For the last several years, CRA has provided an analysis of computing research in the Administration’s budget request for AAAS’ annual look at R&D in the President’s Budget Request. The book containing the CRA analysis won’t be available until April, but I thought I’d post some of the core of that effort here. After the jump (the “Continue Reading…” link below) you’ll find CRA’s look at the current policy environment — why we’re concerned about the significantly changed landscape for federal IT R&D funding, including an examination of DARPA’s diminished role and NSF’s enhanced one. When the book is released, I’ll post a link to it as well. CRA’s chapter is just one of 26 or so focused on just about every aspect of the overall R&D portfolio.
BBC coverage of the jump to 135.5 teraflops.
ZDNet has more.
The feat won’t show up on the current Top500.org list until they release the next revision of the list, which I think will be in May (the last was released in November at the Supercomputing 2004 conference in Pittsburgh, and it seems to be issued at six month intervals). Update: John West, Director of the ERDC MSRC — one of four DOD HPC program centers — e-mails with a helpful clarification:
Top500 lists are published twice a year: in June and in November. The November list is announced at the annual Supercomputing series of conferences (www.supercomp.org), which is probably part of the reason for its not-quite-six-months timing.
He also notes that the LINPACK score (upon which the Top500 list is based) isn’t the best way to assess a supercomputer’s relative benefit to a discipline, despite it’s popularity — something I probably should have noted in my post.
In my defense, as limited as the LINPACK score is in what it says about a particular machine, it is the one number most people out here (certainly in the policy world) cling to when trying to understand progress in supercomputing. Though it wasn’t the message we sought to convey, the fact that the Japanese Earth Simulator was X teraflops faster than our “best” machine certainly focused the mind of a lot of policymakers in Congress last year, for better or worse. In talking about high-end computing with them, we certainly tried not to emphasize that measure; rather, we tried to talk about the importance of a sustained research effort on a diverse set of approaches to enable progress on a wide range of different problems.
John also notes that there are some interesting efforts to develop a new metric coming out of DARPA’s HPCS program, but those measures are likely to be a bit more complex — almost certainly spelling doom for their adoption over the “one number fits all” of the LINPACK.
The long-awaited PITAC report on Cyber Security, Cyber Security: A Crisis of Prioritization (pdf, 2.2mb) has just been released. The committee spent nearly a year reviewing the federal government’s cyber security R&D effort, a process we’vecoveredinthis space. The resulting report concludes that the IT infrastructure — beyond the public Internet — is a crucial piece of the nation’s critical infrastructures, such as power grids, air traffic control systems, financial systems, and military and intelligence systems. Given it’s importance, the committee finds that the federal cyber security R&D investment is inadequate and “imbalanced” towards short-term, defense oriented research, with little support for fundamental research to address the larger vulnerabilities of the civilian IT infrastructure. As a result the committee recommends changes to the portfolio to:
Increase Federal support for fundamental research in civilian cyber security by $90 million annually at NSF and by substantial amounts at agencies such as DARPA and DHS to support work in 10 high-priority areas identified by PITAC.
Intensify Federal efforts to promote recruitment and retention of cyber security researchers and students at research universities, with an aim of doubling this professions numbers by the end of the decade.
Provide increased support for the rapid transfer of Federally developed cutting-edge cyber security technologies to the private sector.
Strengthen the coordination of the Interagency Working Group on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection and integrate it under the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program.
I’ll have more detail on the report as I work my way through it, but wanted to get a link up to it ASAP. At 72 pages cover-to-cover, the report is a very revealing examination of the federal cyber security R&D portfolio. Update: (3/19/05) – The NY Times’ John Markoff has more on the report today, including this quote from PITAC co-Chair Ed Lazowska:
“The federal government is largely failing in its responsibility to protect the nation from cyberthreats,” said Edward D. Lazowska, chairman of the computer science and engineering department at the University of Washington and co-chairman of the panel. “The Department of Homeland Security simply doesn’t ‘get’ cybersecurity. They are allocating less than 2 percent of their science and technology budget to cybersecurity, and only a small proportion of this is forward-looking.”
