The House of Representatives will consider H.R. 4061, the Cyber Security Enhancement Act, today. The bill, which originated in the House Science and Technology Committee, is designed to “improve the security of cyberspace by ensuring federal investments in cybersecurity are better focused, more effective, and that research into innovative, transformative technologies is supported.” It’s actually a combination of two separate S&T committee bills, the Cybersecurity Research and Development Amendments Act of 2009, which deals mainly with cybersecurity research issues and authorizes funding at NSF, and the Cybersecurity Coordination and Awareness Act of 2009, which is primarily focused on cybersecurity activities at NIST. The committee has detailed information on the bill on its website.
Most relevantly for the computing research community, the bill:
Requires a federal cybersecurity R&D strategic plan (though this is already underway);
Requires social and behavioral research in cybersecurity at NSF and calls out “identity management to be one of the areas NSF supports as part of its cybersecurity R&D;
Requires NSF to establish a postdoctoral fellowship program in cybersecurity;
Requires OSTP to assess the current and future cybersecurity wrokforce needs to the federal government, including comparison of the skills needed by each federal agency, the supply of talent, and any barriers to recruitment.
Establishes a university-industry task force to examine public-private research partnerships in cybersecurity.
Directs NIST’s intramural research activity to conduct research into unifying and standardized identity, privilege and access controll management frameworks for the execution of a wide variety of resource protection policies; research into improving the security of systems and networks; improving the testing, measurement, usability and assurance of systems and networks; and research associated with improving the security of industrial control systems;
Directs NIST to develop a cybersecurity awareness and education program.
All told, the bill would authorize about $395 million in research funding at NSF over the next five years. It would then be up to congressional appropriators to actually provide NSF with that funding.
CRA joined with ACM’s U.S. Public Policy Committee in November to endorse the bill during its consideration by the committee. Here’s what we said:
Chairman Gordon and Ranking Member Hall:
As representatives of two leading organizations in the computing community — the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) — we are pleased to support your efforts to bolster federal cyber security research through H.R. 4061, the Cyber Security Enhancement Act of 2009.
Information technology constitutes the “control loop” of essentially every aspect of our critical national infrastructure — the electric power grid, the financial grid, the telecommunications grid, the food distribution network — making the computers and communications systems of the nation critical infrastructure themselves. Our organizations, along with the National Research Council and the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, have all agreed that the most significant long-term step the Federal government can take to protect this information infrastructure is a sustained commitment to IT research and development, specifically in the areas of information and network security.
We are pleased that your legislation endorses this recommendation by providing new authorizations for a number of federal cyber security research programs. Our organizations have also, in the past, raised concerns about the balance in the federal program between short and long-term efforts, and about the level of coordination between federal agencies. Your legislation’s requirement that the participating agencies, with the assistance of the National Coordination Office, develop a strategic plan for federal cyber security research is a major step in addressing this concern.
We thank you for your work on this legislation and for your long-standing leadership of federal cyber security research efforts. We look forward to working with you and your colleagues as you endeavor to move this legislation this session.
Sincerely,
Dr. Eric Grimson Chair, Computing Research Association
Dr. Eugene H. Spafford Chair, USACM
The bill is expected to pass, though it faces 25 amendments today. We’ll have details if the bill gets substantially modified in any way.
Update: (Feb 4, 2010) — The bill passed by an overwhelming majority — 422 to 5 — and will head now to the Senate, where its prospects are somewhat murky. Here’s the S&T committee’s press release.
As we noted yesterday, the National Science Foundation does very well in President’s Obama FY 11 Budget Request. The President’s plan would provide an 8 percent increase to the agency, $552 million more than the agency’s FY 10 budget. Of that $552 million, $455 million would go to the Foundation’s research accounts (also an 8 percent increase over FY 10). And of those research accounts, no research directorate does better in the President’s plan than NSF’s home for computing research: the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate. Here’s a directorate by directorate breakout (click to enlarge):
The directorate does so well in large degree because its programs match well with the agency priorities, which in turn map well with the President’s priorities. Part of the President’s National Innovation Strategy for FY 11 includes a focus on energy technologies, understanding and mitigating climate change, and promoting green jobs. Under the President’s plan, CISE would participate in two foundation-wide programs that meet this focus:
Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) – A $765.5 million program aimed at integrating NSF’s work in climate and energy science to generate the discoveries and tools needed to “inform societal actions that lead to environmental and economic sustainability.” CISE’s $29.3 million role in the program would focus on work with direct impact, like energy-intelligent computing; indirectly, with advances in computing to reduce energy consumption in other sectors (e.g., Smart Grid, Smart Home, Smart Transportation); and foundational, understanding how energy contributes to algorithmic complexity and system performance (i.e., can we develop more energy-efficient algorithms?).
