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.
On Friday, the House and Senate leadership, along with the White House, reached an agreement on a final budget for the federal government through September 30, 2011 (or FY11, for short). The agreement helped avert a government shutdown over the weekend and will finally give federal agencies some certainty about the funding they’ll have available for the remainder of the fiscal year. While the agreement doesn’t cut federal science budgets nearly as deeply as the continuing resolution the House approved in February, science agencies won’t see any increases under the plan. Here’s a quick summary of what the agreement both chambers will likely approve this week will do to some key science agencies:
The National Science Foundation, which had been slated to receive a $140 million cut under the original House-approved plan, would instead see a cut of $43 million (or 0.8 percent) to its research accounts in FY11 compared to the levels approved for FY10 — a full $444 million less than the President requested in his FY11 budget. NSF’s Education and Human Resources directorate would see a cut of $10 million vs. FY10, $29 million less than the President’s request.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology would see a $7 million cut in FY11 compared to FY10 — a $77 million reduction from the President’s requested level.
DOE’s Office of Science, which had faced a $1.1 billion cut in the original House plan, would instead see a decrease of $35 million in FY11 compared to FY10. This is $252 million less than the President requested.
We’ll have more details on the progress of the bill and a look at the defense R&D it contains in the next update.
So, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re probably someone who’d be interested in CRA’s most recent effort to increase science policy literacy amongst the computing research community. Today CRA’s Computing Community Consortium is putting out a Call for Nominations for participants in a workshop hosted by the new CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute. Below is the actual call. If you’re a researcher who is interested in learning more about the ways science policy affects the discipline and the country, or how members of the community can help shape that policy, we want to hear from you! Nominations are being accepted through May 15th. Here are the details:
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS — CCC LEADERSHIP IN SCIENCE POLICY INSTITUTE
As part of its mission to develop a next generation of leaders in the computing research community, CRA’s Computing Community Consortium (CCC) announces the CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute (LiSPI), intended to educate a small cadre of computing researchers on how science policy in the U.S. is formulated and how our government works. We seek nominations for participants.
LiSPI will be centered around a one-day workshop to be held on Monday, November 7, 2011 in Washington, DC. (Full details of LiSPI are available at: https://cra.org/ccc/spi)
LiSPI will feature presentations and discussions with science policy experts, current and former Hill staff, and relevant agency and Administration personnel about mechanics of the legislative process, interacting with agencies, advisory committees, and the federal case for computing. (You can see a list of speakers and sessions at http://www.cra.org/ccc/spi_agenda.php )
LiSPI participants are expected to
+ complete a short lesson describing the basic structure and function of government (a sort of “Civics 101” assignment) prior to attending the workshop, so that time spent at the workshop can focus on more advanced content,
+ attend the November 7 workshop, which includes breakfast and lunch, as well as a reception with the speakers and invited guests at the conclusion of the day, and
+ complete a small-group assignment afterwards that puts to use the workshop content on a CCC-inspired problem—perhaps writing an argument in favor of particular initiative for an agency audience, or drafting sample testimony on a CCC topic.
LiSPI is not intended for individuals who wish to undertake research on science policy, become science policy fellows, or take permanent positions in Washington, DC. Rather, we are trying to reach work-a-day academics who appreciate that our field must be engaged in helping government.
The CCC will provide funds for hotel accommodations for two nights (before and after the workshop), meals, as well as airfare and other travel expenses in connection with attending the November 7 workshop.
ELIGIBILITY AND NOMINATION PROCESS
LiSPI participants are expected to be tenured academics from Computer Science or Information Science departments who are adept at communicating. They must be nominated by their chair or department head and must have demonstrated an interest in science policy, especially as it relates to computer science (and closely allied fields).
Specifically, the nomination process is as follows:
* A chair or department head proposes a LiSPI candidate by visiting
and providing the name and institution of the nominee, along with a letter of recommendation.
* The candidate will then be contacted by the CCC and asked to submit a CV, a short essay detailing their interests in science policy, and an indication of whether they would require financial aid to attend.
All nominations and material from nominators and nominees must be received by May 15, 2011.