Michelle Petrovich, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, disputed the criticism. “We take cybersecurity seriously and have taken aggressive measures to address various needs,” she said. “Our cybersecurity budget has gone up every year.”
For the record, it may be true that DHS’ overall budget for “cyber security” activities has gone up, but cyber security R&D — the focus of this report and, one would think, a focus of the DHS Science and Technology directorate — has actually been flat at DHS for the last two fiscal years at a paltry $18 million out of an overall S&T budget of just about $1 billion per year. And of that tiny share only $1.5 million could truly be called “long-term” research — research beyond patching the holes in the current systems. As the report points out, without research into fundamentally new approaches, we’ll be “endlessly patching and plugging holes in the dike” for years to come. It’s also worth noting that the President’s budget for cyber security research at DHS this year actually takes a step backwards. For FY 2006, the President’s budget would cut cyber security R&D at the agency to $17 million, a decrease of $1 million from FY 2005….
The House Science Committeemarked up a series of bills today including H.R. 28, the High Performance Computing Revitalization Act, a bill we covered in depth last year when it was introduced as H.R. 4218. CRA endorsed that bill, and has endorsed H.R. 28. Here’s a summary of today’s activities from the House Science Committee press release.
The bill, which was introduced by Energy Subcommittee Chairman Judy Biggert (R-IL), Representative Lincoln Davis (D-TN), and Chairman Boehlert, would strengthen U.S. supercomputing capabilities by requiring NSF and DOE to ensure U.S. researchers access to high-performance computers, and by prescribing a comprehensive, balanced approach to the nation’s computing strategy. It would also place responsibility with the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to ensure a coordinated, on-going effort among the federal agencies that have a role in high-performance computing. An earlier version of the bill was endorsed by the Bush Administration at a May 13, 2004 Full Committee hearing.
By voice vote, the Committee agreed to an amendment offered by Chairman Biggert that added a finding that emphasizes the importance of commercial application of the results of federal investment in computer science. By a vote of 19 to 17, the Committee rejected an amendment offered by Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA) that would have added a requirement that the National Science Foundation support research into the implications of computers that would be capable of mimicking human abilities to learn, reason, and make decisions.
The Sherman amendment was agreed to by the Committee in the 108th, Congress. Explaining the Majority’s opposition today, Chairman Boehlert said, “We’ve learned that it is adamantly opposed by the bill’s sponsor who happens to be one of our subcommittee chairs. We’ve learned that it is adamantly opposed by both industry and the Administration. We’ve learned that it is an obstacle to dealing with the Senate. And we learned all that the hard way while keeping to our agreement by trying to get this language through on another bill – Mrs. Biggert’s Energy Department computing bill that we got signed into law last year. Now I might be willing to continue to support this amendment despite all that if I thought that it dealt with a crucial and pressing problem. But it doesn’t. All the experts tell us we are nowhere near creating the dystopia that Mr. Sherman fears.”
From here, the bill will advance to the House floor where it’s expected to pass without difficulty, as H.R. 4218 did last year. Unfortunately, the hurdle for reauthorizations of NITRD programs lately has been the U.S. Senate. As Boehlert noted, H.R. 4218 failed to receive consideration by the Senate in the 108th Congress, though that seemed related to time constraints rather than any substantive objection to the bill. Previous efforts in the 107th and 106th Congresses also met a similar fate. However, this time Science Committee staff are optimistic that the earlier start they’ve gotten introducing and marking up the bill combined with its uncontroversial nature (there are, for example, no dollar amounts included in the bill that might earn the wrath of budget hawks — or prove helpful to the computing community in making the case for funding to appropriators…) means that the bill has a serious shot gaining Senate approval.
We’ll keep an eye on all the developments here….
