The Computing Community Consortium — a partnership between CRA and the National Science Foundation that seeks to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer-range, more audacious research challenges, then work to realize them — has launched its new blog, and it’s definitely worth checking out.
Given the goal of CCC to get the community talking about research visions (and then setting to work on developing the most promising ones into clearly defined initiatives that could receive funding from various federal agencies), a blog seems like a reasonable way to help spur the discussions. Researchers on the CCC Council will author some of the initial (hopefully opinionated) pieces, but I think the hope is that the discussions will get carried on both in the open comments section and in some additional online fora.
Anyway, you can check it out at http://www.cccblog.org. They’ve already got a good summary of some of the activities of the new CCC “Big Data Computing Study Group” — including the Hadoop Summit and the Data-Intensive Scalable Computing Symposium.
The blog also looks really nice — I’m a little jealous and am wondering whether my IT guy (who is also CCC’s IT guy) can set me up with the same nice WordPress setup — and features open commenting and the ability to subscribe to the articles via e-mail, which is very handy. Definitely worth checking out.
The saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, NSF and AAAS agree and are sponsoring the sixth annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. There are five awards categories: Photographs/Pictures, Illustrations/Drawings, Informational/Explanatory Graphics, Interactive Media, and Non-Interactive Media. The deadline for entries is May 31.
The premise of the Challenge is that science is often communicated through visuals better than words, particularly in our web and graphics culture. Winning entries in each category will be published in Science Magazine and Science Online as well as at the NSF web site. One of the winners will be on the cover of Science Magazines September 26 issue.
More information and winning entries from the previous five years can be found here.
The National Academies, in conjunction with the National Math and Science Initiative, will hold a day long convocation today called Rising Above The Gathering Storm Two Years Later: Accelerating Progress Toward A Brighter Future. Discussions will include what has happened since the 2005 report was release at the federal, state, and private sector levels and, of course, what still needs to happen. Competitiveness overall, K-12, higher education, and research are all panel and breakout topics throughout the convocation. Frequent readers will remember that the Gathering Storm report, released in October 2005, was a report requested by Sens. Alexander (R-TN) and Bingaman (D-NM) and Reps. Boehlert (R-NY) and Gordon (D-TN) that listed the top 10 actions Congress should undertake to secure Americas competitiveness. The report was a catalyst for news, legislation, and further reports that we have reported on regularly over the last couple of years.
The convocation has spurred a grasstops effort, led by The Science Coalition, to bring the issue of research funding back to the forefront just as Congress begins to consider both a supplemental and the FY09 appropriations bills. The Coalition is encouraging university and association leaders to contact their Congressional members with letters emphasizing the call for increased funding of basic research contained in the Gathering Storm report and to contact local media on the ongoing competitiveness issue. Additional coverage of the convocation can be found at The Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog.
Two Nobel Prize winners have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (sub. reqd) today regarding the need to make science a top priority of the next Administration. David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail write that the next President needs to have an Office of Science and a science advisor at the White House in order to protect Americas competitive future. The piece makes a strong case for the necessity of strong leadership on science and science funding and is worth a read if you have access to the Wall Street Journal.
The section that best sums up the argument of the op-ed and the community as a whole plays on the fact that the three major candidates for President turned down an opportunity to have a debate focused on science issues is:
Apparently the top contenders for our nation’s highest elective office have better things to do than explain to the public their views on securing America’s future.
Protecting that future starts with understanding that much of the wealth in this country comes from scientific research and technological innovation. Translating science into commerce has opened up vast new fields of endeavor and has raised the standard of living in America. The country that is on the cutting edge of developing new technology is the country best positioned to benefit from that new technology.
We’re starting to hear from folks on the Hill that it’s looking more like science funding might be included in the initial supplemental when it comes out of the Senate. What’s less clear is how much, though the consensus seems to be “likely less than the science and technology community hopes it will be.” It’s also not clear what the House might do with its version of the supplemental or what would happen if, as the President has repeatedly said, it gets vetoed for including domestic spending.
Another rumor buzzing around DC that the supplemental might actually get split into two bills: an Iraq-only funding bill and an Afghanistan and domestic spending bill. This is politically expedient for the Democrats as the issue of Iraq funding splits the party. By having a separate bill to fund the war in Afghanistan and some domestic programs, it allows the Democrats to vote against funding Iraq without withdrawal timetables but for Afghanistan and domestic program spending that they do support.
