The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday completed its markup of the FY 2006 Energy and Water Appropriation bill (HR 2419), which includes funding for the Department of Energy, approving increased funding for DOE’s Office of Science. The House bill would boost the Office of Science budget to $3.67 billion in FY 06, an increase of $66 million over FY 05, and $203 million more than the President requested in his FY 06 budget.
Included in the increase is a $14 million increase to the Advanced Scientific Computational Research program, bringing it to $246 million in FY 06, $39 million above the President’s request. Here is what the committee had to say about the program in the committee report accompanying the bill:
ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC COMPUTING RESEARCH
The Committee recommendation is $246,055,000, an increase of $39,000,000 over the budget request. The additional $39,000,000 is provided to support the Office of Science initiative to develop the hardware, software, and applied mathematics necessary for a leadership-class supercomputer to meet scientific computation needs; not more than $25,000,000 of this increase should be dedicated to hardware, and $9,000,000 of the total increase should be dedicated to competitive university research grants. The Committee is disappointed that the Department’s fiscal year 2006 budget request did not preserve the increases that Congress provided for this purpose during the past two fiscal years. Consistent with guidance provided in prior years, the Committee has chosen not to earmark these additional funds for a particular laboratory or a particular technology. However, the Committee expects the Department to make full use of the laboratory-industry capabilities that have already been selected competitively in previous years and not `reinvent the wheel’ each fiscal year.
This is the first good news for computing researchers in the FY 2006 appropriations cycle, coming after the House approved a slight cut to cyber security research efforts at the Department of Homeland Security.
The House is scheduled to consider the bill on the floor early next week. The Senate hasn’t yet begun work on its version of the bill. Fortunately, support for the Office of Science in the Senate appears pretty strong. A letter urging Senate Appropriators to approve a significant increase to the Office of Science (to $3.7 billion, slightly more than the House approved), received the endorsement of more than 2/3 of the members of the Senate, a strong symbolic show of support for the agency. We’ll keep you apprised of developments as the bill moves forward.
Retired Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, Norman Augustine, testified today before a House Committee on Education and Workforce hearing on “Challenges to American Competitiveness in Math and Science.” Augustine, who has also been the former Undersecretary of the Army and a past-chairman of the National Academies of Engineering, put together a great written statement from which I thought I’d cite some snippets.
In addressing the future quality of life in America one cannot help but notice warnings of what appears to be an impending Perfect Storm. The elements which underlie this possibility are, first, the pervading importance of education and research in the fields of science and technology to America’s standard of living, and the disrepair in which we find many of our efforts. Second, the precipitousness with which a lead in science and technology can be lost. Third, the prolonged period of time it takes to recover once a lead has in fact been lost, if indeed it can be regained at all.
…
What, then, must America do? There is but one answer: We must compete. And we must do so while suffering a disadvantage in the cost of labor. We must be more innovative than ever before; we must have a vastly better K-12 educational system then we now have; we must unburden our companies from excessive regulation, litigation and health-care costs; we must significantly increase our federal investment in research.
In between the ellipsis there, he makes a compelling case that the US is at real risk for ceding it’s dominant position in science and technology and the benefits that leadership accrues. I’ve uploaded the testimony (pdf) (it doesn’t seem to be on the committee site yet), so read the whole thing for more details. His testimony lists eight specific recommendations for addressing the problems:
Bringing the “free enterprise system to K-12 education”;
Provide K-12 teaching credentials to subject-matter experts;
Fully fund the undergraduate and graduate education in the physical sciences, math biosciences or engineering of the outstanding 1,000 high school seniors in the nation each year;
Double in five years federal spending on basic research in mathematics, the physical sciences and engineering;
Provide non-citizen graduates of America’s universities in fields of science and technology special consideration for visas, work permits and citizenship;
Provide a tax credit to corporations that fund basic research in science and technology at our nation’s universities;
Provide tax incentives to companies that fund continuing education for their employees in science and technology; and
Revise the capital gains tax law so that assets held a short term are heavily taxed, while long term (ten years or more) are untaxed.
A number of interesting ideas. Augustine’s voice adds to a growing chorus of voices coming from decidedly industrial backgrounds — Craig Barrett of Intel and former Gov. John Engler of the National Association of Manufacturers are two other recent examples — that are really giving some impetus to efforts to increase federal support for basic research, especially in the physical sciences. The issue — as we say here in DC — has some traction. Unfortunately, there isn’t much room to maneuver in the current budget environment, so significant increases are still unlikely. But the longer the chorus continues, and the louder it becomes, the more pressure there will be to address the concerns in future budget cycles.
To that end, I meant to include a note here last week about efforts by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee for Science, Commerce, Justice, State; Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Chair of the House Science Committee; and Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), Chair of the Science Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards; to include a provision in the recently passed supplemental appropriations bill that would fund the convening of a “National Innovation Summit” this fall. The purpose of the summit is, according to Wolf, “to bring together the nation’s best and brightest to help develop a blueprint for the future of American science and innovation. It also will look at where there has been slippage and why, and what needs to be done to reverse the trend.”
The summit was inspired by the work of the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation (of which CRA is a member and we’ve mentioned afewtimes in this space). Key to the summit’s moving forward is the involvement of several very influential industrially-oriented groups — including the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Electronics Association, the Business Roundtable, and the Council on Competitiveness. They make a compelling case to those in Washington not terribly swayed by the voiced concerns of academics over the state of federal support for research.