Cyberlearning for Transforming Education (CTE) – CISE’s $15 million share of this $41 million program would be used to fund research about “Anytime, Anywhere Learning,” “Personalized Learning” and understanding all four permutations of: “(Cyber) Learning about (Cyber) Learning.” A goal is to develop fundamental knowledge about learning to inform new cyber tools and techniques.
In addition to these two new areas, CISE would continue its participation in two other foundation-wide efforts. Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) would receive $105.5 million in the agency’s plan, of which $50 million would be shared by CISE. CDI is the agency’s “Computational Thinking for Science and Engineering” program, and CISE AD Jeannette Wing wanted to emphasize that the guidelines for the program map well with the computing community’s strength. After all, she pointed out, proposals should demonstrate how the work does two things: advance innovative uses of computational thinking, and advance two or more disciplines.
The other foundation-wide priority with CISE participation is the Science and Engineering Beyond Moore’s Law program, a $70.2 million program aimed at figuring out where we go when current silicon technologies reach the limits of Moore’s law. CISE would contribute $15 million to the effort, funding research on new computing technologies (including quantum information science), approaches, and models.
Other highlights include a $70 million increase to the directorate’s Trusted Computing efforts, continued work with the ENG directorate on the Cyber Physical Systems program, and significant increases in the CAREER program (7.1 percent increase to $54.6 million in FY11), and a Graduate Research Fellowships program that has grown to $2.55 million in FY11. Wing strongly encouraged more GRF proposals from the computing community.
One program not fully addressed in the budget documentation is the status of the Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program within CISE. As part of the FY 11 budget, NSF announced a new “Comprehensive Broadening Participation of Undergraduates in STEM,” a $100.3 million effort to “realign and build on existing programs and activities” and break down “programmatic stovepipes.” It’s unclear how BPC fits into the new foundation-wide effort, if at all, and Wing would only say that it was under discussion.
The Office of Cyberinfrastructure would also see an increase in FY11 under the President’s plan. The agency requested $228 million for FY11, an increase of $13.8 million, or 6.4 percent over FY10. Overall, the agency would increase IT research and development funding throughout the agency by 7 percent next year. The agency’s total contribution to the federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program would rise to $1.17 billion in FY 11, an increase of $79.6 million from FY 10.
So, it’s generally very good news from NSF. Computing flourishes at NSF, according to Wing, because computing inherently speaks about innovation (which means jobs), and because “all the Administration’s priorities are well-addressed by our technologies.” Given the numbers, it’s hard to argue.
The President’s Budget Request (PBR) included a 6.8%increase in the overall budget of the Department of Energy for FY2011, for a total budget of $28.4 billion. Both President Obama in his recent State of the Union address and Secretary of Energy Chu at the budget briefing emphasized the necessity of funding research to fulfill our future energy needs.
Overall, the Office of Science, the area that does the majority of basic research and computing research, would receive a 4% increase over FY10, bringing the research budget to $5.12 billion. The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program does very well in the request with an increase of 8.1% for a total of $426 million. Basic energy sciences would get a 12% increase, a total of $1.835 billion.
Another large request this year in the Office of Science is for Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists. That request is for a 72% increase to $35.6 million. This would include $16 million for additional Early Career Research Program awards and $10 million for additional graduate fellowships.
The FY11 budget request for ARPA-E is $300 million, which is the starting budget since the FY2010 budget did not include funding for ARPA-E, though it did have funding from the ARRA.
The presentations and detailed budget information for the Department is available online.
Despite some early concerns in the science community over some dicey reported funding levels for some key science agencies, the President’s FY 2011 budget, released today, demonstrates a continued commitment to doubling the budgets of the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Here’s some relevant bits. We’ll have more as we plow through it and get briefed by the relevant agencies.
Investment in science and basic research is critical to long-term economic growth. That’s why the Budget invests $61.6 billion in civilian research and development, an increase of $3.7 billion, a 6.4 percent increase, and an amount that continues the commitment to double funding for three key basic research agencies—the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This funding includes $1.8 billion for research in basic energy sciences to discover novel ways to produce, store, and use energy to address energy independence and climate change and $300 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, to accelerate game-changing energy technologies in need of rapid and flexible experimentation or engineering. The Budget includes increased funding for research to help create the foundation for the industries and jobs of the future, such as nano-manufacturing, advanced robotics, and new tools for the design of biological systems.