We’ll know a lot more in the next week or two as the House and Senate appropriations committees begin their hearings and markups on the supplemental bills. Meanwhile, the science advocacy community continues to be very active in trying to make the case for science funding in the supplemental. Last week’s grassroots effort (which included CRA’s Computing Research Advocacy Network’s involvement) appears to have generated a lot of phone calls to Members of Congress about the issue, and the various coalitions continue to weigh in with their corporate membership to make the case.
It’s expected that the various supplemental bills will hit the House and Senate floors in late April or early May, so keep it tuned here for details.
The latest data from the National Science Foundation reveal that there were more science and engineering graduates in the U.S. in 2006 than there were in 2003 and that there appears to be plenty of opportunity for those graduates in the S&E workforce. NSF and US Newsdetail the results of three recent studies released by NSF that indicate this “strong labor market for scientists and engineers.”
According to the studies, the number of individuals working in science and engineering (S&E) occupations grew by 4.3 percent between 2003 and 2006, while their unemployment rate dropped to 2.5 percent in 2006, its lowest since the early 1990s. “On the supply side, we can say that the current S&E labor force is expanding, new graduates are coming out, and people are able to find employment, or are continuing their education,” says Nimmi Kannankutty, the National Science Foundation (NSF) program manager responsible for compiling the data, which NSF released last month.
CRA’s Jay Vegso has some additional data detailing how computer science graduates appear to be faring in this market. The short answer is: quite well. According to the NSF data, “CS graduates tied for second with health majors for the highest median salary at the bachelor’s level ($45,000) and tied for first with engineering at the master’s level ($65,000).” Both figures are well above the median salaries among all science, engineering and health fields ($39,000 for bachelor’s and $56,000 for master’s).
For a look at all the data, see:
Unemployment Rate of U.S. Scientists and Engineers Drops to Record Low 2.5% in 2006
An Overview of Science, Engineering and Health Graduates: 2006
NSF’s Divison of Science Resources Statistics (SRS)
Here’s a note sent to members of our Computing Research Advocacy Network. You can join, too!:
ACTION REQUEST: Call your U.S. Senators, your Representative in the House, and the White House this week to urge support for science funding in the FY 08 Supplemental.
WHY?: Though the FY 08 Appropriations process ended with an omnibus appropriations bill that eliminated most of the planned increases to science accounts called for in the President’s budget and authorized in the bipartisan America COMPETES Act, we have one last chance to mitigate the damage to U.S. science efforts caused by that decision. Congress will soon consider a supplemental appropriations bill for FY 08 necessary to cover the costs of the ongoing war in Iraq and operations in Afghanistan, in addition to other immediate concerns not addressed in the FY 08 omnibus appropriation. CRA has covered this issue in depth in this space.
Members of the science advocacy community, including CRA, are mounting a strong effort, with the support of some Congressional champions, to address the shortfall for science in FY 08 in the supplemental spending bill. As part of that effort, CRA will be participating in a large-scale, grassroots effort to weigh-in with individual members of Congress about the importance of including additional funding for key science agencies in the supplemental appropriation.
We are asking members of CRAN to call their representatives in the House, their two U.S. senators and the White House on Tuesday, April 8th; Wednesday, April 9th; or Thursday, April 10th to urge support for the inclusion of additional funding for the Department of Energy Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology in the FY 08 supplemental appropriations bill.
HOW?: Here’s a handy guide for the effort with all the details for your participation, including a simple script to use when calling. The point of this exercise is simply to register your opinion on this issue with your representatives in Congress and the White House. Calls to these offices are logged daily by issue and Members of Congress are influenced by call volumes in trying to decide how much an issue matters to their district. We expect significant participation from scientists and researchers across the disciplines — we want to make sure computing researchers are heard from, too.
So, please plan to call your representative, senators and the White House this Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday as part of this effort. While the attached indicates you can place the call to the district offices or your representatives’ DC offices, we’ve found through experience that a call to the DC office is more beneficial (more likely to be logged).