So it’s heartening that they all find themselves heavily engaged in this overall effort to advocate to greater support for basic research, and even more heartening that their engagement is capturing the attention of lawmakers on the Hill. However, at this point, the enthusiasm for this case is not shared by the President’s science advisor, John Marburger. In recent weeks, Marburger has found himself on the defensive about these concerns that the U.S. is putting it’s future competitiveness at risk by underinvesting in the physical sciences. He gave a fascinating interview (sub. req’d) to National Journal’sTechDaily last week in which he lashed out at groups like the Task Force for trying to benchmark US competiveness against international competition.
TechDaily: It’s rare in Washington that you get as many groups agreeing on one set of data and one position. They’re all saying the same thing: We are at risk of losing our innovative edge. You seem to have some problems with that position.
Marburger: I would put it differently. I would say we have to be vigilant and we have to spend our money wisely, and we have to make priorities. And we have to learn what this new economy means. And we can’t be lax. Are we in danger? We’re not in any kind of danger we haven’t always been in, namely missing the future and what it’s all about. But we’re very well prepared to face that future. We are going into this enormous global change in technology-based economies with a very high level of accomplishment and capability and we’re going in as the leader.
OK. So what is the country going to do? What is a rational approach for the administration? The United States has enormous capabilities to make changes in the world. This administration has well-defined priorities, they are big challenges. We had a shock we didn’t expect from [the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks] that caused us to incur enormous burdens on our economy and despite that, billions of dollars in new funding, permanent new funding, have been invested in the technical fields, in R&D. There’s just no question about that. The basic sciences include the physical sciences.
You can define deflators and denominators to the funding numbers to get conclusions, but I don’t think that anyone can disagree with the concept that this nation has placed a very high priority on basic science that that’s going to pay off. As the indicators come in after 2001, I expect them to show an impact in publications, in graduation rates, in patents and licenses. I expect those types of indicators to go up in absolute terms. They have to go up because of the enormous money that has been pumped into these areas.
So, let’s be realistic about this. Even in this year’s budget. This is the first year the administration is really trying to cut the deficit. It’s cutting all of the domestic discretionary programs — except for science. It has left it alone at the top of a base that has been deliberately built.
As we’ve pointed out before, Marburger uses some number tricks as well in his answer. He claims “billions of dollars in new funding, permanent new funding” that have been invested in “the technical fields, in R&D. There’s just no question about that. The basic sciences include the physical sciences.” But this is odd logic. As this graphic shows, the build-up of “new funding” in R&D that Marburger claims credit for is almost entirely basic research in the life sciences funded by the National Instutes of Health. So, arguing that basic research has gone up because basic research in the life sciences has gone up is true, but it doesn’t follow that because overall basic research has gone up that support for basic research in the physical sciences has gone up, too. The graphic shows that, in fact, funding at all the agencies traditionally supportive of basic research in the physical sciences has essentially been flat.
In any case, what this all shows is that despite the traction developing as a result of the increasing involvement of industry in making the case for federal support of basic research, we’ve got a long way to go to convince all the folks who need to be convinced if we’re going to address the problem in any meaningful way.
Despite a $213 million increase to the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate in FY 2006 and a report from a presidential advisory committee noting the dangerous lack of support for cyber security research at DHS, the House approved a cut to cyber security research activities at the agency as part of the FY 2006 Homeland Security appropriations bill. The House approved the President’s request of $16.7 million for cyber security research in FY 2006, a decrease of $1.3 million from the FY 2005 enacted level.
Here’s a handy table showing the additions and cuts to the DHS S&T budget.
FY 2006 DHS Science and Technology Appropriations House Approved Version
Program
FY 2005 enacted
FY 2006 Request
FY 2006 House Approved
$ Change FY 2006 Approps vs. FY 2005 Enacted
Technology Development and Transfer
$0
$0
$10
$10
Biological Countermeasures
$363
$362
$360
-$3
Chemical Countermeasures
$53
$102
$90
$37
Explosives Countermeasures
$20
$15
$55
$35
Radiological and Nuclear countermeasures
$123
$19
$19
-$104
Domestic Nuclear Detection Office
$0
$227
$127
$127
Conventional Missions in Support of DHS
$55
$94
$80
$25
Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment
$66
$47
$47
-$19
Emerging Threats
$11
$11
$11
$0
Standards
$40
$36
$36
-$4
University Porgrams/Homeland Security Fellowship Programs
$70
$64
$64
-$6
Cyber Security
$18
$17
$17
-$1
Critical Infrastructure Protection
$27
$21
$36
$9
Rapid Prototyping Program
$76
$21
$30
-$46
Counter MANPADS
$61
$110
$110
$49
Interoperability and Compatibility
$21
$21
$42
$21
SAFETY Act
$10
$6
$10
$0
Research and Development Consolidation
–
$117
$117
–
Total, Research, Development, Acquisition, and Operations
$1,046
$1,287
$1,259
$213
There will be a couple of opportunities to address the cut to cyber security research as the bill moves through the appropriations process. The Senate has yet to act on its version of the bill. They’ve been briefed on the PITAC report, but it’s not known whether they’ll deviate much from the President’s requested level for the program. This highlights the importance of advocacy efforts that target the President’s budget request in addition to the congressional appropriations cycle, especially when the President and the congressional majority are all the same party…. Update: Cameron Wilson at USACM has a good post on the Dept. of Homeland Security Authorization Act (pdf), which is also likely to make it to the House floor this week. The bill creates a new Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity within the department and authorizes $19 million worth of cyber security R&D within the S&T directorate, including “long-term research.” In essence, the language authorizes spending that’s already going on (see above), though having a higher authorization could make increasing the appropriation a little easier as the appropriations bill moves forward.