In a column focusing on China, Tom Friedman notes that cutting NSF will leave us without the kind of workforce the U.S. will need to compete:
Finally, on competition policy, the Bush team and Congress cut the budget of the National Science Foundation for this fiscal year by $105 million. I could not put it better than Congressman Vern Ehlers, one of the few dissenting Republicans, who said: “This decision shows dangerous disregard for our nation’s future … at a time when other nations continue to surpass our students in math and science and consistently increase their funding of basic research. We cannot hope to fight jobs lost to international competition without a well-trained and educated work force.”
Interesting article (sub. req’d) in Tech Daily today about an event hosted by the Semiconductor Industry Association which brought together Intel CEO Craig Barrett, Micron Technology CEO Steve Appleton, and Harvard Economist Dale Jorgenson to talk about the importance of federal support for fundamental research and math and science education. They sounded a theme that’s been heard increasingly from industry groups and policymakers in thelastfewweeks: “American technology leadership is under an assault that can only be countered through improved basic research investment and better science education in American schools.”
“Congress shouldn’t play Sputnik with this; we have to plan in advance,” Intel CEO Craig Barrett said at a press conference convened by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Sputnik was the Russian rocket launched in 1957 that began the “space race” with the United States.
…
For the semiconductor industry, the problem is physics. Current technology uses complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS) — the ubiquitous silicon chip. But in the race to cram more tiny transistors onto chips, the industry will exhaust the parameters of CMOS and need to make a major technical jump into nanotechnology, which focuses on matter at the atomic level.
“U.S. leadership in nanoelectronics is not guaranteed,” Barrett said. “It will take a massive, coordinated U.S. research effort involving academia, industry, and state and federal governments to ensure that America continues to be the world leader in information technology.”
The press conference once again put the Administration on the defensive for a budget request that cuts basic research in the physical sciences by $39 million in FY 2006. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Marburger repeated what he told a House Appropriations Committee earlier this week, when he said he didn’t believe that U.S. competitiveness was at risk:
Presidential science adviser John Marburger said he hears the warnings but feels that U.S. competitiveness is not facing an immediate crisis. “It’s kind of hard to see into the future,” he said. “The U.S. is so far ahead in these areas that we are going to be able to maintain our competitive strength. I don’t see the same danger signs.”
…And then argued that R&D advocates shouldn’t focus on what the President is proposing this year, they should look at the growth over the last 5 years:
Many high-tech advocacy groups are relying on R&D budget figures that misrepresent the level of true federal investment, Marburger said. Taken in five-year increments, overall basic research spending between fiscal 2002 and fiscal 2006 is up $28 billion over the same period starting in 1997, in constant dollars, according to data from the White House Office of Science and Technology. But for fiscal 2006, the administration has requested cutting spending on basic physical sciences by $39 million, to $2.8 billion.
R&D spending advocates, including the Alliance for Technology Research in America, SIA and TechNet, point to a 25-year flat line on funding for basic research on physical sciences and engineering at $8 billion per year as proof of the problem.
Marburger said they are slicing data to support their case. “We are by far the major investor in basic research in most fields,” he said.
Honestly, Marburger is doing just what he accuses ASTRA of doing. While it’s true that basic research is up in aggregate over the time-period he suggests, almost all of that increase is the result of the doubling of NIH. Every other agency, including those agencies responsible for supporting basic research in the physical sciences, is essentially flat over the period.
(click to enlarge)
Of course, this is exactly the point SIA and ASTRA were trying to make…in addition to the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, Council on Competitiveness, the American Electronics Association, CSPP, TechNet and all the others who have argued in recent weeks that our failure to adequately support fundamental research in the physical sciences reduces our future innovative capacity and ultimately our future competitiveness.
In his first appearance before the newly constituted Science, State, Justice, and Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee, John Marburger, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, found himself “rebuked” for “arrogant” and “inappropriate” testimony by the members of the Subcommittee, according to National Journal’sTech Daily (sub. req’d). Marburger apparently had the temerity to highlight an “earmark” from lawmakers creating a science program in his opening statement, prompting subcommittee chair Frank Wolf (R-VA) to interrupt him.
Wolf accused Marburger of insinuating that “if it’s an earmark from the Congress, then it’s automatically wrong.”