Phone numbers to use:
To call White House: (202) 456-1111
To call your Representative and Senators: Look up their contact info at Vote Smart
We’d also like to gauge our members participation, so please send us an e-mail when you call, letting us know who you called and whether you received any response. Please send the email to mnorr@cra.org.
Thanks again for your participation and support of computing research. Your effort will help convey to Congress and the Administration the breadth and depth of support for fully funding these key federal science agencies. Good luck with your calls!
To join the Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) and receive email alerts, please sign up here.
Today’s Washington Post article on the College Board’s decision to stop administering certain Advanced Placement tests has been widely circulated — with some reasonable concern within the computing community. The article appears to suggest that computer science advanced placement tests are on the chopping block. However, that’s not quite an accurate picture. Fortunately, Cameron Wilson at CRA-affiliate ACM — which has become quite involved in the computing education space — has a more complete explanation on the Tech Policy Blog of what’s really going on and why it ultimately could/should be beneficial for the field.
While the economic news coming from most areas has been fairly poor in recent weeks, the American Electronics Association (AEA)Cyberstates 2008 report does have some good job news. Cyberstates 2008, which was released this week, showed job growth in technology and engineering of over 91,000 jobs in 2007. The news isnt all good, however, as that was down from over 130,000 jobs added in 2006.
AEA President Christopher Hansen told Congress Daily that The upside is that technology jobs pay considerably more than most other posts in the private sector and although the labor market remains tight, unemployment rates are below 2 percent across many tech occupations. The bad news, he told the publication, is The tech industry and the country risk an impending slide in U.S. global competitiveness, caused by negligence on the part of our political leaders to adequately invest in scientific research, improve our education system, and allow the best and brightest from around the world to work in the United States. AEA has been a forceful voice, alongside CRA and the rest of the S&T community, calling for fully funding the America COMPETES Act in order to keep job growth in these sectors going and to increase the competitiveness of the US.
Highlights from the Cyber States 2008 report can be found here.
The joint investment announced yesterday by Microsoft and Intel in two university research centers (one at Berkeley and one at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) in order to work on solving the challenges of multi-core computing is all over the news, but there’s an aspect of the story that’s been hasn’t been highlighted sufficiently. The NY Times’ John Markoff picked up on it, however:
Both Intel and Microsoft executives said the research funds were a partial step toward filling a void left by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. The agency has increasingly focused during the Bush administration on military and other classified projects, and pure research funds for computing at universities have declined.
“The academic community has never really recovered from Darpas withdrawal,” said Daniel A. Reed, director of scalable and multicore computing at Microsoft, who will help oversee the new research labs.
[Dan Reed is also the current Chair of CRA.]
We’ve noted many, many times on this blog our concerns with policy changes at DARPA since about 2001 that have had the effect of pushing university researchers away from DARPA-sponsored research. As we wrote as recently as September 2007, shorter research horizons with an emphasis on go/no-go milestones at relatively short intervals and an increased use of classification at the agency has sharply reduced the amount of DARPA-supported research being performed in U.S. universities. In fact, between FY 2001 and FY 2004 (the last year for which we have good data), the amount of funding from DARPA to U.S. universities fell by half — and informal evidence suggests university shares are even lower today.
While it’s great news that two of the titans of the IT industry are stepping up to fill some of the gap left by DARPA’s withdrawal, their $20 million investment over 5 years represents just a tiny fraction of the DARPA shortfall. The difference in DARPA funding for university computer science between 2001 and 2004 was $91 million annually ($214 million in FY 01 to $123 million in FY 04 in unadjusted dollars), and anecdotal evidence suggests that shortfall may be even larger now. The Microsoft-Intel investment is a bold move and big commitment to address a key challenge in computer science that’s a primary concern for the two companies in the future. But it doesn’t represent a sustainable alternative to filling the hole left in the IT R&D portfolio created by DARPA’s absence.
DARPA has taken some steps to try to bring university researchers, especially younger faculty, back into the fold. In February, the agency also reorganized its IT office structure a bit — merging the Information Exploitation Office (IXO) with the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) to create a new Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) under former IPTO Deputy Chuck Morefield. There’s some indication that the office will have a technology focus (which suggests a research emphasis) in addition to a systems focus (which suggests a development-oriented emphasis), so there may be increased opportunities for university researchers to participate in DARPA-sponsored work.