In lieu of a proper update about the hearing (coming, I promise), here’s CRA’s press release:
Computing Researchers Tell Congress US IT Dominance at Risk
Washington, DC, May 12, 2005 – Computing researchers today told a receptive congressional panel that the nation’s dominant leadership position in information technology is at risk from cuts in research funding and changes in focus at federal mission agencies. The Computing Research Association, in written testimony endorsed by five other computing-related organizations, told the committee that the changing landscape for federal support of computing research threatens to derail the extraordinarily productive research enterprise that has enabled the innovation that drives the new economy.
“The impact of IT research on enabling of innovation resonates far beyond just the IT sector,” said James D. Foley, Chair of CRA and professor of computer science at Georgia Institute of Technology. “IT has played an essential – many argue the essential – role in the economic growth of the US in the past 20 years. In fact, the seeds of this economic growth are in the fundamental discoveries, most of which are pre-competitive and occur in the nation’s universities and research laboratories,” said Foley.
The joint testimony notes a number of factors that imperil U.S. long-term leadership in IT, including DARPA’s withdrawal from its historical support of university-based computer science research and cuts to the proposed IT research budgets at NIST, NASA, the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health. “These changes appear to indicate that the national commitment to fundamental research in IT has waned,” Foley said.
Committee members shared the research community’s concerns. Science Committee Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) noted the importance of IT and acknowledged that problems were evident. “Current federal funding is not properly balanced,” Boehlert said. “It does not adequately continue our historic commitment to longer-range, more basic research in computer science, and it does not focus sufficiently on cybersecurity.”
“This is not a matter of questioning the policy or budget of any single agency,” he said. “This is a matter of having a critical, high-profile national need that is not being addressed by an overall, coordinated federal policy or by overall federal spending.”
Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-TN), the panel’s ranking Democrat, agreed. “We cannot afford to squander our technological edge in a field that will only grow in importance.”
In his testimony, DARPA director Tony Tether suggested computer scientists might be to blame for failing to identify specific research that is currently underfunded.
“This is, frankly, a shocking assertion,” Foley said. “The National Science Foundation’s computer and information science directorate is currently awash in proposals it finds meritorious, but unable to grant due to funding constraints. The President’s IT Advisory Committee report on Cyber Security R&D lists 10 areas of research need that are currently inadequately funded. The CRA Grand Research Challenges conferences recommended dozens of specific research areas tuned to address long-term problems in computing. And finally, the Pentagon’s own Defense Science Board Task Force on High Performance Microprocessors concluded in February 2005 that there were fundamental research areas in that area that were no longer being addressed.”
The computing research community testimony concluded with a call for the U.S. to maintain leadership in IT. “The U.S. still has the world’s strongest capability in fundamental research in IT, and the most experience in how to leverage that capability towards economic growth,” Foley said. But there are risks in letting uncertainty about funding that research linger.
“We taught the rest of the world how to grow from such investment,” Foley said, “and they learned the lesson well. Those other countries are now ramping up their investment in basic research and higher education in computing while support in the US is declining. The US cannot long maintain the lead in such an environment”
A copy of the computing research community statement may be found here (pdf, 1.6 megs)
For more on the current state of IT R&D: https://cra.org/research
Organizations endorsing the testimony: the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC), Computing Research Association (CRA), Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA), Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and the US Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery. About CRA: The Computing Research Association (CRA) is an association of more than 200 North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia engaging in basic computing research; and affiliated professional societies.
CRA’s mission is to strengthen research and advanced education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policymaker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in our society.
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Update: Science Committee Chairman Boehlert has issued an interesting (and slightly unusual) press release following the hearing. It seems as though Boehlert is bothered by the concerns raised by the community and perhaps more bothered that Tether’s answers today never really addressed them head on. But Tether did issue a challenge for computer scientists to identify research being neglected. “I see a lot of hand-wringing,” Tether said, “but I never get an answer to the question of what we’re not doing.” So Boehlert is using that challenge as a hook to keep the committee involved in the issue — he says he wants the committee to act as an honest broker. I’m not sure I can think of a better outcome from this particular hearing….
Anyway, here’s the release.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 12, 2005
Contact: Joe Pouliot, 202-225-0581
joe.pouliot@mail.house.gov
SCIENCE COMMITTEE REVIEWS CONCERNS ON THE STATE OF
U.S. COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH
Boehlert Plans Continued Efforts to Ensure Long-term Research Needs
are Adequately Addressed
WASHINGTON, D.C. – At a Science Committee hearing today on t he future of computer science in the U.S., Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) expressed concern that federal funding of computer science is shifting away from fundamental, long-term research, potentially damaging the future of the U.S. information technology industry and the economy as a whole.
Boehlert and the non-governmental witnesses particularly expressed concern about the balance between short- and long-term research at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA’s director, Dr. Anthony Tether, defended the agency at the hearing. Tether challenged DARPA’s critics to be specific about what areas of research they thought DARPA was neglecting, and Boehlert asked the two critics who were also testifying to respond to that challenge in writing to both Tether and the Science Committee. The two critics were Dr. William Wulf, a computer scientist who heads the National Academy of Engineering, and Dr. Tom Leighton, Chief Scientist and co-founder of Akamai Technologies. Leighton also serves on the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), although he was not representing PITAC at the hearing.
After the hearing, Boehlert said the hearing was just the first step in addressing concerns that computer scientists have raised about DARPA’s research priorities. “We had a vigorous discussion today that I want to see continue. I want the Science Committee to be an honest broker that can bring together DARPA and its critics to help Congress and the Administration create a computer science funding policy that will address the nation’s future and current needs. We will continue to pursue this issue. Dr. Tether offered important information about DARPA’s programs that now needs to be reviewed and responded to by the academic community. I remain concerned about the direction of federal computing policy, but this is a tough issue – a question of balance – and we’re going to need a lot more discussion and debate to sort things out. I hope our efforts will be of use to DARPA and the entire Administration and the Congress in allaying concerns and in forging the appropriate policy.”