“I think there is a degree of arrogance in your answer,” said Wolf, who chairs the House Science, State, Justice and Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee. “I think it’s inappropriate.”
Wolf, who was criticized in his re-election campaign last year for supporting earmarked projects in his district, rattled off a list of congressional mandates for science programs and grilled Marburger about whether he believes they were a waste of taxpayer dollars.
Marburger answered that certain earmarks, typically characterized by critics as pork-barrel spending, are “not as bad as others” and then quickly added that “some are better than others.”
Both answers had Wolf and other members on the panel visibly irritated. Several lawmakers lectured Marburger about their constitutional obligation to control the government’s purse strings and create government programs.
While I probably side with Marburger over the issue of earmarks — they’ve increased in number every year and often compete with peer-reviewed, merit-based funding in the budget — I have to side with the committee when they raise concerns over U.S. competitiveness being at risk because of a failure to invest in fundamental research, as they also did in yesterday’s hearing.
Marburger also told the panel that he does not agree with recent reports that the United States is losing its competitive edge in science and technology.
“I think you are in the minority in regard to our competitiveness,” said Wolf, who had announced earlier in the hearing that he would introduce legislation to forgive the interest on student loans for individuals who major in math and science.
Wolf also said he is worried that the Bush administration’s budget request has “zeroed out” some science programs because he argued that the United States is “falling behind” other countries.
At a separate event on Friday, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., echoed Wolf’s sentiments. “This country is sadly slipping behind in its cadre” of scientists and mathematicians, Warner said.
The senator added that he would like to allocate funding from the $13 billion Pell Grant program for math and science education, and give students who major in cyber security a free education in return for public service in the government to combat cyber attacks.
So in the first science-related hearing of the new subcommittee there’s reason for both optimism and concern. Clearly the leaders of the subcommittee have embraced the idea that support for fundamental research and math and science programs will help the U.S. retain its competitive advantage in the global economy. However, they’ve also vigorously defended earmarking the science budget. Wolf, the new committee chair, is sort of a blank slate for the science community, so we need to take the opportunity to make him comfortable with the case for basic research. Expect to see more in the coming weeks….
Following up on a previous post about European efforts to create a National Science Foundation-like agency of their own because of the recognition of that value of the NSF to U.S. competitiveness — and juxtaposing that with our own government’s apparent waning support for fundamental research — I thought I’d just note this article from Science that indicates India has reached a similar conclusion to the EU’s and is hoping to establish an NSF-like agency of its own.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has endorsed the creation of an independent agency to support basic research–with a proposed budget that’s more than three times the amount the government is now spending.
Scientists have long complained about the current process for winning grants, including inflexible rules and funding decisions that take more than a year. Last week Singh attended the first meeting of the new Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and embraced its recommendation for a National Science and Engineering Research Foundation with a mandate to “strongly promote and fund research in all fields of science and engineering.” The new foundation “is being patterned on the lines of the acclaimed U.S. National Science Foundation,” says C. N. R. Rao, chair of the council, who has campaigned for more than a decade for such a freestanding body. “A foundation that manages its own accounts and is run by a scientist is the only hope for reversing the rapid decline in Indian science,” he adds.
In a story today, the Washington Post notes that the U.S. power grid remains at risk from cyber security threats that could have real physical effects on the network and that the federal government is stepping up its efforts to make sure utility companies are addressing the threat.
Patrick H. Wood III, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, warned top electric company officials in a private meeting in January that they need to focus more heavily on cyber-security. Wood also has raised the issue at several public appearances. Officials will not say whether new intelligence points to a potential terrorist strike, but Wood stepped up his campaign after officials at the Energy Department’s Idaho National Laboratory showed him how a skilled hacker could cause serious problems.
Wood declined to comment on specifics of what he saw. But an official at the lab, Ken Watts, said the simulation showed how someone could hack into a utility’s Internet-based business management system, then into a system that controls utility operations. Once inside, lab workers simulated cutting off the supply of oil to a turbine generating electricity and destroying the equipment.