Under the President’s plan, NSF would grow by 8 percent to $7.4 billion in FY 11. NSF’s research accounts would also grow by 8 percent, $455 million over FY 10.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science would see a 4.6 percent increase to $5.1 billion in FY 11. DOE’s new ARPA-E would see $300 million in funding.
The House and Senate Appropriators are in their end game on the FY 10 appropriations process and yesterday released the “conference agreement” for an omnibus appropriations bill they’ve created that bundles all the outstanding appropriations bills save one (Defense). Included in the conference bill are the agreed upon funding levels for several key science agencies. NSF and NIST seem to do well. NSF will receive $6.9 billion in FY 10, an increase of $436 million over FY 09 (about 6.7 percent — assuming the conference passes, and it’s safe to say that it will). NIST will receive an increase of $37.6 million, bringing their core research funding up to $662 million ($65 million more than FY 09).
Interestingly, the Defense appropriation, which includes research funding at DARPA and the other Defense labs, was held out of this omnibus — likely because the Democratic leadership wants to save it for the very end of the session as a last-ditch vehicle on which to attach other difficult-to-pass Democratic priorities. Congress faces a Dec 18th deadline for wrapping up appropriations, so we should have some idea of the final numbers in the Defense bill within the next week or so.
We’ll also have a full breakdown of all the science funding in the 1088 page bill, including budgets for NASA and NIH, very soon. Update (12/10): The Joint Explanatory Statement — the report of the conference committee accompanying the bill — takes the Administration to task following reports that the President’s budget request for NSF in FY 11 will be much less generous than the FY 10 budget:
The conference agreement includes $6,926,510,000 for the National Science Foundation (NSF), consistent with the on-going effort to double the agency’s budget over a ten-year period.
The conferees are concerned with continuity in the level of support for research and development at the National Science Foundation and reiterate concerns expressed by the House that the request for fiscal year 2011 should represent at least a seven percent increase for NSF over the conference agreement level for fiscal year 2010 in order to sustain the planned doubling of the Foundation’s budget.
That’s strong show of support for the agency and good indication of how the President’s rumored 2.9 percent proposed increase for NSF in FY 11 might be received by Congress.
DARPA will celebrate the 40th anniversary of ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, with a network challenge this Saturday, December 5. The challenge seeks to test social networking with 10 weather balloons launched across the country. Teams will have to spot the balloons and collect the longitude and latitude of as many as possible. The first team to respond with all 10 wins the challenge and $40,000.
In the announcement of the challenge, DARPA Director Regina Dugan said, In the 40 years since this breakthrough, the Internet has become an integral part of society and the global economy. The DARPA Network Challenge explores the unprecedented ability of the Internet to bring people together to solve tough problems.
Peter Lee, director of the Transformational Convergence Technology Office at DARPA, said at MSNBC.com, “We’re learning more and more every day about social networks – how they form, how communities grow and how they change over time. It’s become a very interesting field of research … but when it’s a competition, the dynamic changes.”
With over 1000 registered teams competing in the challenge, the varying techniques on mobilization, dissemination, and collaboration are already informative though Lee told MSNBC.com that the most original ideas have probably not been revealed yet to maintain the competitive edge. Lee also expects subterfuge, deception, and information selling to show up in the competition. Registration is still open to participate in the challenge and you can sign up here. Itll be very interesting to see all the techniques used and to see how long it takes for a team to find all 10 balloons. Well link to the announcement of the winner when it is announced.
ScienceWorksForUS, a joint effort by the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and The Science Coalition (TSC), launched today on Capitol Hill with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in attendance. The interesting and much needed initiative is designed to illustrate how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funding is supporting research across the country and how that research impacts the nation economically, both in the short and long term. The website of the initiative gives researchers a chance to tell their stories and to share their research with a wider public audience.
As we’ve mentioned here before, the ARRA included over $21 billion in science funding, including money to build research facilities, buy equipment, and conduct research. The immediate impact is to continue or increase employment of researchers, equipment manufacturers, and facility construction workers. However, the long-term impact will be more, higher paying jobs in industries that are created from the research or that help solve challenges in energy, healthcare, and other high priority challenges that the US faces in the coming decades.