In his opening statement, Boehlert said, “We cannot have a situation where university researchers can point to sharp declines in DARPA funding, reviews of research results that reflect telescoped time horizons, and increased classification. We cannot have a situation where proposal approval rates at the National Science Foundation drop by half in just a few years. We cannot have a situation where a Presidential advisory council declares that our information technology infrastructure is ‘highly vulnerable’ and that there is ‘relatively little support for fundamental research to address the larger security vulnerabilities.’ We cannot have a situation where a Pentagon advisory board similarly expresses deep concern over the lack of long-term computing research.”
Boehlert asked the other witness at the hearing, Dr. John Marburger, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, if the President was going to recharter PITAC. PITAC was established by statute, but it operates pursuant to an Executive Order that is about to expire. Marburger said the matter was under review. Boehlert has urged that PITAC be rechartered.
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House Science Committee Press Office — 2320 Rayburn Building — Washington, DC 20515
202-225-4275 (phone), 202-225-3170 (fax)
Today the House Science Committee (full committee) meets to examine the current and future state of computing research in the U.S. Appearing before the committee will be John Marburger, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Tony Tether, Director of DARPA; Bill Wulf, President of the National Academy of Engineering; and Tom Leighton, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Akamai Industries and member of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee. This is obviously a very important hearing for the computing research community as it represents the first time in several years that congress will take an in-depth look at whether the federal government is doing all it can to maintain U.S. leadership in IT.
In addition to the testimony from the witnesses present at the hearing, the computing research community’s perspective will be represented by written testimony (pdf, 1.6 megs) jointly endorsed by CRA, the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC), the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery.
The testimony (pdf), which I strongly encourage you to read, examines how the U.S. came to assume its dominant position in IT and the benefits that role conveys to the nation; why the changing landscape for federal support of computing research imperils U.S. leadership in IT, and in turn, U.S. economic performance in the coming decades; and finally, what the community believes should be done to shore up that leadership.
Also, for those not in DC, the hearing will also be webcast live on the Science committee website. It begins at 10 am ET. I’ll be there. Unfortunately, there isn’t usually very good cell coverage in the Rayburn building for my wireless service, so I probably won’t be able to liveblog the hearing, like all the cool kids do. But I’ll be back after the hearing with all the details.
In the meantime, press coverage of the hearing has already begun. Business Week was the first out of the blocks with this piece, including some key quotes from Science Committee Chairman Sherry Boehlert (R-NY) and ACM President Dave Patterson.
ACM president and former CRA board chair David Patterson writes a pointed Op-Ed at C-Net today about whether the U.S. will lead critical IT innovation in the 21st Century, or whether the changing landscape for support of fundamental IT research will constrain that innovation pipeline.
If declining U.S. research funding simply slowed the pace of IT innovation, perhaps the upcoming House Science Committee hearing wouldn’t be as critical to the nation as it is to the research community. However, the rest of the world isn’t standing still.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao recently went to India to propose co-development of the next generation of IT, with China producing hardware and India developing software. He predicted the coming of the Asian century of the IT industry, as both countries strive for worldwide leadership in IT.
The history of IT is littered with companies that lost substantial leads in this fast-changing field. I see no reason why it couldn’t happen to countries. Indeed, at the recent International Collegiate Programming Contest of the Association for Computing Machinery, four Asian teams finished in the top dozen, including the champion, while the best U.S. finish was 17th, the country’s worst showing ever. If current U.S. government policies continue, IT leadership could easily be surrendered to Asia.
Allow me to suggest two questions for the hearing: Could loss of IT leadership–meaning, for example, that the IT available to the U.S. might be inferior to that of China or India–lead to a technological surprise akin to the one with Sputnik 50 years ago? And, if the U.S. must face serious competition for leadership, isn’t it better to attract the best and brightest to U.S. universities to come and work to help grow the American economy, rather than have them innovate elsewhere?
Patterson’s piece follows his earlier editorial with Edward Lazowska on “An Endless Frontier Postponed” (pdf) which runs in this week’s issue of Science. Both pieces are well-timed given tomorrow’s hearing of the House Science Committee on “The Future of Computer Science Research in the U.S.,” which you can watch via the committee’s real-time webcast.
We’ll have lots more on the hearing later today and tomorrow….
Since 1961, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, has distributed IT research dollars in largely open-ended grants to universities. The grants encouraged basic research aimed not at marketable innovations but at basic scientific mysteries. DARPA and its investments have paid off handsomely nevertheless.
Its legendary role in developing the Internet as a free-for-all instead of a commercially owned space is widely known. Less so are its militarily and commercially important developments, such as global positioning satellites, the JPEG file format for efficiently storing photographs and Websearching technologies like those later refined by Google.
Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, however, Homeland Security officials have pushed DARPA to rein in its democratic funding systems. Grants once available to universities can now flow only to military contractors, and graduate student support once open to the most excellent thinkers can be offered only to U.S. citizens. Administration officials say the changes are needed to keep technological innovations out of the hands of potential terrorists. The effect may be instead to dampen imagination itself.
Edward Lazowska and David Patterson (both former CRA board members and current members of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee) have penned an excellent OpEd (sub. req’d) in this week’s issue of Science magazine on the impact of the changing federal landscape for support of computing research. The OpEd makes a case that will be familiar to readers of this blog: the unique environment responsible for the IT innovations that drive much of the new economy is at risk by recent shifts within the federal IT R&D portfolio.