Describing his reaction to the demonstration, Wood said: “I wished I’d had a diaper on.”
In our work before Congress and the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (pdf), we’ve tried to emphasize the importance of cyber security R&D, especially long-term R&D, because IT systems constitute the “control loop” of most other elements of our nation’s critical infrastructure (e.g., the electric power grid, the air traffic control grid, the financial grid, the telecommunications grid), and constitute a significant vulnerability. While the federal government has been reasonably quick to warn companies of the risk, it hasn’t done quite as well in ramping up the long-term research to reduce vulnerabilities. Hopefully the imminent release of PITAC’s report (pdf) on the state of cyber security R&D will help move things forward at agencies like DHS and DARPA, and result in increased funding for NSF’s cyber security R&D efforts.
In the meantime, USACM’s Cameron Wilson has more, and Jim Horning has a related post on how the nuclear industry is reacting to new proposed voluntary standards for the increased security of digital systems. Short answer: not well.
TechNet, a “bipartisan, political network of CEOs” of technology companies including Intel, HP, Cisco, 3Com and others, has released its Innovation Priorities for the coming year, which includes a call for an increase for basic research funding at federal agencies. The priorities result from a series of “Innovation Summits” with industry, academia and policymakers the group held over the last half of last year, which found that:
The U.S. education system is not preparing young Americans for the careers of the future;
The United States is no longer assured of attracting and retaining the world’s best innovators;
Global innovation leadership requires a long-term, strategic approach to create an ecosystem that fosters innovation;
We are gravely under-investing in research and development as a nation;
The U.S. lags behind other nations in the deployment of broadband networks that are the foundation of the next wave of technology innovation.
The findings led a series of recommendations, which are worth reading. Here are a couple:
Strengthen education and develop a skilled technology workforce. Specific education recommendations include continued implementation and full funding of the No Child Left Behind Act; making science, math, engineering and technology education a national priority by increasing funding for math and science partnerships; effective retraining for displaced and unemployed U.S. workers; and, efforts to ensure that foreign innovators trained in the United States are able to remain to create technologies, companies and jobs.
TechNet is also announcing today the formation of an CEO Education Task Force. It includes Craig Barrett, CEO, Intel Corporation; Art Coviello, President and CEO, RSA Security; Paul Deninger, Chairman, Broadview – A Jeffries Company; John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; John Morgridge, Chairman, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Henry Samueli, Chairman and CTO, Broadcom; Stratton Sclavos, President and CEO, VeriSign; Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster Worldwide; and Joe Tucci, President and CEO, EMC Corporation.
And:
Increase federal funding for basic research at key agencies and enact a permanent extension of the R&D tax credit. A sustained public and private investment in R&D will foster a skilled American workforce, stimulate new technologies and maintain U.S. dominance in vital industries. It is critical that Congress enact a permanent R&D tax credit and take steps to achieve a doubling of the basic research budget of the National Science Foundation.
With that, TechNet joins a growing group of companies and industry associations that are drawing attention to the importance of federal investment of basic research in fueling the innovation that drives U.S. competitiveness. In recent weeks, the American Electronics Association, the Council on Competitiveness (pdf), the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation (pdf), and the Computer Systems Policy Project (to name a few) have all put out reports or issued statements affirming the importance of the federal investment in basic research. The message is starting to resonate will policymakers. In the Democratic response to the President’s State of the Union speech this year, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) mentioned the importance of spurring R&D to create “the jobs of the future.” And Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) wrote recently that the U.S. isn’t doing enough to “nuture the next Einsteins.”
The lack of federal investment in basic research and restrictive immigration policies are eroding America’s leadership in the sciences. The ripple effects of these two troublesome trends are enormous: Our future economic competitiveness and quality of life depend on our ability to stay ahead of the scientific and technological curve.
