The National Science Board released the 2008 Science and Engineering Indicators today at an event on Capitol Hill. Board Chair Steven Beering, Subcommittee Chair Louis Lanzerotti, and Arthur Reilly presented the Science and Engineering Indicators, the Digest of Key S&E Indicators, and a companion policy recommendation document, Research and Development: Essential Foundation for US Competitiveness in a Global Economy. Dr. Arden Bement and Dr. Kathie Olsen also attended the event and participated in the Q&A session at the end.
While the entire document can be found online, the event highlighted some specific findings of the 2008 S&E Indicators, including:
world science and engineering activities are shifting from the US and Europe, the traditional leaders, to Asia.
US share of high tech manufacturing has stayed above 30 percent over the last twenty years
Two-thirds of US R&D funding comes from industry and only 28 percent is from the federal government
2007 had a major downward curve in constant dollars of federal support for academic research
Defense research, mostly development, accounts for over half of all federal R&D
Chinas PhD attainment is on a steep up curve but is still significantly below the US
There has been an increase in S&E bachelors degrees in the US in all fields EXCEPT computing
Most foreign born PhD candidates in the US plan to stay in the US
80 percent of the public supports federal funding of basic research and 40 percent believe there is too little federal funding of basic research
The policy companion piece includes three broad recommendations. They are:
The federal government should take action to enhance the level of funding for, and the transformational nature of, basic research
Industry, government, the academic sector, and professional organizations should take action to encourage greater intellectual interchange between industry and academia. Industry researchers should also be encouraged to participate as authors and reviewers for articles in open, peer-reviewed publications.
New data are critically needed to track the implications for the US economy of the globalization of manufacturing and services in high technology industries, and this need should be addressed expeditiously by relevant federal agencies.
During the Q&A, Bement said that investment in basic research drives the economy and that it is not just dollars but also talent. In response to a question about why students would go into science and engineering instead of fields with better job prospects, Olsen said that the data found that demand for science and engineering majors in industry is increasing but students dont realize the options that are out there for a science or engineering degree.
There’s an interesting piece running now in BusinessWeek by Microsoft Researcher Bill Buxton that capitalizes on the buzz around the concept of the “long tail” in business by arguing that there’s an equally important “long nose” in business innovation that represents the long period of research and development that’s required to bring innovative products to market. Here’s a snip:
My belief is there is a mirror-image of the long tail that is equally important to those wanting to understand the process of innovation. It states that the bulk of innovation behind the latest “wow” moment (multi-touch on the iPhone, for example) is also low-amplitude and takes place over a long periodbut well before the “new” idea has become generally known, much less reached the tipping point. It is what I call The Long Nose of Innovation.
It’s a great article and certainly worth reading in full.
In the piece, he mentions a chart Butler Lampson presented to the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council that traced the history of a number of key technologies. That’s this chart (frequently referred to as the “tire tracks” chart, for reasons that should be apparent). The chart originally appeared in a 1995 CSTB report, in which the CSTB had identified 9 billion-dollar sectors in the IT economy that bore the stamp of federally-supported research. They revised the chart in 2003 and identified 10 more sectors. I’m guessing that if they revised it again today (and I understand they are), you could at add least three more billion-dollar sectors — “Search,” “Social Networks,” and “Digital Video” — all enabled in some way by long-term research, usually supported by the federal government … exactly the type of long-term research that got hit hardest in this year’s appropriationsdebacle.
(Ed Lazowska’s testimony before the House Government Reform committee in 2004 contains an extended riff on the chart — how it shows the complex interplay between federally-supported university-based research and industrial R&D efforts; how industry based R&D is a fundamentally different character than university-based R&D; how the chart illustrates how interdependent the IT R&D ecosystem really is; and how university-based research produces not just ideas, but people, too. It’s all under the section titled “The Ecosystem that Gives Birth to New Technologies,” though the whole testimony is certainly worth a read, too.)
The FY08 omnibus appropriations bill that Congress is considering represents a step backwards for the bipartisan innovation agenda. The President and Congress, for all their stated support this year for making basic research in the physical sciences and engineering a top budget priority ended up essentially cutting, or flat-funding, key science agencies after accounting for inflation.
The nations that seek to challenge our global leadership in science and innovation should be greatly encouraged by this legislation.
The President and a near-unanimous Congress, by enacting the America COMPETES Act earlier this year, laid out a bold path toward revitalizing basic research in the physical sciences and engineering. COMPETES was a welcome Congressional initiative to double funding for Americas science research programs and expand science education that complemented the Presidents American Competitiveness Initiative and the Democratic Innovation Agenda.
This appropriations legislation takes a step back from the promises contained in all of these initiatives.
The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation is hopeful that this reversal of direction does not represent a lack of commitment to turning around the nations long decline in support for basic research programs. For now, the failure to provide the funding required to begin growing these programs makes these promises little more than empty gestures. We intend to work with the Administration and Congress in the new year to make the promise of America COMPETES a reality.
Strong words from an organization consisting of some of the most important technology companies and organizations on the planet.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out some interesting statistics. Late last summer, 367 members of the House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 2272, The America COMPETES Act, which we celebrated and covered in great detail. It was an unequivocal demonstration of support for strengthening the federal investment in basic research in the physical sciences, computing, mathematics and engineering and the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Of those 367 members who voted for the COMPETES Act, 244 voted for this omnibus bill — a bill which represents a nearly 180 degree reversal from the goals of COMPETES. 206 Democrats, 38 Republicans.
