the creation of a standing committee of IT experts “to provide the NITRD program with strategic vision and leadership.”
Whether any of the PCAST recommendations will find their way into legislation this session remains to be seen. An obvious vehicle would be a NITRD reauthorization act, such as ones that have failed to pass in the last two Congresses. While there is some interest in both chambers for such a measure, it is unclear whether there exists the consensus on what that bill should contain that would be necessary for final passage. In the absence of consensus, it appears neither chamber may have an appetite for moving ahead with a reauthorization this year.
FY 2012 BUDGET REQUEST
Nine agencies included requests for FY 2012 funding as part of the NITRD activity. Under the President’s plan, NSF would once again be designated the lead agency for the initiative. For FY 2012, the President has requested $3.87 billion for the NITRD initiative.
National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation would spend $1.26 billion on NITRD-related research in FY 2012, an increase of $152 million, or 13.8 percent, over its FY 2010 actual level.
The locus of NSF’s NITRD activity is the Foundation’s Computing and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate, which would account for $728 million of NSF’s NITRD-related funding in FY 2012, an increase of $110 million (or 17.7 percent) over the FY 2010 level.
Under the President’s plan, CISE would be the lead agency in a new National Robotics Initiative, with the directorate contributing $17 million to the $30 million Foundation-wide amount. Also participating in the NRI are NASA, NIH, and USDA. Cyber Physical Systems would also be led by CISE with the directorate contributing $35 million of the Foundation-wide $44 million. Additionally, CISE would also contribute $16 million to the NSF-wide $117 million for the Cyberinfrastructure Framework for the 21st Century program.
NSF’s Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI) would also see an increase in the President’s budget for FY 2012. Under the Administration’s plan, the office would grow 9.9 percent over FY 2010 to $236 million.
Department of Defense. Overall funding for IT RD at the Department of Defense agencies would once again decrease significantly in FY 2012 compared to FY 2010, with cuts of $96.1 million for NSA (or 61.7 percent), bringing its budget to $59.7 million; a $114.2 million reduction (18.2 percent) for the service agencies and OSD, bringing their collective budget to $511.8 million; and $50.8 million reduction (9.6 percent) at the Defense Research Projects Agency (DARPA), bringing its budget to $480.2 million under the President’s plan. The planned decrease at DARPA is largely due to a decrease in the HEC R&D, HCI&IM, and LSN program component areas. The NSA decrease is the removal of Congressionally mandated spending and the end of the DARPA HPCS program.
Health and Human Services (HHS). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) constitutes the bulk of funding in IT R&D at HHS. For FY 2012, the President’s plan includes $653 million in IT R&D funding at HHS, an increase of $7 million compared to FY 2010.
Department of Energy. IT R&D activities in DOE’s Office of Science (DOE SC), National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and the Office of Nuclear Energy constitute DOE’s participation in NITRD. Under the President’s plan DOE’s non-NNSA NITRD funding would be $529.9 million, an increase of 26.6 percent, or $111.5 million, from FY 2010. NNSA would see a decrease of $3.9 million in NITRD-related funding to $25.9 million for FY 2012.
The DOE SC’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program constitutes the majority of the department’s participation in NITRD. For FY 2012, ASCR requested $465.6 million, up 21.5 percent from FY 2010. ASCR’s mission is to underpin and enable the efforts of programs within the DOE SC, as well as “to provide the high-performance computational and networking resources that are required for world leadership in science.” The DOE also requested increases in funding for Mathematical, Computational, and Computer Science research ($174 million) and for HPC and Network Facilities ($291.6 million).
Department of Commerce (DOC). The DOC request for FY 2012 contains NITRD-related funding requests from two agencies: NOAA and NIST. NIST IT R&D efforts include working with industry, educational, and government organizations to make IT systems more useable, secure, scalable, and interoperable. In addition, NIST works to apply IT to specialized areas like biotechnology and manufacturing, and to encourage industry to accelerate development of IT innovations. The President’s request includes $133.9 million for NIST IT R&D in FY 2012, an increase of $52.9 million over FY 2010. The increase is for NIST’s Ensuring a Secure and Robust Cyber Infrastructure program.
NOAA supports IT research in emerging computer technologies for improved climate modeling and weather forecasting, and for improved communications technologies to disseminate weather products and warnings to emergency responders, policymakers, and the general public. The President’s request includes $26.3 million for NOAA IT R&D in FY 2012, flat funding compared to FY 2010.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). EPA IT R&D would receive $5.9 million in FY 2012 under the President’s plan, a decrease of $400 thousand from FY 2010. EPA uses its IT funding to support technologies that facilitate ecosystem modeling, risk assessment, and environmental decision making at the federal, state, and local levels.
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NARA research focuses on the management and preservation of electronic records and fosters the development of advanced technologies for the management of electronic records for the current and future operations needs of government. For IT R&D, the agency requests $2.5 million, $2 million less than it received in FY 2010.
Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS was included in the NITRD crosscut as a member agency for the first time in FY 2012. The President requested $57.1 million in IT R&D funding for DHS, compared to $49.9 million the agency reported spending in FY 2010. As might be expected, the bulk of that spending – $41.0 million – will be in the Cyber Security and Information Assurance space.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA requested $94.7 million in the FY 2012 budget, an increase of $9.4 million, or 11.0 percent, from FY 2010.