We’re in the end game for the FY 2010 appropriations, but no one is really sure exactly how this will end (though there are some good theories). While a number of bills have actually passed through regular order — including, most relevantly for the computing research community, the Energy and Water appropriations bill, which contains funding for the DOE’s Office of Science — an equal number of key bills remain unsettled. Still unresolved are the Commerce, Justice, Science bill, which includes funding for NSF, NOAA, NIST, and NASA; the Defense bill, which includes funding for DARPA and the Defense labs; and Labor-HHS, which includes funding for NIH. Because we’ve passed the end of the fiscal year (Sept. 30th), the government is operating under a “Continuing Resolution” that will keep agencies funded at the FY 09 rate through Dec 18th. So, conventional wisdom suggests that these remaining appropriations bills will get taken care of by then (and probably at the last minute). Until then, Congress — the Senate, in particular — is more than occupied by the raging debate on reforming health care and will fit in appropriations discussions between now and then only as little blocks of free time appear.
It appears at this point that the remaining bills will end up in an omnibus measure — that is, they’ll be bundled into one bill for passage. (Because it’s only seven appropriations bills that would be bundled, rather than the usual twelve, many have taken to referring to the bill as a “minibus” — though I suppose everything is relative in DC). It also appears that the Defense bill will be the anchor for the minibus, because it’s considered the highest priority (a “must pass” bill), and thus many controversial provisions unrelated to defense that don’t have homes elsewhere may find their way into the bill (there’s been talk of adding a DC voting rights measure to it, though that’s now looking unlikely, or some health care-related language). But aside from that, we assume that sometime that week of Dec 14-18, we’ll start to see the final agreed-upon numbers for all of the as-yet-unappropriated science programs we care about. Until then, here’s what we know:
Department of Energy Office of Science (status: final): The Energy and Water Appropriations was passed and signed by the President on October 28th (P.L. 111-85). In it, DOE’s Office of Science received just over $4.8 billion (plus about $77 million in earmarks), a compromise between levels the House and Senate had passed separately, but an increase of 3 percent compared with FY 2009. The appropriation includes funding for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program (ASCR), which will receive $394 million in FY 10, slightly less than both the Senate original appropriations of $399 million and the House original number of $409 million, but a healthy 6.8 percent increase over FY2009.
National Science Foundation (status: unfinished): Funding for NSF is contained in the FY 10 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill. The House version of this bill would fund NSF at $6.93 billion in FY 10, an increase of 6.9 percent over FY09 but $108 million lower than the President’s request for the agency. The Senate version would fund the agency at $6.9 billion, a 6.6 percent increase. Both the Senate and House bills include healthy increases for NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate. The Senate version would provide $620 million in FY 10, 8.1 percent more than FY 09, and the House would provide $623 million, or an 8.6 percent increase. Both levels are less than the $633 million the President requested in his budget.
NSF’s Office of CyberInfrastructure (OCI) also fares well in both versions of the bill. The House would provide $216 million for OCI in FY 10, an increase of 8.1 percent, and the Senate $215 million, a 7.7 percent increase. Both are below the President’s requested increase of 10.0 percent in FY 10.
NSF’s Education and Human Resources directorate would receive a $17.6 million increase over FY 09 in the House, a $12.5 million increase over the Administration request. The Senate passed the President’s EHR request of $857.76 million.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (status: unfinished): NIST is also a part of the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill. The House passed version includes $587 million for NIST’s research efforts, a 1.6 percent decrease from FY 09. The Senate would fund the agency at $684 million (less $47 million in earmarks), a 14.5 percent increase. However, if you remove the earmarked spending, the real increase to NIST in the Senate bill would be 6.1 percent. The Administration requested $652 million for the agency, a 9.2 percent increase over FY 09.
Department of Defense (status: unfinished): The Defense Appropriations bill includes funding for all DOD research, including DARPA and the Defense research labs. There’s some concern about the levels included for DARPA in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, but especially for the Senate levels. Both the House and Senate included significant cuts to the President’s request for DARPA — the House trimmed about $200 million from the request, the Senate about $500 million. In the Senate’s case, appropriations staffers apparently didn’t feel that the agency, given its recent history of under-spending its appropriation — a behavior linked to policies of the agency’s previous leadership — warranted an increase in FY 10 and instead used that money to fund increases elsewhere in the bill. Many of us in the science advocacy community reacted strongly to this reduction. Under new leadership, the agency appears to be making a serious effort to reverse many of the policies that the university community and Congress shared, and has proposed a number of new efforts designed to reengage DARPA with university researchers. We do not want to see that new approach derailed or hamstrung by this proposed reduction. CRA, along with many partners in the academic and industrial communities have weighed in with Congress in an attempt to mitigate these reductions. We’ll know in December how successful those efforts were. (We’ll also have much more on the “new” DARPA in future posts…)
There are also significant differences in opinion between the Senate and the House in the overall level of defense basic research (or 6.1 research, in DOD parlance). The House approved bill would fund Defense 6.1 research at $1.798 billion in FY 10, an increase of 10.1 percent over FY 09. The Senate, while still approving an increase, would only include $1.713 billion in FY 10, a 4.9 percent increase. Like the DARPA issue, this disparity will need to get worked out in conference between the chambers.