SELECTION PROCESS
The LiSPI selection committee will evaluate each nomination based on record of accomplishment, proven ability to communicate, and promise. Selections will be announced by June 15, 2011. Funding is available for approximately 15 participants in this initial LiSPI offering.
Please discuss this opportunity with your colleagues, identify those you believe would be interested in participating, and submit nominations!
Total enrollments among U.S. computer science undergraduates increased 10 percent in 2010, data from the most recent annual CRA Taulbee Survey show. This is the third straight year of increases in total enrollment and indicates that the post “dot-com crash” decline in undergraduate computing program enrollments is over.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is conducted annually by CRA to document trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in Ph.D-granting departments of computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE) and information (I) in the United States and Canada. CRA today released the enrollment and degree production results (available as a pdf) from the latest edition of the survey.
Overall bachelor’s degree production in computer science, computer engineering and information sciences departments in 2010 rose nearly 11 percent from that in 2009 . Bachelor’s degree production in computer science departments was up more than 9 percent. The increases in new students observed during each of the past two years have resulted in increased degree production, a welcome turnaround from the past several years of declining bachelor’s degree production.
Also notable from the survey:
Ph.D. production in computing programs held steady in 2009-2010, following a drop in production last year.
Among CRA member schools, the share of bachelor’s degrees in CS granted to females rose to 13.8 percent in 2010, an increase of 2.5 percentage points over 2009. The share of bachelor’s degrees in CS granted to minority students held nearly steady at 10.3 percent in 2010.
The full report, which also includes information about faculty size, demographics and salaries, graduate student support and research expenditures, will be available in May 2011 on the CRA web site.
At the State of the Union in January, President Obama said, “We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future.” Secretary Chu chose this quote to begin the FY2012 Department of Energy budget briefing. The message was clear: investing in science research is NOT optional if we want to be competitive with the rest of the world.
The President’s Budget Request (PBR) included a 9.1 percent increase in the overall budget of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science for FY2012 compared to FY2010, for a total budget of $5.41 billion.
The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program would see a significant increase of 21.5 percent for a total of $465.6 million. Basic energy sciences would get a 24.1 percent increase, a total of $1.99 billion.
The Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists program is still heavily supported. That request is for a 72 percent increase to $35.6 million, which is the exact same request made for FY2011.
ARPA-E, a program that has not yet seen funding from normal appropriations, requested $550 million.
The presentations and detailed budget information for the Department is available online.
Unfortunately, as we reported earlier, despite this strong support for science funding by the Administration, the House has been very vocal that decreases will be the standard moving forward.
The President released his FY12 Budget Request to Congress this morning. We’ll take close-up looks at several of the key science agency budget requests as the day goes on, but here’s a first look at the overall picture. From the Analytical Perspectives on the Budget:
The Administration recognizes the Government’s role in fostering scientific and technological breakthroughs, and has committed resources to ensure America leads the world in the innovations of the future. The Budget proposes $66 billion for basic and applied research because it is a reliable source of new knowledge to drive job creation and economic growth.
The President’s 2012 Budget maintains his commitment to double Federal investment in key basic research agencies: the National Science Foundation (NSF); the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science; and the laboratories of the Department of Commerce (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The Budget proposes $14 billion in 2012 for these three agencies, an increase of $1.5 billion over 2010 funding. Priorities for 2012 include clean energy and advanced manufacturing research in areas such as information technology, nanotechnology, and biotechnology at NSF, basic energy sciences at DOE, and cybersecurity, biomanufacturing, and innovative energy technologies at NIST.
The Federal R&D effort needs complementary R&D investments from business to provide a much wider range of technology options than the Government alone could provide and to translate scientific discoveries into commercially successful, innovative products and services. In order to provide businesses with greater confidence to invest, innovate, and grow, the Budget proposes to simplify and expand the Research and Experimentation tax credit, and make it permanent.
Some quick agency-specific numbers:
NSF would see a 16 percent increase in R&D vs. FY10 (the FY11 year isn’t available for comparison yet because Congress hasn’t finished it).
Energy research would see an increase of 20 percent vs. FY10
NASA R&D overall would increase 6 percent, and NASA basic research would grow 220 percent from $835 million to $2.7 billion…but only because construction on the International Space Station is complete, so any resources to operate this new “national lab” are considered “basic research”
Defense basic research would see an increase of 14 percent, applied would decrease 4 percent.