U.S. IT research grew largely under DARPA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). NSF relied on peer review, whereas DARPA bet on vision and reputation, complementary approaches that served the nation well. Over the past 4 decades, the resulting research has laid the foundation for the modern microprocessor, the Internet, the graphical user interface, and single-user workstations. It has also launched new fields such as computational science. Virtually every aspect of IT that we rely on today bears the stamp of federally sponsored research. A 2003 National Academies study provided 19 examples where such work ultimately led to billion-dollar industries, an economic benefit that reaffirms science advisor Vannevar Bush’s 1945 vision in Science: The Endless Frontier.
However, in the past 3 years, DARPA funding for IT research at universities has dropped by nearly half. Policy changes at the agency, including increased classification of research programs, increased restrictions on the participation of noncitizens, and “go/no-go” reviews applied to research at 12- to 18-month intervals, discourage participation by university researchers and signal a shift from pushing the leading edge to “bridging the gap” between fundamental research and deployable technologies. In essence, NSF is now relied on to support the long-term research needed to advance the IT field.
Other agencies have not stepped in. The Defense Science Board noted in a recent look at microchip research at the Department of Defense (DOD): “[DARPA’s] withdrawal has created a vacuum . . . The problem, for DOD, the IT industry, and the nation as a whole, is that no effective leadership structure has been substituted.” The Department of Homeland Security, according to a recent report from the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee, spends less than 2% of its Science and Technology budget on cybersecurity, and only a small fraction of that on research. NASA is downsizing computational science, and IT research budgets at the Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health are slated for cuts in the president’s fiscal year 2006 budget.
The OpEd’s conclusion is stark:
At a time when global competitors are gaining the capacity and commitment to challenge U.S. high-tech leadership, this changed landscape threatens to derail the extraordinarily productive interplay of academia, government, and industry in IT. Given the importance of IT in enabling the new economy and in opening new areas of scientific discovery, we simply cannot afford to cede leadership. Where will the next generation of groundbreaking innovations in IT arise? Where will the Turing Awardees 30 years hence reside? Given current trends, the answers to both questions will likely be, “not in the United States.”
As I mentioned previously, the piece contains a link to the a page here at CRA HQ that’s sort of a one-stop shop for information relating to IT R&D policy. Ed has also placed a link to a pdf version of the article on his website.
The OpEd appears in an issue of Science devoted to distributed computing issues, with articles on Grassroots Supercomputing, Grid Sport: Competitive Crunching, Data-Bots Charting the Internet, Service-Oriented Science, and more. The timing of the issue also couldn’t be better, given the the House Science Committee will hold a full committee hearing on “The Future of Computer Science Research in the U.S.” on Thursday, May 12th. You can catch the details here, or watch it live on the Science Committee’s real-time webcast (also archived).
And keep an eye out for future editorials….
Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding NSF and NASA, today stepped up his effort to champion federal support for basic research by urging President Bush to triple funding for federal basic research and development over the next decade. Wolf made the request in a letter to Bush (pdf), noting that
America today finds herself at a crossroads when it comes to leading the world in science and innovation. We can continue down the current path, as other nations continue to narrow the gap, or we can take bold, dramatic steps to ensure U.S. economic leadership in the 21st century and a rising standard of living for all Americans.
The letter calls on the President to make a “bold commitment” to invest in the future of the country by tripling of the “innovation budget” — federal basic research — and continues:
We must ensure for future generations that America continues to be the innovation leader of the world. Investing in research and development is a critical part of optimizing our nation for innovation, a process that will require strong leadership and involvement from government, industry, academia and labor. We must choose whether to innovate or abdicate.
Since becoming chair of the reorganized Science, State, Justice, Commerce appropriations committee in January, Wolf has become an outspokenadvocate for federal support of fundamental research. As we’ve noted previously, much of the credit for this has to go to the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation and its “Benchmarks” report, from which Wolf apparently grabbed a number of examples for his letter (he’s cited the report elsewhere, as well).
Wolf’s goal in writing to the President isn’t to affect the FY 06 appropriations process directly — after all, at this point the President’s only official role in the FY 06 budget process is to veto or sign the final approps bill — but to encourage the President to make basic research a priority in his FY 2007 budget request. Doing so would give appropriators next year more “headroom” to increase budgets for basic research — headroom sorely lacking this year. This is an approach many groups in the science community (including CRA) are taking as well, in addition to working very hard to get the highest possible funding level in FY 06.
We’ll have more details in the coming weeks on other opportunities for Wolf and others to make the case for federal support of fundamental research. In the meantime, you can read a scan of Wolf’s two-page letter to the President here.
As I was updating the IT R&D policy resources page here in anticipation of it appearing as a link in a soon-to-be published Science magazine OpEd on the state of federal support for computing research (titled “An Endless Frontier Postponed” — watch this space for details), I realized that I hadn’t yet posted a link to this recently released report (pdf) from the Defense Science Board. The report includes an excellent appendix that notes the impact policy changes at DARPA will have on the Defense Department’s long-term mission. Here’s what I wrote on the IT R&D page:
In February 2005, the Defense Department’s Defense Science Board — an independent advisory committee comprised of researchers from academia, government, and industry — released an examination of the microelectronics industry, which provides hardware capability that “underlies much of America’s modern military leadership technology.” Part of that examination involved a review of DOD’s research efforts in the space to determine if the Department is doing what it can to “secure continued ‘Moore’s Law’ improvements in processing capacity that will enable it to maximize the advantages inherent in its superior sources of information and the superiority of the algortihms and networks that are used to process and benefit from them.” What they found is that changes in emphasis at DARPA have impacted DOD-related research long-term:
Historically, the rapid rate of growth in U.S. microchip capability resulted from a robust national portfolio of long-term research that incorporated both incremental and revolutionary components. Industry excelled in evolutionary technology developments that resulted in reduced costs, higher quality and reliability and vastly improved performance. DOD now is no longer perceived as being seriously involved in — or even taking steps to ensure that others are conducting — research to enable the embedded processing proficiency on which its strategic advantage depends. This withdrawal has created a vacuum where no part of the U.S. government is able to exert leadership, especially with respect to the revolutionary component of the research portfolio.