As we learn more, we’ll post it here. But it’s unlikely much will happen until mid-December….
Last night, Congress passed a resolution stating that the week of December 7 is National Computer Science Education Week by a vote of 405 to 0. The resolution language includes reasons that computing is so important to our culture and economy and the need to increase the diversity of people in computing as important factors that a National Computer Science Education Week could help promote. The week of December 7 was chosen to honor Grace Murray Hopper, one of the earliest female pioneers in computing, as her birthday was December 9. The full text of the resolution is available. ACM has more information and community reaction here.
Ran Libeskind-Hadas, a member of the Computing Community Consortium’s Council and a professor at Harvey Mudd College, has an interesting post today on the CCC blog asking, in light of the recent Netflix Prize announcement, whether prizes are a viable mechanism for encouraging research in the computing fields.
From Netflixs perspective, the answer is almost certainly yes. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is quoted telling the New York Times (probably tongue-in-cheek) “Youre getting Ph.D.s for a dollar an hour.”
He notes several other examples of prizes that have led to new results and asks:
Are there some major problems in computer science that could be incentivized by prizes financial or otherwise? What are the potential benefits and risks of this approach? Were eager to hear your thoughts.
Add your two cents (or more) in the comments section. (No prize for doing it, though.)
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Cybersecurity Research on House Floor Today
/In: Funding, Research /by Peter HarshaThe House of Representatives will consider H.R. 4061, the Cyber Security Enhancement Act, today. The bill, which originated in the House Science and Technology Committee, is designed to “improve the security of cyberspace by ensuring federal investments in cybersecurity are better focused, more effective, and that research into innovative, transformative technologies is supported.” It’s actually a combination of two separate S&T committee bills, the Cybersecurity Research and Development Amendments Act of 2009, which deals mainly with cybersecurity research issues and authorizes funding at NSF, and the Cybersecurity Coordination and Awareness Act of 2009, which is primarily focused on cybersecurity activities at NIST. The committee has detailed information on the bill on its website.
Most relevantly for the computing research community, the bill:
All told, the bill would authorize about $395 million in research funding at NSF over the next five years. It would then be up to congressional appropriators to actually provide NSF with that funding.
CRA joined with ACM’s U.S. Public Policy Committee in November to endorse the bill during its consideration by the committee. Here’s what we said:
The bill is expected to pass, though it faces 25 amendments today. We’ll have details if the bill gets substantially modified in any way.
Update: (Feb 4, 2010) — The bill passed by an overwhelming majority — 422 to 5 — and will head now to the Senate, where its prospects are somewhat murky. Here’s the S&T committee’s press release.
FY 11 Budget: National Science Foundation
/In: FY11 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaAs we noted yesterday, the National Science Foundation does very well in President’s Obama FY 11 Budget Request. The President’s plan would provide an 8 percent increase to the agency, $552 million more than the agency’s FY 10 budget. Of that $552 million, $455 million would go to the Foundation’s research accounts (also an 8 percent increase over FY 10). And of those research accounts, no research directorate does better in the President’s plan than NSF’s home for computing research: the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate. Here’s a directorate by directorate breakout (click to enlarge):
The directorate does so well in large degree because its programs match well with the agency priorities, which in turn map well with the President’s priorities. Part of the President’s National Innovation Strategy for FY 11 includes a focus on energy technologies, understanding and mitigating climate change, and promoting green jobs. Under the President’s plan, CISE would participate in two foundation-wide programs that meet this focus:
In addition to these two new areas, CISE would continue its participation in two other foundation-wide efforts. Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) would receive $105.5 million in the agency’s plan, of which $50 million would be shared by CISE. CDI is the agency’s “Computational Thinking for Science and Engineering” program, and CISE AD Jeannette Wing wanted to emphasize that the guidelines for the program map well with the computing community’s strength. After all, she pointed out, proposals should demonstrate how the work does two things: advance innovative uses of computational thinking, and advance two or more disciplines.