NIH research would increase 3 percent.
Of course, this budget is essentially “dead on arrival” as far as the House is concerned. But it’s still important to have a good request from the President and the agencies on record when we go advocating for the science agencies during the FY12 appropriations process.
We’ll have lots more as we go through a day of briefings…
The House Appropriations Committee released their spending cuts version 2.0 — after having their previous attempt to cut $74 billion from the President’s request for non-defense discretionary spending savaged by conservative Republicans in the House — and NSF and DOE both face significant cuts. The appropriators went back and took another look at their first proposal, which cut about $74 billion from the President’s budget request, and found another $26 billion. The new proposed cuts mean real cuts for agency budgets (not just cuts to requested increases).
Here’s a list of the proposed cuts in the CR, which will be taken up on Monday in a vehicle that combines the CR and the FY 11 Defense Appropriation.
Notable cuts for science:
National Science Foundation’s Research and Related Activities account – cut $150 million compared to NSF’s FY10 budget.
NSF’s Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction – cut $62.5 million vs. FY 10.
NSF’s Education and Human Resources – cut $147 million vs. FY 10.
DOE’s Office of Science – cut $893 million.
DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – cut $786 million
NIST’s Scientific and Technical Research Services – cut $45.5 million
About the only positive — and that’s a very qualified positive — is that ARPA-E does manage to get an appropriation in the bill ($50 million), averting some concerns that the agency would receive $0. That’s significantly lower than their original funding of $400 million, but the agency is in an awkward spot because it has never had a “normal” appropriation (it was authorized in the America COMPETES Act and given a one-time appropriation in the 2009 stimulus bill), so a CR could very well have included no funding for it.
We’ll have more as we figure it out, but these numbers show the community has a lot of work to do in the House and Senate to prevent the country from taking a big step backwards in trying to improve our long-term innovative potential….
Update: Um, nevermind. After conservative Republicans savaged the proposed $32 billion in cuts as inadequate, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers pledged to come back with a proposal that would cut $100 billion, potentially putting NSF right back under the crosshairs. Here’s Roger’s statement:
My Committee has been working diligently to go line-by-line in every agency budget to find and cut unnecessary spending to reduce our deficit and help our economy thrive.
After meeting with my subcommittee Chairs, we have determined that the CR can and will reach a total of $100 billion in cuts compared to the President’s request immediately – fully meeting the goal outlined in the Republican ‘Pledge to America’ in one fell swoop. Our intent is to make deep but manageable cuts in nearly every area of government, leaving no stone unturned and allowing no agency or program to be held sacred. I have instructed my committee to include these deeper cuts, and we are continuing to work to complete this critical legislation.
We’ll have more when we learn more.
Original Post: As readers of this blog are no doubt aware, Congress has not yet finished the FY 11 appropriations process, leaving federal agencies in funding limbo, despite being five months into FY 11 fiscal year. Starting Monday, House appropriators hope to start the process of resolving the FY 11 budget by passing a “continuing resolution” for the remainder of the fiscal year that will make significant cuts to the budgets of a lot of key agencies. The GOP leadership of the House Appropriations Committee today released a list of some key cuts they plan to make and science agencies aren’t spared — with two notable exceptions.
The list of cuts is available here.
It’s important to keep in mind that the cuts are to the President’s requested budget for FY 11, not to the agency’s FY 10 budgets. In many cases, the President requested substantial increases for these programs, so the “cuts” listed here are actually just reductions to the level of increase requested. The agency might still fare better than it did in FY 10.
The National Science Foundation is targeted for $139 million in “cuts” in the proposal. However, the President requested an increase of $479 million for the agency in FY 11, so in real terms, NSF would see an *increase* of $340 million in FY 11 vs FY 10, or about 6.0 percent. That’s pretty astonishing, given the circumstances. (more on that below)
DOE Office of Science is the other side of the coin, though. They’re slated for $1.1 billion in cuts in the proposal. The President requested an increase of only $226 million for the agency in FY 11, so the proposed cuts are a real cut of $874 million (or 18 percent) to the Science budget compared to FY 10. DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy account would get hit even harder, suffering a $786 million real cut, or 35 percent.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is another loser, receiving almost 15 percent in real cuts in the proposal, though as always, it’s difficult to assess where the cuts will fall (will they hit the controversial TIP or MEP programs, or NIST’s core research?).