[footnote]
This development is partly explained by historic circumstances. Since World War II, the DOD has been the primary supporter of research in university Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) departments, with NSF contributing some funds towards basic research. From the early 1960’s through the 1980’s, one tremendously successful aspect of the DOD’s funding in the information technology space came from DARPA’s unique approach to the funding of Applied Research (6.2 funding), which hybridized university and industry research through a process that envisioned revolutionary new capabilities, identified barriers to their realization, focused the best minds in the field on new approaches to overcome those barriers and fostered rapid commercialization and DOD adoption. The hybridization of university and industry researchers was a crucial element; it kept the best and the brightest in the university sector well informed of defense issues and the university researchers acted as useful “prods” to the defense contractors, making it impossible for them to dismiss revolutionary concepts whose feasibility was demonstrated by university-based 6.2 efforts that produced convincing “proof of concept” prototypes. As EECS grew in scale and its scope extended beyond DOD applications, a “success disaster” ensued in that EECS essentially “outgrew” the ability of the DOD to be its primary source of directional influence, let alone funding. Furthermore, DOD never developed a strategy to deal with this transition. With pressures to fund developments are unique to the Defense (e.g., military aircraft, tanks, artillery, etc.), the DOD withdrew its EECS research leadership. Recently, DARPA has further limited university participation, especially as prime contractors, in its Computer Science 6.2 programs, which were by far its most significant investments in university research (vastly outstripping 6.1 funding). These limitations have come in a number of ways, including non-fiscal limitations, such as the classification of work in areas that were previously unclassified, precluding university submission as prime contractors on certain solicitations, and reducing the periods of performance to 18-24 months.
–High Performance Microchip Supply, Defense Science Board, February 2005, Appendix D, p. 87-88
The entire report is available here (pdf).
So add the DSB to the growing list of organizations, advisory committees, congressional committees, and the press that have noted their concern for the impact of DARPA’s policy shift.
A reminder: the House Science Committee will hold a hearing on “The Future of Computer Science Research in the U.S.” on May 12, 2005. Appearing as witnesses before the committee will be Jack Marburger, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Anthony Tether, Director of DARPA; Bill Wulf, President of the National Academies of Engineering; and Tom Leighton, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Akamai Industries, and also the Chair of the PITAC Subcommittee on Cyber Security. All Science Committee hearings are webcast live (and then archived for later viewing as well). And, of course, we’ll have all the details here.
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Appropriations Update: FY 2006 House Energy and Water
/In: Funding, FY06 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaThe House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday completed its markup of the FY 2006 Energy and Water Appropriation bill (HR 2419), which includes funding for the Department of Energy, approving increased funding for DOE’s Office of Science. The House bill would boost the Office of Science budget to $3.67 billion in FY 06, an increase of $66 million over FY 05, and $203 million more than the President requested in his FY 06 budget.
Included in the increase is a $14 million increase to the Advanced Scientific Computational Research program, bringing it to $246 million in FY 06, $39 million above the President’s request. Here is what the committee had to say about the program in the committee report accompanying the bill:
This is the first good news for computing researchers in the FY 2006 appropriations cycle, coming after the House approved a slight cut to cyber security research efforts at the Department of Homeland Security.
The House is scheduled to consider the bill on the floor early next week. The Senate hasn’t yet begun work on its version of the bill. Fortunately, support for the Office of Science in the Senate appears pretty strong. A letter urging Senate Appropriators to approve a significant increase to the Office of Science (to $3.7 billion, slightly more than the House approved), received the endorsement of more than 2/3 of the members of the Senate, a strong symbolic show of support for the agency. We’ll keep you apprised of developments as the bill moves forward.
Norm Augustine, Frank Wolf, and John Marburger on the Future of US Competitiveness
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaRetired Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, Norman Augustine, testified today before a House Committee on Education and Workforce hearing on “Challenges to American Competitiveness in Math and Science.” Augustine, who has also been the former Undersecretary of the Army and a past-chairman of the National Academies of Engineering, put together a great written statement from which I thought I’d cite some snippets.
In between the ellipsis there, he makes a compelling case that the US is at real risk for ceding it’s dominant position in science and technology and the benefits that leadership accrues. I’ve uploaded the testimony (pdf) (it doesn’t seem to be on the committee site yet), so read the whole thing for more details. His testimony lists eight specific recommendations for addressing the problems:
A number of interesting ideas. Augustine’s voice adds to a growing chorus of voices coming from decidedly industrial backgrounds — Craig Barrett of Intel and former Gov. John Engler of the National Association of Manufacturers are two other recent examples — that are really giving some impetus to efforts to increase federal support for basic research, especially in the physical sciences. The issue — as we say here in DC — has some traction. Unfortunately, there isn’t much room to maneuver in the current budget environment, so significant increases are still unlikely. But the longer the chorus continues, and the louder it becomes, the more pressure there will be to address the concerns in future budget cycles.
To that end, I meant to include a note here last week about efforts by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee for Science, Commerce, Justice, State; Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), Chair of the House Science Committee; and Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), Chair of the Science Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards; to include a provision in the recently passed supplemental appropriations bill that would fund the convening of a “National Innovation Summit” this fall. The purpose of the summit is, according to Wolf, “to bring together the nation’s best and brightest to help develop a blueprint for the future of American science and innovation. It also will look at where there has been slippage and why, and what needs to be done to reverse the trend.”