The other foundation-wide priority with CISE participation is the Science and Engineering Beyond Moore’s Law program, a $70.2 million program aimed at figuring out where we go when current silicon technologies reach the limits of Moore’s law. CISE would contribute $15 million to the effort, funding research on new computing technologies (including quantum information science), approaches, and models.
Other highlights include a $70 million increase to the directorate’s Trusted Computing efforts, continued work with the ENG directorate on the Cyber Physical Systems program, and significant increases in the CAREER program (7.1 percent increase to $54.6 million in FY11), and a Graduate Research Fellowships program that has grown to $2.55 million in FY11. Wing strongly encouraged more GRF proposals from the computing community.
One program not fully addressed in the budget documentation is the status of the Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program within CISE. As part of the FY 11 budget, NSF announced a new “Comprehensive Broadening Participation of Undergraduates in STEM,” a $100.3 million effort to “realign and build on existing programs and activities” and break down “programmatic stovepipes.” It’s unclear how BPC fits into the new foundation-wide effort, if at all, and Wing would only say that it was under discussion.
The Office of Cyberinfrastructure would also see an increase in FY11 under the President’s plan. The agency requested $228 million for FY11, an increase of $13.8 million, or 6.4 percent over FY10. Overall, the agency would increase IT research and development funding throughout the agency by 7 percent next year. The agency’s total contribution to the federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program would rise to $1.17 billion in FY 11, an increase of $79.6 million from FY 10.
So, it’s generally very good news from NSF. Computing flourishes at NSF, according to Wing, because computing inherently speaks about innovation (which means jobs), and because “all the Administration’s priorities are well-addressed by our technologies.” Given the numbers, it’s hard to argue.
DOE FY2011 Budget Details
/In: FY11 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrThe President’s Budget Request (PBR) included a 6.8%increase in the overall budget of the Department of Energy for FY2011, for a total budget of $28.4 billion. Both President Obama in his recent State of the Union address and Secretary of Energy Chu at the budget briefing emphasized the necessity of funding research to fulfill our future energy needs.
Overall, the Office of Science, the area that does the majority of basic research and computing research, would receive a 4% increase over FY10, bringing the research budget to $5.12 billion. The Advanced Scientific Computing Research program does very well in the request with an increase of 8.1% for a total of $426 million. Basic energy sciences would get a 12% increase, a total of $1.835 billion.
Another large request this year in the Office of Science is for Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists. That request is for a 72% increase to $35.6 million. This would include $16 million for additional Early Career Research Program awards and $10 million for additional graduate fellowships.
The FY11 budget request for ARPA-E is $300 million, which is the starting budget since the FY2010 budget did not include funding for ARPA-E, though it did have funding from the ARRA.
The presentations and detailed budget information for the Department is available online.
FY 11 Budget: First Look Looks Good!
/In: FY11 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaDespite some early concerns in the science community over some dicey reported funding levels for some key science agencies, the President’s FY 2011 budget, released today, demonstrates a continued commitment to doubling the budgets of the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Here’s some relevant bits. We’ll have more as we plow through it and get briefed by the relevant agencies.
Under the President’s plan, NSF would grow by 8 percent to $7.4 billion in FY 11. NSF’s research accounts would also grow by 8 percent, $455 million over FY 10.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Science would see a 4.6 percent increase to $5.1 billion in FY 11. DOE’s new ARPA-E would see $300 million in funding.
Watch this space (and our Twitter) for more info!
Quick Update: NSF and NIST Fare Well in FY 10 Final Approps Bill
/In: FY10 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThe House and Senate Appropriators are in their end game on the FY 10 appropriations process and yesterday released the “conference agreement” for an omnibus appropriations bill they’ve created that bundles all the outstanding appropriations bills save one (Defense). Included in the conference bill are the agreed upon funding levels for several key science agencies. NSF and NIST seem to do well. NSF will receive $6.9 billion in FY 10, an increase of $436 million over FY 09 (about 6.7 percent — assuming the conference passes, and it’s safe to say that it will). NIST will receive an increase of $37.6 million, bringing their core research funding up to $662 million ($65 million more than FY 09).
Interestingly, the Defense appropriation, which includes research funding at DARPA and the other Defense labs, was held out of this omnibus — likely because the Democratic leadership wants to save it for the very end of the session as a last-ditch vehicle on which to attach other difficult-to-pass Democratic priorities. Congress faces a Dec 18th deadline for wrapping up appropriations, so we should have some idea of the final numbers in the Defense bill within the next week or so.
We’ll also have a full breakdown of all the science funding in the 1088 page bill, including budgets for NASA and NIH, very soon.