We hope so, because while it’s great to see the IT industry step up and make some commitments to university-led research, the country (and the DOD, and the world) is probably better served by a DARPA that’s re-engaged with the university research community, supporting long-term, DARPA-hard research at a range of institutions on some of the grand challenges in computing….
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The CCC is Now Blogging!
/In: Computing Community Consortium (CCC) /by Peter HarshaThe Computing Community Consortium — a partnership between CRA and the National Science Foundation that seeks to catalyze the computing research community to debate longer-range, more audacious research challenges, then work to realize them — has launched its new blog, and it’s definitely worth checking out.
Given the goal of CCC to get the community talking about research visions (and then setting to work on developing the most promising ones into clearly defined initiatives that could receive funding from various federal agencies), a blog seems like a reasonable way to help spur the discussions. Researchers on the CCC Council will author some of the initial (hopefully opinionated) pieces, but I think the hope is that the discussions will get carried on both in the open comments section and in some additional online fora.
Anyway, you can check it out at http://www.cccblog.org. They’ve already got a good summary of some of the activities of the new CCC “Big Data Computing Study Group” — including the Hadoop Summit and the Data-Intensive Scalable Computing Symposium.
The blog also looks really nice — I’m a little jealous and am wondering whether my IT guy (who is also CCC’s IT guy) can set me up with the same nice WordPress setup — and features open commenting and the ability to subscribe to the articles via e-mail, which is very handy. Definitely worth checking out.
2008 NSF/AAAS Visualization Challenge
/In: Events, Misc., R&D in the Press, Research /by MelissaNorrThe saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, NSF and AAAS agree and are sponsoring the sixth annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. There are five awards categories: Photographs/Pictures, Illustrations/Drawings, Informational/Explanatory Graphics, Interactive Media, and Non-Interactive Media. The deadline for entries is May 31.
The premise of the Challenge is that science is often communicated through visuals better than words, particularly in our web and graphics culture. Winning entries in each category will be published in Science Magazine and Science Online as well as at the NSF web site. One of the winners will be on the cover of Science Magazines September 26 issue.
More information and winning entries from the previous five years can be found here.
National Academies Convocation on Gathering Storm Two Years Later
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Events, Funding, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrThe National Academies, in conjunction with the National Math and Science Initiative, will hold a day long convocation today called Rising Above The Gathering Storm Two Years Later: Accelerating Progress Toward A Brighter Future. Discussions will include what has happened since the 2005 report was release at the federal, state, and private sector levels and, of course, what still needs to happen. Competitiveness overall, K-12, higher education, and research are all panel and breakout topics throughout the convocation. Frequent readers will remember that the Gathering Storm report, released in October 2005, was a report requested by Sens. Alexander (R-TN) and Bingaman (D-NM) and Reps. Boehlert (R-NY) and Gordon (D-TN) that listed the top 10 actions Congress should undertake to secure Americas competitiveness. The report was a catalyst for news, legislation, and further reports that we have reported on regularly over the last couple of years.
The convocation has spurred a grasstops effort, led by The Science Coalition, to bring the issue of research funding back to the forefront just as Congress begins to consider both a supplemental and the FY09 appropriations bills. The Coalition is encouraging university and association leaders to contact their Congressional members with letters emphasizing the call for increased funding of basic research contained in the Gathering Storm report and to contact local media on the ongoing competitiveness issue.
Additional coverage of the convocation can be found at The Chronicle of Higher Education News Blog.
WSJ Op-Ed on Missing Leadership in Science
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrTwo Nobel Prize winners have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal (sub. reqd) today regarding the need to make science a top priority of the next Administration. David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail write that the next President needs to have an Office of Science and a science advisor at the White House in order to protect Americas competitive future. The piece makes a strong case for the necessity of strong leadership on science and science funding and is worth a read if you have access to the Wall Street Journal.
The section that best sums up the argument of the op-ed and the community as a whole plays on the fact that the three major candidates for President turned down an opportunity to have a debate focused on science issues is:
Rumors Swirl Around Supplemental
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrWe’re starting to hear from folks on the Hill that it’s looking more like science funding might be included in the initial supplemental when it comes out of the Senate. What’s less clear is how much, though the consensus seems to be “likely less than the science and technology community hopes it will be.” It’s also not clear what the House might do with its version of the supplemental or what would happen if, as the President has repeatedly said, it gets vetoed for including domestic spending.
Another rumor buzzing around DC that the supplemental might actually get split into two bills: an Iraq-only funding bill and an Afghanistan and domestic spending bill. This is politically expedient for the Democrats as the issue of Iraq funding splits the party. By having a separate bill to fund the war in Afghanistan and some domestic programs, it allows the Democrats to vote against funding Iraq without withdrawal timetables but for Afghanistan and domestic program spending that they do support.
We’ll know a lot more in the next week or two as the House and Senate appropriations committees begin their hearings and markups on the supplemental bills. Meanwhile, the science advocacy community continues to be very active in trying to make the case for science funding in the supplemental. Last week’s grassroots effort (which included CRA’s Computing Research Advocacy Network’s involvement) appears to have generated a lot of phone calls to Members of Congress about the issue, and the various coalitions continue to weigh in with their corporate membership to make the case.
It’s expected that the various supplemental bills will hit the House and Senate floors in late April or early May, so keep it tuned here for details.
S&E Supply Up, Unemployment Down in 2006, Says NSF
/In: People /by Peter HarshaThe latest data from the National Science Foundation reveal that there were more science and engineering graduates in the U.S. in 2006 than there were in 2003 and that there appears to be plenty of opportunity for those graduates in the S&E workforce. NSF and US News detail the results of three recent studies released by NSF that indicate this “strong labor market for scientists and engineers.”
CRA’s Jay Vegso has some additional data detailing how computer science graduates appear to be faring in this market. The short answer is: quite well. According to the NSF data, “CS graduates tied for second with health majors for the highest median salary at the bachelor’s level ($45,000) and tied for first with engineering at the master’s level ($65,000).” Both figures are well above the median salaries among all science, engineering and health fields ($39,000 for bachelor’s and $56,000 for master’s).
For a look at all the data, see:
Grassroots Effort to Urge Support for Science Funding in Supplemental
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrHere’s a note sent to members of our Computing Research Advocacy Network. You can join, too!:
ACTION REQUEST: Call your U.S. Senators, your Representative in the House, and the White House this week to urge support for science funding in the FY 08 Supplemental.
WHY?: Though the FY 08 Appropriations process ended with an omnibus appropriations bill that eliminated most of the planned increases to science accounts called for in the President’s budget and authorized in the bipartisan America COMPETES Act, we have one last chance to mitigate the damage to U.S. science efforts caused by that decision. Congress will soon consider a supplemental appropriations bill for FY 08 necessary to cover the costs of the ongoing war in Iraq and operations in Afghanistan, in addition to other immediate concerns not addressed in the FY 08 omnibus appropriation. CRA has covered this issue in depth in this space.
Members of the science advocacy community, including CRA, are mounting a strong effort, with the support of some Congressional champions, to address the shortfall for science in FY 08 in the supplemental spending bill. As part of that effort, CRA will be participating in a large-scale, grassroots effort to weigh-in with individual members of Congress about the importance of including additional funding for key science agencies in the supplemental appropriation.
We are asking members of CRAN to call their representatives in the House, their two U.S. senators and the White House on Tuesday, April 8th; Wednesday, April 9th; or Thursday, April 10th to urge support for the inclusion of additional funding for the Department of Energy Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology in the FY 08 supplemental appropriations bill.
HOW?: Here’s a handy guide for the effort with all the details for your participation, including a simple script to use when calling. The point of this exercise is simply to register your opinion on this issue with your representatives in Congress and the White House. Calls to these offices are logged daily by issue and Members of Congress are influenced by call volumes in trying to decide how much an issue matters to their district. We expect significant participation from scientists and researchers across the disciplines — we want to make sure computing researchers are heard from, too.
So, please plan to call your representative, senators and the White House this Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday as part of this effort. While the attached indicates you can place the call to the district offices or your representatives’ DC offices, we’ve found through experience that a call to the DC office is more beneficial (more likely to be logged).
Phone numbers to use:
To call White House: (202) 456-1111
To call your Representative and Senators: Look up their contact info at Vote Smart
We’d also like to gauge our members participation, so please send us an e-mail when you call, letting us know who you called and whether you received any response. Please send the email to mnorr@cra.org.