The summit was inspired by the work of the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation (of which CRA is a member and we’ve mentioned a few times in this space). Key to the summit’s moving forward is the involvement of several very influential industrially-oriented groups — including the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Electronics Association, the Business Roundtable, and the Council on Competitiveness. They make a compelling case to those in Washington not terribly swayed by the voiced concerns of academics over the state of federal support for research.
So it’s heartening that they all find themselves heavily engaged in this overall effort to advocate to greater support for basic research, and even more heartening that their engagement is capturing the attention of lawmakers on the Hill. However, at this point, the enthusiasm for this case is not shared by the President’s science advisor, John Marburger. In recent weeks, Marburger has found himself on the defensive about these concerns that the U.S. is putting it’s future competitiveness at risk by underinvesting in the physical sciences. He gave a fascinating interview (sub. req’d) to National Journal’s TechDaily last week in which he lashed out at groups like the Task Force for trying to benchmark US competiveness against international competition.
As we’ve pointed out before, Marburger uses some number tricks as well in his answer. He claims “billions of dollars in new funding, permanent new funding” that have been invested in “the technical fields, in R&D. There’s just no question about that. The basic sciences include the physical sciences.” But this is odd logic.
As this graphic shows, the build-up of “new funding” in R&D that Marburger claims credit for is almost entirely basic research in the life sciences funded by the National Instutes of Health. So, arguing that basic research has gone up because basic research in the life sciences has gone up is true, but it doesn’t follow that because overall basic research has gone up that support for basic research in the physical sciences has gone up, too. The graphic shows that, in fact, funding at all the agencies traditionally supportive of basic research in the physical sciences has essentially been flat.
In any case, what this all shows is that despite the traction developing as a result of the increasing involvement of industry in making the case for federal support of basic research, we’ve got a long way to go to convince all the folks who need to be convinced if we’re going to address the problem in any meaningful way.
House Passes Homeland Security Approps; Cyber Security Still Not a Priority
/In: Funding, FY06 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaDespite a $213 million increase to the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate in FY 2006 and a report from a presidential advisory committee noting the dangerous lack of support for cyber security research at DHS, the House approved a cut to cyber security research activities at the agency as part of the FY 2006 Homeland Security appropriations bill. The House approved the President’s request of $16.7 million for cyber security research in FY 2006, a decrease of $1.3 million from the FY 2005 enacted level.
Here’s a handy table showing the additions and cuts to the DHS S&T budget.
House Approved Version
enacted
There will be a couple of opportunities to address the cut to cyber security research as the bill moves through the appropriations process. The Senate has yet to act on its version of the bill. They’ve been briefed on the PITAC report, but it’s not known whether they’ll deviate much from the President’s requested level for the program. This highlights the importance of advocacy efforts that target the President’s budget request in addition to the congressional appropriations cycle, especially when the President and the congressional majority are all the same party….
Update: Cameron Wilson at USACM has a good post on the Dept. of Homeland Security Authorization Act (pdf), which is also likely to make it to the House floor this week. The bill creates a new Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity within the department and authorizes $19 million worth of cyber security R&D within the S&T directorate, including “long-term research.” In essence, the language authorizes spending that’s already going on (see above), though having a higher authorization could make increasing the appropriation a little easier as the appropriations bill moves forward.
The Future of Computer Science Research in the U.S., Part 1a
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaIn lieu of a proper update about the hearing (coming, I promise), here’s CRA’s press release:
Update: Science Committee Chairman Boehlert has issued an interesting (and slightly unusual) press release following the hearing. It seems as though Boehlert is bothered by the concerns raised by the community and perhaps more bothered that Tether’s answers today never really addressed them head on. But Tether did issue a challenge for computer scientists to identify research being neglected. “I see a lot of hand-wringing,” Tether said, “but I never get an answer to the question of what we’re not doing.” So Boehlert is using that challenge as a hook to keep the committee involved in the issue — he says he wants the committee to act as an honest broker. I’m not sure I can think of a better outcome from this particular hearing….
Anyway, here’s the release.
The Future of Computer Science Research in the U.S.
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaToday the House Science Committee (full committee) meets to examine the current and future state of computing research in the U.S. Appearing before the committee will be John Marburger, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Tony Tether, Director of DARPA; Bill Wulf, President of the National Academy of Engineering; and Tom Leighton, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Akamai Industries and member of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee. This is obviously a very important hearing for the computing research community as it represents the first time in several years that congress will take an in-depth look at whether the federal government is doing all it can to maintain U.S. leadership in IT.
In addition to the testimony from the witnesses present at the hearing, the computing research community’s perspective will be represented by written testimony (pdf, 1.6 megs) jointly endorsed by CRA, the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), the Coalition for Academic Scientific Computation (CASC), the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Heads Association (ECEDHA), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery.
The testimony (pdf), which I strongly encourage you to read, examines how the U.S. came to assume its dominant position in IT and the benefits that role conveys to the nation; why the changing landscape for federal support of computing research imperils U.S. leadership in IT, and in turn, U.S. economic performance in the coming decades; and finally, what the community believes should be done to shore up that leadership.
Also, for those not in DC, the hearing will also be webcast live on the Science committee website. It begins at 10 am ET. I’ll be there. Unfortunately, there isn’t usually very good cell coverage in the Rayburn building for my wireless service, so I probably won’t be able to liveblog the hearing, like all the cool kids do. But I’ll be back after the hearing with all the details.
In the meantime, press coverage of the hearing has already begun. Business Week was the first out of the blocks with this piece, including some key quotes from Science Committee Chairman Sherry Boehlert (R-NY) and ACM President Dave Patterson.