Update (12/10): The Joint Explanatory Statement — the report of the conference committee accompanying the bill — takes the Administration to task following reports that the President’s budget request for NSF in FY 11 will be much less generous than the FY 10 budget:
That’s strong show of support for the agency and good indication of how the President’s rumored 2.9 percent proposed increase for NSF in FY 11 might be received by Congress.
DARPA Challenge
/In: Events /by MelissaNorrDARPA will celebrate the 40th anniversary of ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet, with a network challenge this Saturday, December 5. The challenge seeks to test social networking with 10 weather balloons launched across the country. Teams will have to spot the balloons and collect the longitude and latitude of as many as possible. The first team to respond with all 10 wins the challenge and $40,000.
In the announcement of the challenge, DARPA Director Regina Dugan said, In the 40 years since this breakthrough, the Internet has become an integral part of society and the global economy. The DARPA Network Challenge explores the unprecedented ability of the Internet to bring people together to solve tough problems.
Peter Lee, director of the Transformational Convergence Technology Office at DARPA, said at MSNBC.com, “We’re learning more and more every day about social networks – how they form, how communities grow and how they change over time. It’s become a very interesting field of research … but when it’s a competition, the dynamic changes.”
With over 1000 registered teams competing in the challenge, the varying techniques on mobilization, dissemination, and collaboration are already informative though Lee told MSNBC.com that the most original ideas have probably not been revealed yet to maintain the competitive edge. Lee also expects subterfuge, deception, and information selling to show up in the competition.
Registration is still open to participate in the challenge and you can sign up here. Itll be very interesting to see all the techniques used and to see how long it takes for a team to find all 10 balloons. Well link to the announcement of the winner when it is announced.
SCIENCEWORKSFORUS LAUNCH
/In: Economic Stimulus and Recovery, Events, Funding /by MelissaNorrScienceWorksForUS, a joint effort by the Association of American Universities (AAU), the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and The Science Coalition (TSC), launched today on Capitol Hill with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in attendance. The interesting and much needed initiative is designed to illustrate how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funding is supporting research across the country and how that research impacts the nation economically, both in the short and long term. The website of the initiative gives researchers a chance to tell their stories and to share their research with a wider public audience.
As we’ve mentioned here before, the ARRA included over $21 billion in science funding, including money to build research facilities, buy equipment, and conduct research. The immediate impact is to continue or increase employment of researchers, equipment manufacturers, and facility construction workers. However, the long-term impact will be more, higher paying jobs in industries that are created from the research or that help solve challenges in energy, healthcare, and other high priority challenges that the US faces in the coming decades.
FY 10 Appropriations Update: Energy, NSF, NIST, Defense
/In: FY10 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaWe’re in the end game for the FY 2010 appropriations, but no one is really sure exactly how this will end (though there are some good theories). While a number of bills have actually passed through regular order — including, most relevantly for the computing research community, the Energy and Water appropriations bill, which contains funding for the DOE’s Office of Science — an equal number of key bills remain unsettled. Still unresolved are the Commerce, Justice, Science bill, which includes funding for NSF, NOAA, NIST, and NASA; the Defense bill, which includes funding for DARPA and the Defense labs; and Labor-HHS, which includes funding for NIH. Because we’ve passed the end of the fiscal year (Sept. 30th), the government is operating under a “Continuing Resolution” that will keep agencies funded at the FY 09 rate through Dec 18th. So, conventional wisdom suggests that these remaining appropriations bills will get taken care of by then (and probably at the last minute). Until then, Congress — the Senate, in particular — is more than occupied by the raging debate on reforming health care and will fit in appropriations discussions between now and then only as little blocks of free time appear.
It appears at this point that the remaining bills will end up in an omnibus measure — that is, they’ll be bundled into one bill for passage. (Because it’s only seven appropriations bills that would be bundled, rather than the usual twelve, many have taken to referring to the bill as a “minibus” — though I suppose everything is relative in DC). It also appears that the Defense bill will be the anchor for the minibus, because it’s considered the highest priority (a “must pass” bill), and thus many controversial provisions unrelated to defense that don’t have homes elsewhere may find their way into the bill (there’s been talk of adding a DC voting rights measure to it, though that’s now looking unlikely, or some health care-related language). But aside from that, we assume that sometime that week of Dec 14-18, we’ll start to see the final agreed-upon numbers for all of the as-yet-unappropriated science programs we care about. Until then, here’s what we know:
Department of Energy Office of Science (status: final): The Energy and Water Appropriations was passed and signed by the President on October 28th (P.L. 111-85). In it, DOE’s Office of Science received just over $4.8 billion (plus about $77 million in earmarks), a compromise between levels the House and Senate had passed separately, but an increase of 3 percent compared with FY 2009. The appropriation includes funding for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program (ASCR), which will receive $394 million in FY 10, slightly less than both the Senate original appropriations of $399 million and the House original number of $409 million, but a healthy 6.8 percent increase over FY2009.