We’ll be working hard this year to make sure that the message does more than resonate — that it results in some real priority in the budget for fundamental research investments. Update: Here’s more coverage. Another Update: MIT’s Technology Review says more companies and industry groups need to step up their advocacy for fundamental research support:
It’s time for those who make their livings by investing in emerging-technology companies to voice concern. Rational voices in the university research community, like [Shirley] Jackson’s [President of AAAS], wont be heard unless financial leaders amplify the message.
The next few months will be crucial, as President Bush’s proposed 2006 federal budget is debated in Congress. While the nation’s enormous deficit will certainly mean greater frugality, legislators need to strengthen, even if only modestly, funding for NSF and NIH. A good starting point would be to hold President Bush and Congress accountable for reneging on 2002 legislation that authorized a doubling of NSFs budget by 2007. That doubling wont happen now: thats clear. But financial leaders who are dependent, one way or another, on government funding of research should ask why not. There should be outrage over the erosion of U.S. research institutions.
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Concerns about the Status of the Federal Effort in IT R&D
/In: CRA, Funding, Policy /by Peter HarshaFor the last several years, CRA has provided an analysis of computing research in the Administration’s budget request for AAAS’ annual look at R&D in the President’s Budget Request. The book containing the CRA analysis won’t be available until April, but I thought I’d post some of the core of that effort here. After the jump (the “Continue Reading…” link below) you’ll find CRA’s look at the current policy environment — why we’re concerned about the significantly changed landscape for federal IT R&D funding, including an examination of DARPA’s diminished role and NSF’s enhanced one. When the book is released, I’ll post a link to it as well. CRA’s chapter is just one of 26 or so focused on just about every aspect of the overall R&D portfolio.
Read more →
DOE/IBM’s Blue Gene Nearly Doubles its Speed Record
/In: R&D in the Press, Research /by Peter HarshaBBC coverage of the jump to 135.5 teraflops.
ZDNet has more.
The feat won’t show up on the current Top500.org list until they release the next revision of the list, which I think will be in May (the last was released in November at the Supercomputing 2004 conference in Pittsburgh, and it seems to be issued at six month intervals).
Update: John West, Director of the ERDC MSRC — one of four DOD HPC program centers — e-mails with a helpful clarification:
He also notes that the LINPACK score (upon which the Top500 list is based) isn’t the best way to assess a supercomputer’s relative benefit to a discipline, despite it’s popularity — something I probably should have noted in my post.
In my defense, as limited as the LINPACK score is in what it says about a particular machine, it is the one number most people out here (certainly in the policy world) cling to when trying to understand progress in supercomputing. Though it wasn’t the message we sought to convey, the fact that the Japanese Earth Simulator was X teraflops faster than our “best” machine certainly focused the mind of a lot of policymakers in Congress last year, for better or worse. In talking about high-end computing with them, we certainly tried not to emphasize that measure; rather, we tried to talk about the importance of a sustained research effort on a diverse set of approaches to enable progress on a wide range of different problems.
John also notes that there are some interesting efforts to develop a new metric coming out of DARPA’s HPCS program, but those measures are likely to be a bit more complex — almost certainly spelling doom for their adoption over the “one number fits all” of the LINPACK.
PITAC Cyber Security Report is Out!
/In: R&D in the Press, Security /by Peter HarshaThe long-awaited PITAC report on Cyber Security, Cyber Security: A Crisis of Prioritization (pdf, 2.2mb) has just been released. The committee spent nearly a year reviewing the federal government’s cyber security R&D effort, a process we’ve covered in this space. The resulting report concludes that the IT infrastructure — beyond the public Internet — is a crucial piece of the nation’s critical infrastructures, such as power grids, air traffic control systems, financial systems, and military and intelligence systems. Given it’s importance, the committee finds that the federal cyber security R&D investment is inadequate and “imbalanced” towards short-term, defense oriented research, with little support for fundamental research to address the larger vulnerabilities of the civilian IT infrastructure. As a result the committee recommends changes to the portfolio to:
I’ll have more detail on the report as I work my way through it, but wanted to get a link up to it ASAP. At 72 pages cover-to-cover, the report is a very revealing examination of the federal cyber security R&D portfolio.