Surrendering U.S. leadership in IT
/In: R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaACM president and former CRA board chair David Patterson writes a pointed Op-Ed at C-Net today about whether the U.S. will lead critical IT innovation in the 21st Century, or whether the changing landscape for support of fundamental IT research will constrain that innovation pipeline.
Patterson’s piece follows his earlier editorial with Edward Lazowska on “An Endless Frontier Postponed” (pdf) which runs in this week’s issue of Science. Both pieces are well-timed given tomorrow’s hearing of the House Science Committee on “The Future of Computer Science Research in the U.S.,” which you can watch via the committee’s real-time webcast.
We’ll have lots more on the hearing later today and tomorrow….
LA Times on DARPA R&D: “The Imagination Drain”
/In: Funding, Policy, R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaApparently inspired by this week’s Science editorial by Ed Lazowska and Dave Patterson (covered here), the Los Angeles Times today editorializes on DARPA and university IT research.
Here’s the whole thing.
The collection of articles and editorials addressing this issue since the story first ran in the New York Times back on April 1, 2005 (covered previously) is almost too long to list. But I’ve done my best here.
Science OpEd: An Endless Frontier Postponed
/In: Policy, R&D in the Press /by Peter HarshaEdward Lazowska and David Patterson (both former CRA board members and current members of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee) have penned an excellent OpEd (sub. req’d) in this week’s issue of Science magazine on the impact of the changing federal landscape for support of computing research. The OpEd makes a case that will be familiar to readers of this blog: the unique environment responsible for the IT innovations that drive much of the new economy is at risk by recent shifts within the federal IT R&D portfolio.
The OpEd’s conclusion is stark:
As I mentioned previously, the piece contains a link to the a page here at CRA HQ that’s sort of a one-stop shop for information relating to IT R&D policy. Ed has also placed a link to a pdf version of the article on his website.
The OpEd appears in an issue of Science devoted to distributed computing issues, with articles on Grassroots Supercomputing, Grid Sport: Competitive Crunching, Data-Bots Charting the Internet, Service-Oriented Science, and more. The timing of the issue also couldn’t be better, given the the House Science Committee will hold a full committee hearing on “The Future of Computer Science Research in the U.S.” on Thursday, May 12th. You can catch the details here, or watch it live on the Science Committee’s real-time webcast (also archived).
And keep an eye out for future editorials….
Wolf Calls for Tripling of “Innovation Budget”
/In: Funding /by Peter HarshaRep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee responsible for funding NSF and NASA, today stepped up his effort to champion federal support for basic research by urging President Bush to triple funding for federal basic research and development over the next decade. Wolf made the request in a letter to Bush (pdf), noting that
The letter calls on the President to make a “bold commitment” to invest in the future of the country by tripling of the “innovation budget” — federal basic research — and continues:
Since becoming chair of the reorganized Science, State, Justice, Commerce appropriations committee in January, Wolf has become an outspoken advocate for federal support of fundamental research. As we’ve noted previously, much of the credit for this has to go to the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation and its “Benchmarks” report, from which Wolf apparently grabbed a number of examples for his letter (he’s cited the report elsewhere, as well).
Wolf’s goal in writing to the President isn’t to affect the FY 06 appropriations process directly — after all, at this point the President’s only official role in the FY 06 budget process is to veto or sign the final approps bill — but to encourage the President to make basic research a priority in his FY 2007 budget request. Doing so would give appropriators next year more “headroom” to increase budgets for basic research — headroom sorely lacking this year. This is an approach many groups in the science community (including CRA) are taking as well, in addition to working very hard to get the highest possible funding level in FY 06.
We’ll have more details in the coming weeks on other opportunities for Wolf and others to make the case for federal support of fundamental research. In the meantime, you can read a scan of Wolf’s two-page letter to the President here.
Defense Science Board on the Impact of Changes to DARPA IT R&D
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaAs I was updating the IT R&D policy resources page here in anticipation of it appearing as a link in a soon-to-be published Science magazine OpEd on the state of federal support for computing research (titled “An Endless Frontier Postponed” — watch this space for details), I realized that I hadn’t yet posted a link to this recently released report (pdf) from the Defense Science Board. The report includes an excellent appendix that notes the impact policy changes at DARPA will have on the Defense Department’s long-term mission. Here’s what I wrote on the IT R&D page:
In February 2005, the Defense Department’s Defense Science Board — an independent advisory committee comprised of researchers from academia, government, and industry — released an examination of the microelectronics industry, which provides hardware capability that “underlies much of America’s modern military leadership technology.” Part of that examination involved a review of DOD’s research efforts in the space to determine if the Department is doing what it can to “secure continued ‘Moore’s Law’ improvements in processing capacity that will enable it to maximize the advantages inherent in its superior sources of information and the superiority of the algortihms and networks that are used to process and benefit from them.” What they found is that changes in emphasis at DARPA have impacted DOD-related research long-term:
The entire report is available here (pdf).
So add the DSB to the growing list of organizations, advisory committees, congressional committees, and the press that have noted their concern for the impact of DARPA’s policy shift.
A reminder: the House Science Committee will hold a hearing on “The Future of Computer Science Research in the U.S.” on May 12, 2005. Appearing as witnesses before the committee will be Jack Marburger, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Anthony Tether, Director of DARPA; Bill Wulf, President of the National Academies of Engineering; and Tom Leighton, Co-Founder and Chief Scientist of Akamai Industries, and also the Chair of the PITAC Subcommittee on Cyber Security. All Science Committee hearings are webcast live (and then archived for later viewing as well). And, of course, we’ll have all the details here.