National Science Foundation (status: unfinished): Funding for NSF is contained in the FY 10 Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill. The House version of this bill would fund NSF at $6.93 billion in FY 10, an increase of 6.9 percent over FY09 but $108 million lower than the President’s request for the agency. The Senate version would fund the agency at $6.9 billion, a 6.6 percent increase. Both the Senate and House bills include healthy increases for NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate. The Senate version would provide $620 million in FY 10, 8.1 percent more than FY 09, and the House would provide $623 million, or an 8.6 percent increase. Both levels are less than the $633 million the President requested in his budget.
NSF’s Office of CyberInfrastructure (OCI) also fares well in both versions of the bill. The House would provide $216 million for OCI in FY 10, an increase of 8.1 percent, and the Senate $215 million, a 7.7 percent increase. Both are below the President’s requested increase of 10.0 percent in FY 10.
NSF’s Education and Human Resources directorate would receive a $17.6 million increase over FY 09 in the House, a $12.5 million increase over the Administration request. The Senate passed the President’s EHR request of $857.76 million.
National Institute of Standards and Technology (status: unfinished): NIST is also a part of the Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations bill. The House passed version includes $587 million for NIST’s research efforts, a 1.6 percent decrease from FY 09. The Senate would fund the agency at $684 million (less $47 million in earmarks), a 14.5 percent increase. However, if you remove the earmarked spending, the real increase to NIST in the Senate bill would be 6.1 percent. The Administration requested $652 million for the agency, a 9.2 percent increase over FY 09.
Department of Defense (status: unfinished): The Defense Appropriations bill includes funding for all DOD research, including DARPA and the Defense research labs. There’s some concern about the levels included for DARPA in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, but especially for the Senate levels. Both the House and Senate included significant cuts to the President’s request for DARPA — the House trimmed about $200 million from the request, the Senate about $500 million. In the Senate’s case, appropriations staffers apparently didn’t feel that the agency, given its recent history of under-spending its appropriation — a behavior linked to policies of the agency’s previous leadership — warranted an increase in FY 10 and instead used that money to fund increases elsewhere in the bill. Many of us in the science advocacy community reacted strongly to this reduction. Under new leadership, the agency appears to be making a serious effort to reverse many of the policies that the university community and Congress shared, and has proposed a number of new efforts designed to reengage DARPA with university researchers. We do not want to see that new approach derailed or hamstrung by this proposed reduction. CRA, along with many partners in the academic and industrial communities have weighed in with Congress in an attempt to mitigate these reductions. We’ll know in December how successful those efforts were. (We’ll also have much more on the “new” DARPA in future posts…)
There are also significant differences in opinion between the Senate and the House in the overall level of defense basic research (or 6.1 research, in DOD parlance). The House approved bill would fund Defense 6.1 research at $1.798 billion in FY 10, an increase of 10.1 percent over FY 09. The Senate, while still approving an increase, would only include $1.713 billion in FY 10, a 4.9 percent increase. Like the DARPA issue, this disparity will need to get worked out in conference between the chambers.
As we learn more, we’ll post it here. But it’s unlikely much will happen until mid-December….
National CS Education Week
/In: Events /by MelissaNorrLast night, Congress passed a resolution stating that the week of December 7 is National Computer Science Education Week by a vote of 405 to 0. The resolution language includes reasons that computing is so important to our culture and economy and the need to increase the diversity of people in computing as important factors that a National Computer Science Education Week could help promote. The week of December 7 was chosen to honor Grace Murray Hopper, one of the earliest female pioneers in computing, as her birthday was December 9. The full text of the resolution is available.
ACM has more information and community reaction here.
Prizes and Computing Research
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC) /by Peter HarshaRan Libeskind-Hadas, a member of the Computing Community Consortium’s Council and a professor at Harvey Mudd College, has an interesting post today on the CCC blog asking, in light of the recent Netflix Prize announcement, whether prizes are a viable mechanism for encouraging research in the computing fields.
He notes several other examples of prizes that have led to new results and asks:
Add your two cents (or more) in the comments section. (No prize for doing it, though.)