NASA is a big winner in the proposal. The GOP leadership wants a “cut” of $379 million for the agency, but the President requested an increase of $1.7 billion for the agency. So, the agency still would clear $1.3 billion in new funding in FY 11 vs. FY 10 (14 percent increase).
NIH would be flat funded in real terms by the proposal.
So, encouraging news for NSF, but very bad news for DOE. Also, these numbers aren’t final. There are a many proposed cuts that hit very politically charged accounts, like the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program (which, among other things, funds the purchase of bulletproof vests for police officers) and the food assistance program for low-income women, infants and children. If appropriators are forced to back off cuts to those accounts (and others), they may look for other places to achieve the same savings, which could put NSF back in the crosshairs.
But, looking on the bright side, the fact that even in this fiscally harsh environment — this huge laundry list of belt-tightening — NSF was still singled out for special treatment (and increases) is a pretty important symbol. It perhaps means that the GOP leadership still understands that there’s value in the investment in NSF — that an investment in NSF probably provides more real return to the country than it costs. So there’s a little reason for optimism amongst the carnage. But apparently they haven’t gotten that message about DOE….
On Monday we’ll also get our first look at the President’s budget proposal for FY 12. Given the high prominence he gave research and education issues in his State of the Union address last month, and the degree to which he’s been touring the country the last two weeks talking up the importance of innovation to America’s future, it’s likely that we’ll see some healthy requests for science funding. But achieving those increases in this Congress and this fiscal environment is likely to be an extremely steep climb. But stay tuned because we’ll have all the details here.
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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.
Science Numbers in the FY11 Continuing Resolution
/In: FY11 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaOn Friday, the House and Senate leadership, along with the White House, reached an agreement on a final budget for the federal government through September 30, 2011 (or FY11, for short). The agreement helped avert a government shutdown over the weekend and will finally give federal agencies some certainty about the funding they’ll have available for the remainder of the fiscal year. While the agreement doesn’t cut federal science budgets nearly as deeply as the continuing resolution the House approved in February, science agencies won’t see any increases under the plan. Here’s a quick summary of what the agreement both chambers will likely approve this week will do to some key science agencies:
The National Science Foundation, which had been slated to receive a $140 million cut under the original House-approved plan, would instead see a cut of $43 million (or 0.8 percent) to its research accounts in FY11 compared to the levels approved for FY10 — a full $444 million less than the President requested in his FY11 budget. NSF’s Education and Human Resources directorate would see a cut of $10 million vs. FY10, $29 million less than the President’s request.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology would see a $7 million cut in FY11 compared to FY10 — a $77 million reduction from the President’s requested level.
DOE’s Office of Science, which had faced a $1.1 billion cut in the original House plan, would instead see a decrease of $35 million in FY11 compared to FY10. This is $252 million less than the President requested.
We’ll have more details on the progress of the bill and a look at the defense R&D it contains in the next update.
CCC Announces Science Policy Institute for Computing Researchers
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC), CRA, Events, People, Policy /by Peter HarshaSo, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re probably someone who’d be interested in CRA’s most recent effort to increase science policy literacy amongst the computing research community. Today CRA’s Computing Community Consortium is putting out a Call for Nominations for participants in a workshop hosted by the new CCC Leadership in Science Policy Institute. Below is the actual call. If you’re a researcher who is interested in learning more about the ways science policy affects the discipline and the country, or how members of the community can help shape that policy, we want to hear from you! Nominations are being accepted through May 15th. Here are the details:
Undergrad CS Enrollments Climb for Third Year — CRA Taulbee Survey
/In: People /by Peter HarshaTotal enrollments among U.S. computer science undergraduates
increased 10 percent in 2010, data from the most recent annual CRA Taulbee Survey show. This is the third straight year of increases in total enrollment and indicates that the post “dot-com crash” decline in undergraduate computing program enrollments is over.
The CRA Taulbee Survey is conducted annually by CRA to document trends in student enrollment, degree production, employment of graduates, and faculty salaries in Ph.D-granting departments of computer science (CS), computer engineering (CE) and information (I) in the United States and Canada. CRA today released the enrollment and degree production results (available as a pdf) from the latest edition of the survey.
Overall bachelor’s degree production in computer science, computer engineering and information sciences departments in 2010 rose nearly 11 percent from that in 2009 . Bachelor’s degree production in computer science departments was up more than 9 percent. The increases in new students observed during each of the past two years have resulted in increased degree production, a welcome turnaround from the past several years of declining bachelor’s degree production.
Also notable from the survey:
The full report, which also includes information about faculty size, demographics and salaries, graduate student support and research expenditures, will be available in May 2011 on the CRA web site.
DOE Office of Science FY2012 Budget Request
/In: FY12 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrAt the State of the Union in January, President Obama said, “We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future.” Secretary Chu chose this quote to begin the FY2012 Department of Energy budget briefing. The message was clear: investing in science research is NOT optional if we want to be competitive with the rest of the world.
The President’s Budget Request (PBR) included a 9.1 percent increase in the overall budget of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science for FY2012 compared to FY2010, for a total budget of $5.41 billion.
The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program would see a significant increase of 21.5 percent for a total of $465.6 million. Basic energy sciences would get a 24.1 percent increase, a total of $1.99 billion.
The Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists program is still heavily supported. That request is for a 72 percent increase to $35.6 million, which is the exact same request made for FY2011.
ARPA-E, a program that has not yet seen funding from normal appropriations, requested $550 million.
The presentations and detailed budget information for the Department is available online.
Unfortunately, as we reported earlier, despite this strong support for science funding by the Administration, the House has been very vocal that decreases will be the standard moving forward.
IT Research Remains a Priority in President’s FY12 Budget Request
/In: Funding, FY12 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThe President released his FY12 Budget Request to Congress this morning. We’ll take close-up looks at several of the key science agency budget requests as the day goes on, but here’s a first look at the overall picture. From the Analytical Perspectives on the Budget:
Some quick agency-specific numbers:
NSF would see a 16 percent increase in R&D vs. FY10 (the FY11 year isn’t available for comparison yet because Congress hasn’t finished it).
Energy research would see an increase of 20 percent vs. FY10
NASA R&D overall would increase 6 percent, and NASA basic research would grow 220 percent from $835 million to $2.7 billion…but only because construction on the International Space Station is complete, so any resources to operate this new “national lab” are considered “basic research”
Defense basic research would see an increase of 14 percent, applied would decrease 4 percent.
NIH research would increase 3 percent.
Of course, this budget is essentially “dead on arrival” as far as the House is concerned. But it’s still important to have a good request from the President and the agencies on record when we go advocating for the science agencies during the FY12 appropriations process.
We’ll have lots more as we go through a day of briefings…
House Approps Proposes Even More Cuts for NSF, DOE
/In: Funding, FY11 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaThe House Appropriations Committee released their spending cuts version 2.0 — after having their previous attempt to cut $74 billion from the President’s request for non-defense discretionary spending savaged by conservative Republicans in the House — and NSF and DOE both face significant cuts. The appropriators went back and took another look at their first proposal, which cut about $74 billion from the President’s budget request, and found another $26 billion. The new proposed cuts mean real cuts for agency budgets (not just cuts to requested increases).
Here’s a list of the proposed cuts in the CR, which will be taken up on Monday in a vehicle that combines the CR and the FY 11 Defense Appropriation.
Notable cuts for science:
National Science Foundation’s Research and Related Activities account – cut $150 million compared to NSF’s FY10 budget.
NSF’s Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction – cut $62.5 million vs. FY 10.
NSF’s Education and Human Resources – cut $147 million vs. FY 10.
DOE’s Office of Science – cut $893 million.
DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy – cut $786 million
NIST’s Scientific and Technical Research Services – cut $45.5 million
About the only positive — and that’s a very qualified positive — is that ARPA-E does manage to get an appropriation in the bill ($50 million), averting some concerns that the agency would receive $0. That’s significantly lower than their original funding of $400 million, but the agency is in an awkward spot because it has never had a “normal” appropriation (it was authorized in the America COMPETES Act and given a one-time appropriation in the 2009 stimulus bill), so a CR could very well have included no funding for it.
We’ll have more as we figure it out, but these numbers show the community has a lot of work to do in the House and Senate to prevent the country from taking a big step backwards in trying to improve our long-term innovative potential….
NSF Fares (Suprisingly) Well, DOE Does Not, in Proposed Approps Cuts for FY11
/In: Funding, FY11 Appropriations, FY12 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaUpdate: (Feb 11, 2011) – They’ve released version 2.0 of the proposal…
Update: Um, nevermind. After conservative Republicans savaged the proposed $32 billion in cuts as inadequate, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers pledged to come back with a proposal that would cut $100 billion, potentially putting NSF right back under the crosshairs. Here’s Roger’s statement:
Original Post: As readers of this blog are no doubt aware, Congress has not yet finished the FY 11 appropriations process, leaving federal agencies in funding limbo, despite being five months into FY 11 fiscal year. Starting Monday, House appropriators hope to start the process of resolving the FY 11 budget by passing a “continuing resolution” for the remainder of the fiscal year that will make significant cuts to the budgets of a lot of key agencies. The GOP leadership of the House Appropriations Committee today released a list of some key cuts they plan to make and science agencies aren’t spared — with two notable exceptions.
The list of cuts is available here.
It’s important to keep in mind that the cuts are to the President’s requested budget for FY 11, not to the agency’s FY 10 budgets. In many cases, the President requested substantial increases for these programs, so the “cuts” listed here are actually just reductions to the level of increase requested. The agency might still fare better than it did in FY 10.
The National Science Foundation is targeted for $139 million in “cuts” in the proposal. However, the President requested an increase of $479 million for the agency in FY 11, so in real terms, NSF would see an *increase* of $340 million in FY 11 vs FY 10, or about 6.0 percent. That’s pretty astonishing, given the circumstances. (more on that below)
DOE Office of Science is the other side of the coin, though. They’re slated for $1.1 billion in cuts in the proposal. The President requested an increase of only $226 million for the agency in FY 11, so the proposed cuts are a real cut of $874 million (or 18 percent) to the Science budget compared to FY 10. DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy account would get hit even harder, suffering a $786 million real cut, or 35 percent.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology is another loser, receiving almost 15 percent in real cuts in the proposal, though as always, it’s difficult to assess where the cuts will fall (will they hit the controversial TIP or MEP programs, or NIST’s core research?).
NASA is a big winner in the proposal. The GOP leadership wants a “cut” of $379 million for the agency, but the President requested an increase of $1.7 billion for the agency. So, the agency still would clear $1.3 billion in new funding in FY 11 vs. FY 10 (14 percent increase).
NIH would be flat funded in real terms by the proposal.
So, encouraging news for NSF, but very bad news for DOE. Also, these numbers aren’t final. There are a many proposed cuts that hit very politically charged accounts, like the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program (which, among other things, funds the purchase of bulletproof vests for police officers) and the food assistance program for low-income women, infants and children. If appropriators are forced to back off cuts to those accounts (and others), they may look for other places to achieve the same savings, which could put NSF back in the crosshairs.
But, looking on the bright side, the fact that even in this fiscally harsh environment — this huge laundry list of belt-tightening — NSF was still singled out for special treatment (and increases) is a pretty important symbol. It perhaps means that the GOP leadership still understands that there’s value in the investment in NSF — that an investment in NSF probably provides more real return to the country than it costs. So there’s a little reason for optimism amongst the carnage. But apparently they haven’t gotten that message about DOE….
On Monday we’ll also get our first look at the President’s budget proposal for FY 12. Given the high prominence he gave research and education issues in his State of the Union address last month, and the degree to which he’s been touring the country the last two weeks talking up the importance of innovation to America’s future, it’s likely that we’ll see some healthy requests for science funding. But achieving those increases in this Congress and this fiscal environment is likely to be an extremely steep climb. But stay tuned because we’ll have all the details here.