Update: (3/19/05) – The NY Times’ John Markoff has more on the report today, including this quote from PITAC co-Chair Ed Lazowska:
For the record, it may be true that DHS’ overall budget for “cyber security” activities has gone up, but cyber security R&D — the focus of this report and, one would think, a focus of the DHS Science and Technology directorate — has actually been flat at DHS for the last two fiscal years at a paltry $18 million out of an overall S&T budget of just about $1 billion per year. And of that tiny share only $1.5 million could truly be called “long-term” research — research beyond patching the holes in the current systems. As the report points out, without research into fundamentally new approaches, we’ll be “endlessly patching and plugging holes in the dike” for years to come. It’s also worth noting that the President’s budget for cyber security research at DHS this year actually takes a step backwards. For FY 2006, the President’s budget would cut cyber security R&D at the agency to $17 million, a decrease of $1 million from FY 2005….
House Science Passes HPC Authorization
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaThe House Science Committee marked up a series of bills today including H.R. 28, the High Performance Computing Revitalization Act, a bill we covered in depth last year when it was introduced as H.R. 4218. CRA endorsed that bill, and has endorsed H.R. 28. Here’s a summary of today’s activities from the House Science Committee press release.
From here, the bill will advance to the House floor where it’s expected to pass without difficulty, as H.R. 4218 did last year. Unfortunately, the hurdle for reauthorizations of NITRD programs lately has been the U.S. Senate. As Boehlert noted, H.R. 4218 failed to receive consideration by the Senate in the 108th Congress, though that seemed related to time constraints rather than any substantive objection to the bill. Previous efforts in the 107th and 106th Congresses also met a similar fate. However, this time Science Committee staff are optimistic that the earlier start they’ve gotten introducing and marking up the bill combined with its uncontroversial nature (there are, for example, no dollar amounts included in the bill that might earn the wrath of budget hawks — or prove helpful to the computing community in making the case for funding to appropriators…) means that the bill has a serious shot gaining Senate approval.
We’ll keep an eye on all the developments here….
Even Tom Friedman weighs in on NSF
/In: Funding /by AndyBernatIn a column focusing on China, Tom Friedman notes that cutting NSF will leave us without the kind of workforce the U.S. will need to compete:
Industry Continues to Push for Basic Research, White House Growing Defensive
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaInteresting article (sub. req’d) in Tech Daily today about an event hosted by the Semiconductor Industry Association which brought together Intel CEO Craig Barrett, Micron Technology CEO Steve Appleton, and Harvard Economist Dale Jorgenson to talk about the importance of federal support for fundamental research and math and science education. They sounded a theme that’s been heard increasingly from industry groups and policymakers in the last few weeks: “American technology leadership is under an assault that can only be countered through improved basic research investment and better science education in American schools.”
The press conference once again put the Administration on the defensive for a budget request that cuts basic research in the physical sciences by $39 million in FY 2006. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Marburger repeated what he told a House Appropriations Committee earlier this week, when he said he didn’t believe that U.S. competitiveness was at risk:
…And then argued that R&D advocates shouldn’t focus on what the President is proposing this year, they should look at the growth over the last 5 years:
Honestly, Marburger is doing just what he accuses ASTRA of doing. While it’s true that basic research is up in aggregate over the time-period he suggests, almost all of that increase is the result of the doubling of NIH. Every other agency, including those agencies responsible for supporting basic research in the physical sciences, is essentially flat over the period.
(click to enlarge)
Of course, this is exactly the point SIA and ASTRA were trying to make…in addition to the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, Council on Competitiveness, the American Electronics Association, CSPP, TechNet and all the others who have argued in recent weeks that our failure to adequately support fundamental research in the physical sciences reduces our future innovative capacity and ultimately our future competitiveness.