Now there were clearly other possible reasons for voting for the omnibus, including a deluge of earmarks in the bill. But the fact remains that support for science ceased to be a priority for those 244 members — including quite a few who probably should have had science ranked high on their personal lists. As we now start to think about the FY 09 appropriations process, certainly it will be worth checking in with those members to understand the dissonance in their positions. (See the extended entry for the full list….)
Update: (12/17/07 1:30 pm) — It appears this bill is even worse than we initially thought. It turns out that the 3.3 percent increase for NSF’s research accounts (“Research and Related Activities”) is artificially inflated by some bookkeeping — namely the shifting of the EPSCoR program from the Education and Human Resources directorate to R&RA. Taking that shift into account, there’s really only $57 million in “new” funding in the R&RA account — a terribly anemic 1.2 percent increase for the research portion of the only federal agency devoted to supporting basic research. When you factor in inflation, that 1.2 percent really represents a cut — and a complete reversal of the goals of the ACI, the COMPETES Act, and the innovation plans so touted by the congressional leadership….. Original Post: Having gotten a peek at the final details for what will end up in the omnibus appropriations bill the House will consider Tuesday, I’m a bit dismayed at the choices that have been made. (Congressional Quarterly has the details; unfortunately, you’ll need a subscription to access them. The House Rules Committee has the text of the agreement online now.)
Those who have been following the saga that is the FY 08 appropriations process will recall that the total spending in the appropriations bills left unfinished by Congress (which included everything but Defense) exceeded the President’s budget request by $23 billion, a figure that brought out the President’s veto threat. The Democratic leadership tried to assess that threat by passing a Labor/HHS/Education bill they knew he would veto. When he vetoed it and the Congress failed to override it, it was clear who held the power in the negotiation. So, realizing they didn’t have the leverage they needed, the Democratic leadership began to cut back. They attempted to meet the President halfway with an omnibus that proposed an $11 billion cap overrun, but when they couldn’t peel off enough GOP members to override any potential veto, they caved completely, agreeing to live within the President’s budget cap for all the unfinished appropriations bills.
Unfortunately for the National Science Foundation and National Institute for Standards and Technology — two agencies that had been at the focal point of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative and the Democratic Innovation Agenda — living under the cap meant that other programs within the omnibus received higher priorities and the planned increases for those two science agencies were cut sharply.
NSF, which under the House and Senate appropriations plans approvedearlier in the year would have received either a 10 or 11 percent increase (respectively) over FY 07, will instead receive just 2.5 percent vs. FY 07 in the new omnibus. NSF’s R&RA account (which funds the research directorates) will see just a 3.3 percent increase over FY 07 (instead of a planned 10.5 percent increase), should the omnibus pass.
NIST’s research efforts, which had been slated to grow over 15 percent vs. FY 07 in the House and Senate bills, will instead see that planned increase drop to just 1.4 percent over FY 07, should the bill pass.
DOE Office of Science fares a bit better — and DOE-related computing research comes out even further ahead in the deal. The Office of Science would have grown over 18 percent vs. FY 07 in the earlier House and Senate plans, but the new agreement will reduce that rate of increase to a still-respectable 6.8 percent. Advanced Scientific Computing Research, which had been slated to grow about 20 percent over FY07, would actually see *more* money in the new agreement — a growth of 25 percent over FY 07. Included in the increase is $19.5 million to “continue the Department’s participation in the [DARPA] High Productivity Computing Systems partnership” and an increase of $7.7 million for Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility to “maintain the planned budget and cost schedule.”
The agreement also includes details of an additional effort:
The Office of Science and the [NNSA] are directed to establish the Institute for Advanced Architectures and Algorithms with Centers of Excellence at Sandia National Labs and [ORNL]. These Centers will execute a national program involving industry, universities and national laboratories that is focused on technologies to sustain the U.S. leadership in high performance computing. The NNSA ASC and Office of Science ASCR programs will jointly fund the program and provide direction needed to support the goal of developing exascale computing for the Nation.
So, the House is set to begin consideration of the bill Tuesday. The Senate will get it as soon as the House passes it. It’s not clear whether the President will sign. There’s a core of the House GOP leadership that’s still not content with the limited spending in the omnibus. They’re leading an effort to push for a “Continuing Resolution” for FY 2008 (funding all agencies at their FY 07 levels) instead of the omnibus as a way of holding an even sharper line on spending. I suppose it’s possible that the President could veto the omnibus , and he could cite a lot of reasons — runaway earmarks, poor prioritization by congressional Democrats, the gutting of ACI — and the House GOP could force a CR by sustaining the veto. In that case, it would behoove the science advocacy community to push hard for special consideration of ACI-related agencies, as happened under the last CR. And it’s not implausible that GOP hard-liners might support it — after all, the real point of the CR would be to put a hold on earmarks. The science increases are, in fact, in the President’s budget.
But barring that somewhat unlikely chain of events — Presidential veto -> House GOP uphold veto and force CR -> CR favors ACI-related agencies — the ACI-related increases we’d hoped for at NSF and NIST appear to be lost. It’s hard not look for those to blame. The Democratic leadership is certainly open to some criticism for these numbers. When push came to shove and they were forced to live within the President’s budget constraints, the leadership didn’t feel that preserving the increases for science funding rose to a high enough priority in the face of other increases for programs and earmarks elsewhere in the omnibus. At the same time, the inability to put together appropriations bills that could garner enough support to pass with sufficient support isn’t unique to their leadership. You’ll recall the FY 07 appropriations process, managed by the GOP, also melted down in spectacular fashion.
In any case, this is a very disappointing development. Failing to get this bipartisan priority (President’s ACI, Democratic Innovation Agenda) funded — essentially abandoning science when it counted — only puts at risk our long-term competitiveness. It’s especially disappointing when one considers how many voices from all sides of the political spectrum have weighed in in support bolstering federal science funding, when the Administration has seen fit to make it a Presidential priority, and when Congress has emphasized its commitment with the passage of a landmark competitiveness bill in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion.
So, it’s hard to imagine what else can be done. The debate over funding for FY 08 is much much larger than science funding. The issues that led to the meltdown are heavily political and have considerations that outweigh anything the science community could bring to the table. But, this is certainly a step back, I think, from science’s standing in the Congress at the beginning of this year, when it was granted special status in the CR for FY 07.
Though it certainly gives us a rallying cry for FY 09.
We’ll have more details as the omnibus moves forward and a final breakdown of the agency-by-agency numbers when they’re passed.
The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, of which CRA is a very active member, hosted another successful competitiveness briefing on Capitol Hill today. A full room heard from Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), an introduction by the president of the National Academy of EngineeringDr. Charles Vest, and a keynote address by Norm Augustine. Also, in attendance was Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) who has backed the issue of increased basic research funding since before the “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report was released.
Senator Bingaman echoed Dr. Vest when he said that the difficult work was still ahead because the current appropriations meltdown. He also said that the efforts of competitiveness were a long-term project. Senator Alexander said that it was important to continue to broaden the base of support for competitiveness issues in Congress but that it would be a mistake to think this issue was solely the responsibility of Congress. He said that everyone needs to be involved in order to keep America competitive.
Norm Augustine, who in addition to chairing the National Academies panel that produced the hugely influential “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report and has since chaired a follow-up called Is America Falling off the Flat Earth?, pointed out that while great progress was made toward funding basic research in the FY07 appropriations, sustaining the momentum of increases in FY08 was critical. He said, Leadership in science and technology is not a birthright of the United States but is something that needs to be fought for and won every day. An interesting statistic that he used was that two-thirds of the increased labor productivity over the last several decades was contributable to federal investment in research.
The event ended with a screening of the Task Force YouTube contest winning video that weve previously mentioned here.
The new Bureau of Labor Statisticslabor projections are out for the 2006-2016 period, and once again, despite concerns over the impact of globalization, computing-related occupations are still projected to grow the quickest among all “professional and related occupations.” According to BLS projections, computer and mathematical science occupations are expected to grow by about 24 percent over the next decade, a rate that would add 822,000 new jobs to the field. Those 822,000 new jobs are third only to “Health care practitioners and technical occupations” (1,423,000 new jobs, a 19.8 percent growth rate) and “Education, training and library” occupations (1,265,000 new jobs, a 14 percent growth rate).
The Labor Department projections found that even though the growth rate for computer and mathematical science occupations has slowed compared to the previous decade — as the industry matures and “routine work is outsourced overseas” — strong growth in other aspects of computing will continue to create increasing opportunities in the field.
Computer and mathematical science occupations are projected to add 822,000 jobsat 24.8 percent, the fastest growth among the eight professional subgroups. The demand for computer-related occupations will increase in almost all industries as organizations continue to adopt and integrate increasingly sophisticated and complex technologies. Growth will not be as rapid as during the previous decade, however, as the software industry begins to mature and as routine work is outsourced overseas. About 291,000or 35 percentof all new computer and mathematical science jobs are anticipated to be in the computer systems design and related services industry. The management, scientific, and technical consulting services industry is projected to add another 86,000 computer and mathematical science jobs. This expected 93-percent increase is due to the growing need for consultants to handle issues such as computer network security. Self-employment among computer and mathematical workers is anticipated to increase 19 percent, with most growth appearing among network systems and data communications analysts.
The report projects that, of the six occupations that will be among the fastest growing and register the largest numerical growth, three will be computing related occupations:
Computer software engineers, application;
Computer systems analysts;
and Network systems and data communication analysts.
(The other three are “Home health aides,” “Medical assistants,” and “Personal and home care aides.”)
You can view most of the detail, including information about the methodology used, in the article titled, “Occupational employment projections to 2016” (pdf). The Monthly Labor Review Online has additional articles covering all aspects of the BLS’ employment outlook.
Projections are notoriously difficult to get right, obviously, but it’s encouraging to see that the opportunity that we in the community see in the field (that often runs counter to the *perceptions* of the field) appears to be echoed in these projections.
We’ll have much more detail as we dig into the articles and data a bit more, so stay tuned…. Update: (12/7/2007) — Here’s one interesting cut of the data showing how the computer science job projections compare to the other science and engineering disciplines. (This is also a good excuse for me to try out Google’s new Charts API.)
A Washington Postarticle today talks about the first petascale supercomputers expected to come online next year. The article points out the vast areas of other fields, which are assisted by computing at such a large scale including geography, medicine, and even financial markets. Heres a sample:
The first “petascale” supercomputer will be capable of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. That’s about twice as powerful as today’s dominant model, a basketball-court-size beast known as BlueGene/L at the Energy Department’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California that performs a peak of 596 trillion calculations per second.
The computing muscle of the new petascale machines will be akin to that of more than 100,000 desktop computers combined, experts say. A computation that would take a lifetime for a home PC and that can be completed in about five hours on today’s supercomputers will be doable in as little as two hours.
“The difficulty in building the machines is tremendous, and the amount of power these machines require is pretty mind-boggling,” said Mark Seager, assistant department head for advanced computing technology at Lawrence Livermore. “But the scientific results that we can get out of them are also mind-boggling and worth every penny and every megawatt it takes to build them.”
An interesting read and definitely worth checking out.
As NSFs Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) program heads toward its first deadline, the program staff will be launching a web cast on how to take advantage of this new cross-cutting funding initiative. The web cast will be held live on Thursday, November 29 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and program managers will be taking questions after a presentation on the program.
CDI is a five year initiative to fund research that uses computational thinking across all disciplines. The program includes all NSF Directorates and is focused on three theme areas: From Data to Knowledge; Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social Systems; and Building Virtual Organizations. The first deadline for letters of intent is November 30 and the first proposal deadline is January 8, 2008.
On Tuesday (Nov. 13th), the President signed the FY 2008 Defense Appropriations conference report, making that bill the first of the twelve FY 08 appropriations bills necessary to fund the continued operation of government to grind its way through to passage (it’s now P.L. 110-116). The Defense bill includes just over $77 billion in funding for Defense Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation (RDT&E), an increase of 2.0 percent over FY 07 and 2.9 percent above the President’s requested level for FY 08. Included within that RDT&E account are pretty substantial increases over the President’s request for basic and applied research efforts in some areas of interest to the computing community — and more modest growth in others. At the same time, overall funding for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will see a decline in FY 08 vs both the President’s request and the FY 07 level.
We’ve whipped up a handy chart to show some of the detail for selected basic (6.1) and applied (6.2) research accounts. While the chart tells much of the story, it doesn’t explain everything going on with funding. For that, your best bet is to take a look at the conference report itself (pdf). The section of interest is “Title IV. Research, Development, Test and Evaluation,” that begins on page 243 of the PDF. It details the program level changes to each line item for the Army, Navy, Air Force and “Defense-wide” programs. It’s a lot to digest.
In general, what our chart above shows is that the research programs of note in the service labs got more than they asked for in FY 08, but that the defense-wide accounts (primarily DARPA) didn’t do quite as well. When you compare the funding levels to FY 07, the gains aren’t as significant (generally). But there’s a bit of a budget game going on here that tends to obfuscate actual gains and losses in each account. [Warning: budget wonkery follows.] As readers of this blog probably already know, the FY 07 level represents the funding level after Congress finished its work on last year’s DOD appropriations bill. The FY 07 final number represented an increase in most accounts over the President’s budget request for FY 07. The Administration labels most of those increases “earmarks,” especially if those increases are targeted to very specific programs or performers. When the President prepares his budget request for the next year (in this case, FY 08), he strips out as many of those “earmarks” as he can justify. This is why the defense request always seems like a cut compared to final enacted level for the previous year. As the request works its way through the appropriations process, the cycle repeats and much of that funding gets added back in by Congress, making it appear that there are increases in those accounts. And indeed there are…it’s just that many of those increases probably are earmarks for very specific programs or performers.
So, while these increases look pretty healthy when compared to the President’s budget request (shorn of earmarks, as it was) — and we certainly like to see more money in these accounts — ideally, we’d like to see those increases in the form of additional money for competitive, merit-based research funding. At this point, it’s tough to tell how much of these increases fit that description, at least in the 6.2 accounts. In the 6.1 accounts, it’s reasonable to assume that much of the increases found in the bill represent additional competitive funding.
One change to the appropriations bills this year has made it a bit easier to see who to credit for some of the increases to defense basic research accounts. New rules on transparency in the Senate mean that every change to the budget estimate called for in the bill gets credited to someone, so you can see who requested it in the Senate committee report. So, for example, we know that we owe thanks for the non-earmarked increases to the University Research Initiatives in the bill to Sens. Bayh (D-IN), Clinton (D-NY), Collins (R-ME), Johnson (D-SD), Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA), Levin (D-MI), Leiberman (D-CT), Pryor (D-AR) and Stabenow (D-MI). Hopefully the House Appropriations Committee will follow through with “Requested by” language in their future bills. [end of budget wonkery]
Two accounts that don’t seem to fare particularly well in the bill are DARPA IT accounts — the Defense-wide Information and Communications Technology program (which will see a decline of 1.3 percent, about $3 million, vs. FY 07) and Cognitive Computing (which will see a decline of about 2.7 percent, or $4.9 million) in FY 08. As you can see in the chart, compared to the President’s budget request, ICT will increase slightly (0.9 percent, or $2.1 million), and Cognitive Computing will decline slightly (2.2 percent, or $3.9 million). Much of the reason for this decline is attributed to an “execution adjustment” by the appropriations committees. In other words, DARPA wasn’t spending the money it had previously been appropriated in a timely enough fashion, so the appropriators adopted a “use it or lose it” mindset and “reclaimed” that money for other accounts in the bill.
This is the same reasoning for much of the overall cut to DARPA in the bill. DARPA will see a decrease of $135 million vs. FY 07, or about 4.3 percent less in FY 08. Compared to the President’s request for FY 08, the agency will see a $106 million cut, or 3.4 percent. The appropriators and the DARPA leadership are of two minds on the reasons for slow spend-out rate for some DARPA programs. The DARPA leadership contends it’s acting as a good steward of taxpayer dollars, only paying grant-recipients when key milestones are met. However, the appropriators (and some on the Armed Services Committees, as well), contend that what’s really happening is a bottleneck in the Director’s office — that micromanagement of programs is slowing execution. Regardless of the actual cause, the fact remains that DARPA isn’t spending all the money it’s been appropriated and so the appropriators — who control the purse strings — have adjusted DARPA’s budget accordingly.
With the Defense bill finished, Congress is left with 11 bills to complete before closing the book on FY 2008. Only one other bill, the Labor/HHS/Ed appropriations, has been sent to the President, and it was promptly vetoed (a veto subsequently upheld, just barely, in the House). The Labor/HHS/Ed bill, which includes funding for the National Insitutes of Health and the Department of Education, came in about $9.8 billion over the President’s desired “cap” for the bill, earning his veto, and Congressional Democrats weren’t able to entice enough Republican members to vote to override (they fell 2 votes short in the House). The Democratic leadership figures to attempt to meet the President “halfway” with an omnibus package of unfinished bills before the year’s end, but it’s not clear whether they’ll get sufficient Republican support to force a compromise. It’s also not clear what a “halfway” package might mean for the hard-won gains for science contained in some of the unfinished bills, including the Commerce, Science, Justice bill (House / Senate).
Congress has until December 14th before it will have to pass yet another stopgap spending bill to keep the government operating (the Defense Approps bill included a “continuing resolution” to keep government operating without additional appropriations through Dec 14th — the FY 08 fiscal year began Oct 1, 2007.) Whether they manage a compromise by then is anyone’s guess, but the consensus around town is a deal is likely by Christmas. And when it happens, we’ll have all the detail here.
Computing pioneer Jim Gray, who went missing at sea January 28, 2007, and has not been found, will be honored with a tribute at U.C. Berkeley on March May 31, 2008. The tribute will have both a general session and a technical session. The technical session will feature presentations on a range of research areas important to Jim. The general session will focus on understanding Jim’s impact on the field and on the community — from his impact on Berkeley, his role as a mentor to colleagues, faculty and students, to his contributions to industry and to science. See the tribute home page for details of all the speakers.
Though the search for Jim Gray brought together an incredible array of people and technology — almost all inspired by Jim or his work — unfortunately he remains missing. After more than a year without him, this tribute seems like an appropriate way to honor and remember what Jim means to the discipline and to the community of science.
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NSB Releases 2008 S&E Indicators
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, Policy, Research /by MelissaNorrThe National Science Board released the 2008 Science and Engineering Indicators today at an event on Capitol Hill. Board Chair Steven Beering, Subcommittee Chair Louis Lanzerotti, and Arthur Reilly presented the Science and Engineering Indicators, the Digest of Key S&E Indicators, and a companion policy recommendation document, Research and Development: Essential Foundation for US Competitiveness in a Global Economy. Dr. Arden Bement and Dr. Kathie Olsen also attended the event and participated in the Q&A session at the end.
While the entire document can be found online, the event highlighted some specific findings of the 2008 S&E Indicators, including:
The policy companion piece includes three broad recommendations. They are:
During the Q&A, Bement said that investment in basic research drives the economy and that it is not just dollars but also talent. In response to a question about why students would go into science and engineering instead of fields with better job prospects, Olsen said that the data found that demand for science and engineering majors in industry is increasing but students dont realize the options that are out there for a science or engineering degree.
The Long Nose of Innovation
/In: Funding, FY08 Appropriations, Policy, R&D in the Press, Research /by Peter HarshaThere’s an interesting piece running now in BusinessWeek by Microsoft Researcher Bill Buxton that capitalizes on the buzz around the concept of the “long tail” in business by arguing that there’s an equally important “long nose” in business innovation that represents the long period of research and development that’s required to bring innovative products to market. Here’s a snip:
It’s a great article and certainly worth reading in full.
In the piece, he mentions a chart Butler Lampson presented to the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council that traced the history of a number of key technologies. That’s this chart (frequently referred to as the “tire tracks” chart, for reasons that should be apparent). The chart originally appeared in a 1995 CSTB report, in which the CSTB had identified 9 billion-dollar sectors in the IT economy that bore the stamp of federally-supported research. They revised the chart in 2003 and identified 10 more sectors. I’m guessing that if they revised it again today (and I understand they are), you could at add least three more billion-dollar sectors — “Search,” “Social Networks,” and “Digital Video” — all enabled in some way by long-term research, usually supported by the federal government … exactly the type of long-term research that got hit hardest in this year’s appropriations debacle.
(Ed Lazowska’s testimony before the House Government Reform committee in 2004 contains an extended riff on the chart — how it shows the complex interplay between federally-supported university-based research and industrial R&D efforts; how industry based R&D is a fundamentally different character than university-based R&D; how the chart illustrates how interdependent the IT R&D ecosystem really is; and how university-based research produces not just ideas, but people, too. It’s all under the section titled “The Ecosystem that Gives Birth to New Technologies,” though the whole testimony is certainly worth a read, too.)
More On the Awful Omnibus
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaCameron Wilson at USACM’s Technology Policy Blog has a great dissection of the FY2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill in which Congress managed to reverse two years worth of positive efforts in science and innovation funding policy. His piece is titled “Congress Abandons Commitment to Basic Research; Puts NIST in the Construction Business” and it’s a must read.
Also, the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation (of which CRA is a member) released a statement today expressing grave disappointment in the appropriations outcome. Since it’s not yet posted on the Task Force website, I’ll quote it here:
Strong words from an organization consisting of some of the most important technology companies and organizations on the planet.
Finally, it’s worth pointing out some interesting statistics. Late last summer, 367 members of the House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 2272, The America COMPETES Act, which we celebrated and covered in great detail. It was an unequivocal demonstration of support for strengthening the federal investment in basic research in the physical sciences, computing, mathematics and engineering and the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Of those 367 members who voted for the COMPETES Act, 244 voted for this omnibus bill — a bill which represents a nearly 180 degree reversal from the goals of COMPETES. 206 Democrats, 38 Republicans.
Now there were clearly other possible reasons for voting for the omnibus, including a deluge of earmarks in the bill. But the fact remains that support for science ceased to be a priority for those 244 members — including quite a few who probably should have had science ranked high on their personal lists. As we now start to think about the FY 09 appropriations process, certainly it will be worth checking in with those members to understand the dissonance in their positions. (See the extended entry for the full list….)
Read more →
NSF, NIST Lose Out in Final (?) Omnibus
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaUpdate: (12/17/07 1:30 pm) — It appears this bill is even worse than we initially thought. It turns out that the 3.3 percent increase for NSF’s research accounts (“Research and Related Activities”) is artificially inflated by some bookkeeping — namely the shifting of the EPSCoR program from the Education and Human Resources directorate to R&RA. Taking that shift into account, there’s really only $57 million in “new” funding in the R&RA account — a terribly anemic 1.2 percent increase for the research portion of the only federal agency devoted to supporting basic research. When you factor in inflation, that 1.2 percent really represents a cut — and a complete reversal of the goals of the ACI, the COMPETES Act, and the innovation plans so touted by the congressional leadership…..
Original Post: Having gotten a peek at the final details for what will end up in the omnibus appropriations bill the House will consider Tuesday, I’m a bit dismayed at the choices that have been made. (
Congressional Quarterly has the details; unfortunately, you’ll need a subscription to access them.The House Rules Committee has the text of the agreement online now.)Those who have been following the saga that is the FY 08 appropriations process will recall that the total spending in the appropriations bills left unfinished by Congress (which included everything but Defense) exceeded the President’s budget request by $23 billion, a figure that brought out the President’s veto threat. The Democratic leadership tried to assess that threat by passing a Labor/HHS/Education bill they knew he would veto. When he vetoed it and the Congress failed to override it, it was clear who held the power in the negotiation. So, realizing they didn’t have the leverage they needed, the Democratic leadership began to cut back. They attempted to meet the President halfway with an omnibus that proposed an $11 billion cap overrun, but when they couldn’t peel off enough GOP members to override any potential veto, they caved completely, agreeing to live within the President’s budget cap for all the unfinished appropriations bills.
Unfortunately for the National Science Foundation and National Institute for Standards and Technology — two agencies that had been at the focal point of the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative and the Democratic Innovation Agenda — living under the cap meant that other programs within the omnibus received higher priorities and the planned increases for those two science agencies were cut sharply.
NSF, which under the House and Senate appropriations plans approved earlier in the year would have received either a 10 or 11 percent increase (respectively) over FY 07, will instead receive just 2.5 percent vs. FY 07 in the new omnibus. NSF’s R&RA account (which funds the research directorates) will see just a 3.3 percent increase over FY 07 (instead of a planned 10.5 percent increase), should the omnibus pass.
NIST’s research efforts, which had been slated to grow over 15 percent vs. FY 07 in the House and Senate bills, will instead see that planned increase drop to just 1.4 percent over FY 07, should the bill pass.
DOE Office of Science fares a bit better — and DOE-related computing research comes out even further ahead in the deal. The Office of Science would have grown over 18 percent vs. FY 07 in the earlier House and Senate plans, but the new agreement will reduce that rate of increase to a still-respectable 6.8 percent. Advanced Scientific Computing Research, which had been slated to grow about 20 percent over FY07, would actually see *more* money in the new agreement — a growth of 25 percent over FY 07. Included in the increase is $19.5 million to “continue the Department’s participation in the [DARPA] High Productivity Computing Systems partnership” and an increase of $7.7 million for Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility to “maintain the planned budget and cost schedule.”
The agreement also includes details of an additional effort:
So, the House is set to begin consideration of the bill Tuesday. The Senate will get it as soon as the House passes it. It’s not clear whether the President will sign. There’s a core of the House GOP leadership that’s still not content with the limited spending in the omnibus. They’re leading an effort to push for a “Continuing Resolution” for FY 2008 (funding all agencies at their FY 07 levels) instead of the omnibus as a way of holding an even sharper line on spending. I suppose it’s possible that the President could veto the omnibus , and he could cite a lot of reasons — runaway earmarks, poor prioritization by congressional Democrats, the gutting of ACI — and the House GOP could force a CR by sustaining the veto. In that case, it would behoove the science advocacy community to push hard for special consideration of ACI-related agencies, as happened under the last CR. And it’s not implausible that GOP hard-liners might support it — after all, the real point of the CR would be to put a hold on earmarks. The science increases are, in fact, in the President’s budget.
But barring that somewhat unlikely chain of events — Presidential veto -> House GOP uphold veto and force CR -> CR favors ACI-related agencies — the ACI-related increases we’d hoped for at NSF and NIST appear to be lost. It’s hard not look for those to blame. The Democratic leadership is certainly open to some criticism for these numbers. When push came to shove and they were forced to live within the President’s budget constraints, the leadership didn’t feel that preserving the increases for science funding rose to a high enough priority in the face of other increases for programs and earmarks elsewhere in the omnibus. At the same time, the inability to put together appropriations bills that could garner enough support to pass with sufficient support isn’t unique to their leadership. You’ll recall the FY 07 appropriations process, managed by the GOP, also melted down in spectacular fashion.
In any case, this is a very disappointing development. Failing to get this bipartisan priority (President’s ACI, Democratic Innovation Agenda) funded — essentially abandoning science when it counted — only puts at risk our long-term competitiveness. It’s especially disappointing when one considers how many voices from all sides of the political spectrum have weighed in in support bolstering federal science funding, when the Administration has seen fit to make it a Presidential priority, and when Congress has emphasized its commitment with the passage of a landmark competitiveness bill in overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion.
So, it’s hard to imagine what else can be done. The debate over funding for FY 08 is much much larger than science funding. The issues that led to the meltdown are heavily political and have considerations that outweigh anything the science community could bring to the table. But, this is certainly a step back, I think, from science’s standing in the Congress at the beginning of this year, when it was granted special status in the CR for FY 07.
Though it certainly gives us a rallying cry for FY 09.
We’ll have more details as the omnibus moves forward and a final breakdown of the agency-by-agency numbers when they’re passed.
Task Force Competitiveness Briefing
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, FY08 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrThe Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, of which CRA is a very active member, hosted another successful competitiveness briefing on Capitol Hill today. A full room heard from Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), an introduction by the president of the National Academy of Engineering Dr. Charles Vest, and a keynote address by Norm Augustine. Also, in attendance was Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) who has backed the issue of increased basic research funding since before the “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report was released.
Senator Bingaman echoed Dr. Vest when he said that the difficult work was still ahead because the current appropriations meltdown. He also said that the efforts of competitiveness were a long-term project. Senator Alexander said that it was important to continue to broaden the base of support for competitiveness issues in Congress but that it would be a mistake to think this issue was solely the responsibility of Congress. He said that everyone needs to be involved in order to keep America competitive.
Norm Augustine, who in addition to chairing the National Academies panel that produced the hugely influential “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” report and has since chaired a follow-up called Is America Falling off the Flat Earth?, pointed out that while great progress was made toward funding basic research in the FY07 appropriations, sustaining the momentum of increases in FY08 was critical. He said, Leadership in science and technology is not a birthright of the United States but is something that needs to be fought for and won every day. An interesting statistic that he used was that two-thirds of the increased labor productivity over the last several decades was contributable to federal investment in research.
The event ended with a screening of the Task Force YouTube contest winning video that weve previously mentioned here.
Computer and Mathematical Science Occupations Expected to Grow Quickest Over the Next Decade
/In: People /by Peter HarshaThe new Bureau of Labor Statistics labor projections are out for the 2006-2016 period, and once again, despite concerns over the impact of globalization, computing-related occupations are still projected to grow the quickest among all “professional and related occupations.” According to BLS projections, computer and mathematical science occupations are expected to grow by about 24 percent over the next decade, a rate that would add 822,000 new jobs to the field. Those 822,000 new jobs are third only to “Health care practitioners and technical occupations” (1,423,000 new jobs, a 19.8 percent growth rate) and “Education, training and library” occupations (1,265,000 new jobs, a 14 percent growth rate).
The Labor Department projections found that even though the growth rate for computer and mathematical science occupations has slowed compared to the previous decade — as the industry matures and “routine work is outsourced overseas” — strong growth in other aspects of computing will continue to create increasing opportunities in the field.
The report projects that, of the six occupations that will be among the fastest growing and register the largest numerical growth, three will be computing related occupations:
(The other three are “Home health aides,” “Medical assistants,” and “Personal and home care aides.”)
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You can view most of the detail, including information about the methodology used, in the article titled, “Occupational employment projections to 2016” (pdf). The Monthly Labor Review Online has additional articles covering all aspects of the BLS’ employment outlook.
Projections are notoriously difficult to get right, obviously, but it’s encouraging to see that the opportunity that we in the community see in the field (that often runs counter to the *perceptions* of the field) appears to be echoed in these projections.
We’ll have much more detail as we dig into the articles and data a bit more, so stay tuned….
Update: (12/7/2007) — Here’s one interesting cut of the data showing how the computer science job projections compare to the other science and engineering disciplines. (This is also a good excuse for me to try out Google’s new Charts API.)
Supercomputing Boost Expected Online Next Year
/In: R&D in the Press, Research /by MelissaNorrA Washington Post article today talks about the first petascale supercomputers expected to come online next year. The article points out the vast areas of other fields, which are assisted by computing at such a large scale including geography, medicine, and even financial markets. Heres a sample:
An interesting read and definitely worth checking out.
Cyber Enabled Discovery and Innovation Web Cast
/In: Events, Funding, Research /by MelissaNorrAs NSFs Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) program heads toward its first deadline, the program staff will be launching a web cast on how to take advantage of this new cross-cutting funding initiative. The web cast will be held live on Thursday, November 29 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and program managers will be taking questions after a presentation on the program.
CDI is a five year initiative to fund research that uses computational thinking across all disciplines. The program includes all NSF Directorates and is focused on three theme areas: From Data to Knowledge; Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social Systems; and Building Virtual Organizations. The first deadline for letters of intent is November 30 and the first proposal deadline is January 8, 2008.
FY 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill Passed
/In: Funding, FY08 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaOn Tuesday (Nov. 13th), the President signed the FY 2008 Defense Appropriations conference report, making that bill the first of the twelve FY 08 appropriations bills necessary to fund the continued operation of government to grind its way through to passage (it’s now P.L. 110-116). The Defense bill includes just over $77 billion in funding for Defense Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation (RDT&E), an increase of 2.0 percent over FY 07 and 2.9 percent above the President’s requested level for FY 08. Included within that RDT&E account are pretty substantial increases over the President’s request for basic and applied research efforts in some areas of interest to the computing community — and more modest growth in others. At the same time, overall funding for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), will see a decline in FY 08 vs both the President’s request and the FY 07 level.
We’ve whipped up a handy chart to show some of the detail for selected basic (6.1) and applied (6.2) research accounts. While the chart tells much of the story, it doesn’t explain everything going on with funding. For that, your best bet is to take a look at the conference report itself (pdf). The section of interest is “Title IV. Research, Development, Test and Evaluation,” that begins on page 243 of the PDF. It details the program level changes to each line item for the Army, Navy, Air Force and “Defense-wide” programs. It’s a lot to digest.
In general, what our chart above shows is that the research programs of note in the service labs got more than they asked for in FY 08, but that the defense-wide accounts (primarily DARPA) didn’t do quite as well. When you compare the funding levels to FY 07, the gains aren’t as significant (generally). But there’s a bit of a budget game going on here that tends to obfuscate actual gains and losses in each account. [Warning: budget wonkery follows.] As readers of this blog probably already know, the FY 07 level represents the funding level after Congress finished its work on last year’s DOD appropriations bill. The FY 07 final number represented an increase in most accounts over the President’s budget request for FY 07. The Administration labels most of those increases “earmarks,” especially if those increases are targeted to very specific programs or performers. When the President prepares his budget request for the next year (in this case, FY 08), he strips out as many of those “earmarks” as he can justify. This is why the defense request always seems like a cut compared to final enacted level for the previous year. As the request works its way through the appropriations process, the cycle repeats and much of that funding gets added back in by Congress, making it appear that there are increases in those accounts. And indeed there are…it’s just that many of those increases probably are earmarks for very specific programs or performers.
So, while these increases look pretty healthy when compared to the President’s budget request (shorn of earmarks, as it was) — and we certainly like to see more money in these accounts — ideally, we’d like to see those increases in the form of additional money for competitive, merit-based research funding. At this point, it’s tough to tell how much of these increases fit that description, at least in the 6.2 accounts. In the 6.1 accounts, it’s reasonable to assume that much of the increases found in the bill represent additional competitive funding.
One change to the appropriations bills this year has made it a bit easier to see who to credit for some of the increases to defense basic research accounts. New rules on transparency in the Senate mean that every change to the budget estimate called for in the bill gets credited to someone, so you can see who requested it in the Senate committee report. So, for example, we know that we owe thanks for the non-earmarked increases to the University Research Initiatives in the bill to Sens. Bayh (D-IN), Clinton (D-NY), Collins (R-ME), Johnson (D-SD), Kennedy (D-MA), Kerry (D-MA), Levin (D-MI), Leiberman (D-CT), Pryor (D-AR) and Stabenow (D-MI). Hopefully the House Appropriations Committee will follow through with “Requested by” language in their future bills. [end of budget wonkery]
Two accounts that don’t seem to fare particularly well in the bill are DARPA IT accounts — the Defense-wide Information and Communications Technology program (which will see a decline of 1.3 percent, about $3 million, vs. FY 07) and Cognitive Computing (which will see a decline of about 2.7 percent, or $4.9 million) in FY 08. As you can see in the chart, compared to the President’s budget request, ICT will increase slightly (0.9 percent, or $2.1 million), and Cognitive Computing will decline slightly (2.2 percent, or $3.9 million). Much of the reason for this decline is attributed to an “execution adjustment” by the appropriations committees. In other words, DARPA wasn’t spending the money it had previously been appropriated in a timely enough fashion, so the appropriators adopted a “use it or lose it” mindset and “reclaimed” that money for other accounts in the bill.
This is the same reasoning for much of the overall cut to DARPA in the bill. DARPA will see a decrease of $135 million vs. FY 07, or about 4.3 percent less in FY 08. Compared to the President’s request for FY 08, the agency will see a $106 million cut, or 3.4 percent. The appropriators and the DARPA leadership are of two minds on the reasons for slow spend-out rate for some DARPA programs. The DARPA leadership contends it’s acting as a good steward of taxpayer dollars, only paying grant-recipients when key milestones are met. However, the appropriators (and some on the Armed Services Committees, as well), contend that what’s really happening is a bottleneck in the Director’s office — that micromanagement of programs is slowing execution. Regardless of the actual cause, the fact remains that DARPA isn’t spending all the money it’s been appropriated and so the appropriators — who control the purse strings — have adjusted DARPA’s budget accordingly.
With the Defense bill finished, Congress is left with 11 bills to complete before closing the book on FY 2008. Only one other bill, the Labor/HHS/Ed appropriations, has been sent to the President, and it was promptly vetoed (a veto subsequently upheld, just barely, in the House). The Labor/HHS/Ed bill, which includes funding for the National Insitutes of Health and the Department of Education, came in about $9.8 billion over the President’s desired “cap” for the bill, earning his veto, and Congressional Democrats weren’t able to entice enough Republican members to vote to override (they fell 2 votes short in the House). The Democratic leadership figures to attempt to meet the President “halfway” with an omnibus package of unfinished bills before the year’s end, but it’s not clear whether they’ll get sufficient Republican support to force a compromise. It’s also not clear what a “halfway” package might mean for the hard-won gains for science contained in some of the unfinished bills, including the Commerce, Science, Justice bill (House / Senate).
Congress has until December 14th before it will have to pass yet another stopgap spending bill to keep the government operating (the Defense Approps bill included a “continuing resolution” to keep government operating without additional appropriations through Dec 14th — the FY 08 fiscal year began Oct 1, 2007.) Whether they manage a compromise by then is anyone’s guess, but the consensus around town is a deal is likely by Christmas. And when it happens, we’ll have all the detail here.
Berkeley to Hold a Tribute to Jim Gray
/In: People /by Peter HarshaComputing pioneer Jim Gray, who went missing at sea January 28, 2007, and has not been found, will be honored with a tribute at U.C. Berkeley on
MarchMay 31, 2008. The tribute will have both a general session and a technical session. The technical session will feature presentations on a range of research areas important to Jim. The general session will focus on understanding Jim’s impact on the field and on the community — from his impact on Berkeley, his role as a mentor to colleagues, faculty and students, to his contributions to industry and to science. See the tribute home page for details of all the speakers.Though the search for Jim Gray brought together an incredible array of people and technology — almost all inspired by Jim or his work — unfortunately he remains missing. After more than a year without him, this tribute seems like an appropriate way to honor and remember what Jim means to the discipline and to the community of science.