Thanks again for your participation and support of computing research. Your effort will help convey to Congress and the Administration the breadth and depth of support for fully funding these key federal science agencies. Good luck with your calls!
To join the Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) and receive email alerts, please sign up here.
Reports of AP CS’ Demise are Greatly Exaggerated
/In: Computing Education, Misc. /by Peter HarshaToday’s Washington Post article on the College Board’s decision to stop administering certain Advanced Placement tests has been widely circulated — with some reasonable concern within the computing community. The article appears to suggest that computer science advanced placement tests are on the chopping block. However, that’s not quite an accurate picture. Fortunately, Cameron Wilson at CRA-affiliate ACM — which has become quite involved in the computing education space — has a more complete explanation on the Tech Policy Blog of what’s really going on and why it ultimately could/should be beneficial for the field.
AEA Cyberstates 2008 Report Released
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrWhile the economic news coming from most areas has been fairly poor in recent weeks, the American Electronics Association (AEA) Cyberstates 2008 report does have some good job news. Cyberstates 2008, which was released this week, showed job growth in technology and engineering of over 91,000 jobs in 2007. The news isnt all good, however, as that was down from over 130,000 jobs added in 2006.
AEA President Christopher Hansen told Congress Daily that The upside is that technology jobs pay considerably more than most other posts in the private sector and although the labor market remains tight, unemployment rates are below 2 percent across many tech occupations. The bad news, he told the publication, is The tech industry and the country risk an impending slide in U.S. global competitiveness, caused by negligence on the part of our political leaders to adequately invest in scientific research, improve our education system, and allow the best and brightest from around the world to work in the United States.
AEA has been a forceful voice, alongside CRA and the rest of the S&T community, calling for fully funding the America COMPETES Act in order to keep job growth in these sectors going and to increase the competitiveness of the US.
Highlights from the Cyber States 2008 report can be found here.
Microsoft-Intel Investment in University Research Motivated by DARPA’s Lack of Support
/In: Policy, R&D in the Press, Research /by Peter HarshaThe joint investment announced yesterday by Microsoft and Intel in two university research centers (one at Berkeley and one at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) in order to work on solving the challenges of multi-core computing is all over the news, but there’s an aspect of the story that’s been hasn’t been highlighted sufficiently. The NY Times’ John Markoff picked up on it, however:
[Dan Reed is also the current Chair of CRA.]
We’ve noted many, many times on this blog our concerns with policy changes at DARPA since about 2001 that have had the effect of pushing university researchers away from DARPA-sponsored research. As we wrote as recently as September 2007, shorter research horizons with an emphasis on go/no-go milestones at relatively short intervals and an increased use of classification at the agency has sharply reduced the amount of DARPA-supported research being performed in U.S. universities. In fact, between FY 2001 and FY 2004 (the last year for which we have good data), the amount of funding from DARPA to U.S. universities fell by half — and informal evidence suggests university shares are even lower today.
While it’s great news that two of the titans of the IT industry are stepping up to fill some of the gap left by DARPA’s withdrawal, their $20 million investment over 5 years represents just a tiny fraction of the DARPA shortfall. The difference in DARPA funding for university computer science between 2001 and 2004 was $91 million annually ($214 million in FY 01 to $123 million in FY 04 in unadjusted dollars), and anecdotal evidence suggests that shortfall may be even larger now. The Microsoft-Intel investment is a bold move and big commitment to address a key challenge in computer science that’s a primary concern for the two companies in the future. But it doesn’t represent a sustainable alternative to filling the hole left in the IT R&D portfolio created by DARPA’s absence.
DARPA has taken some steps to try to bring university researchers, especially younger faculty, back into the fold. In February, the agency also reorganized its IT office structure a bit — merging the Information Exploitation Office (IXO) with the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) to create a new Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) under former IPTO Deputy Chuck Morefield. There’s some indication that the office will have a technology focus (which suggests a research emphasis) in addition to a systems focus (which suggests a development-oriented emphasis), so there may be increased opportunities for university researchers to participate in DARPA-sponsored work.
We hope so, because while it’s great to see the IT industry step up and make some commitments to university-led research, the country (and the DOD, and the world) is probably better served by a DARPA that’s re-engaged with the university research community, supporting long-term, DARPA-hard research at a range of institutions on some of the grand challenges in computing….