President’s Science Advisor Gets Frosty Reception From Approps Committee
/In: Funding /by Peter HarshaIn his first appearance before the newly constituted Science, State, Justice, and Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee, John Marburger, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, found himself “rebuked” for “arrogant” and “inappropriate” testimony by the members of the Subcommittee, according to National Journal’s Tech Daily (sub. req’d). Marburger apparently had the temerity to highlight an “earmark” from lawmakers creating a science program in his opening statement, prompting subcommittee chair Frank Wolf (R-VA) to interrupt him.
While I probably side with Marburger over the issue of earmarks — they’ve increased in number every year and often compete with peer-reviewed, merit-based funding in the budget — I have to side with the committee when they raise concerns over U.S. competitiveness being at risk because of a failure to invest in fundamental research, as they also did in yesterday’s hearing.
So in the first science-related hearing of the new subcommittee there’s reason for both optimism and concern. Clearly the leaders of the subcommittee have embraced the idea that support for fundamental research and math and science programs will help the U.S. retain its competitive advantage in the global economy. However, they’ve also vigorously defended earmarking the science budget. Wolf, the new committee chair, is sort of a blank slate for the science community, so we need to take the opportunity to make him comfortable with the case for basic research. Expect to see more in the coming weeks….
Are We Taking NSF for Granted, Part II
/In: Funding /by Peter HarshaFollowing up on a previous post about European efforts to create a National Science Foundation-like agency of their own because of the recognition of that value of the NSF to U.S. competitiveness — and juxtaposing that with our own government’s apparent waning support for fundamental research — I thought I’d just note this article from Science that indicates India has reached a similar conclusion to the EU’s and is hoping to establish an NSF-like agency of its own.
The whole article is here (sub. may be req’d).
Cyber Security is a Vulnerability for U.S. Power Grid, Wash Post Says
/In: Security /by Peter HarshaIn a story today, the Washington Post notes that the U.S. power grid remains at risk from cyber security threats that could have real physical effects on the network and that the federal government is stepping up its efforts to make sure utility companies are addressing the threat.
In our work before Congress and the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (pdf), we’ve tried to emphasize the importance of cyber security R&D, especially long-term R&D, because IT systems constitute the “control loop” of most other elements of our nation’s critical infrastructure (e.g., the electric power grid, the air traffic control grid, the financial grid, the telecommunications grid), and constitute a significant vulnerability. While the federal government has been reasonably quick to warn companies of the risk, it hasn’t done quite as well in ramping up the long-term research to reduce vulnerabilities. Hopefully the imminent release of PITAC’s report (pdf) on the state of cyber security R&D will help move things forward at agencies like DHS and DARPA, and result in increased funding for NSF’s cyber security R&D efforts.
In the meantime, USACM’s Cameron Wilson has more, and Jim Horning has a related post on how the nuclear industry is reacting to new proposed voluntary standards for the increased security of digital systems. Short answer: not well.
Kudos to TechNet
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaTechNet, a “bipartisan, political network of CEOs” of technology companies including Intel, HP, Cisco, 3Com and others, has released its Innovation Priorities for the coming year, which includes a call for an increase for basic research funding at federal agencies. The priorities result from a series of “Innovation Summits” with industry, academia and policymakers the group held over the last half of last year, which found that:
The findings led a series of recommendations, which are worth reading. Here are a couple:
And:
With that, TechNet joins a growing group of companies and industry associations that are drawing attention to the importance of federal investment of basic research in fueling the innovation that drives U.S. competitiveness. In recent weeks, the American Electronics Association, the Council on Competitiveness (pdf), the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation (pdf), and the Computer Systems Policy Project (to name a few) have all put out reports or issued statements affirming the importance of the federal investment in basic research. The message is starting to resonate will policymakers. In the Democratic response to the President’s State of the Union speech this year, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) mentioned the importance of spurring R&D to create “the jobs of the future.” And Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) wrote recently that the U.S. isn’t doing enough to “nuture the next Einsteins.”
We’ll be working hard this year to make sure that the message does more than resonate — that it results in some real priority in the budget for fundamental research investments.
Update: Here’s more coverage.
Another Update: MIT’s Technology Review says more companies and industry groups need to step up their advocacy for fundamental research support: