Senate Passes Omnibus Bill

After much delay, the Senate last week passed the FY 2004 Omnibus appropriations bill, clearing the way for the bill to head to the White House nearly 4 months after the start of the 2004 fiscal year. By passing the gargantuan 700-plus page bill, Congress approved a modest increase in funding for information technology research and development and the National Science Foundation for FY 2004.

Under the agreement, NSF's budget will grow to $5.57 billion in FY 2004, an increase of $268 million over FY 2003, or 5 percent. The appropriation, the largest NSF budget in history, still falls well short of the 15 percent increase approved by Congress and the President last year in the NSF authorization bill, a rate of increase that would double the agency's budget in five years.

Also slated for increase is NSF's Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate, which will grow to $606 million for FY 2004, an increase of $24 million over FY 2003, or just over 4 percent. The increase includes $225 million for NSF's Information Technology Research program (ITR) and "not less than $20 million" for the agency's cyber infrastructure initiatives in FY 2004.

Details on the FY 2004 appropriations process (and its effect on IT R&D funding) are available at http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/jan04/harsha.html.

National Academies' Study Released on Large Research Facilities supported by NSF

The National Science Foundation needs a clear process to lay out the criteria and rationale for the selection of large research-facility projects that will receive its financial support, ensuring that the agency evaluates proposals based on their potential returns to science, technology, and society, says a new National Academies report. In 1995, NSF created the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction (MREFC) account to support the construction of large research facilities, which enable scientists and engineers to reach previously unattainable scientific frontiers. In recent years, the number of plans to build such facilities has grown, and approved projects have become increasingly complex and expensive.

The committee that wrote the report offered NSF an approach that would strengthen the foundation's current processes for identifying, developing, prioritizing, and managing large research-facility projects funded through MREFC. Although they account for just under 4 percent of the foundation's total budget, these projects are highly visible because of their multimillion dollar budgets, their potential to shape the course of future research, and the economic benefits they bring to the regions where they are located. However, many researchers and federal policy-makers have expressed concerns about NSF's current method for deciding which projects would be submitted to Congress for funding.

For more information about this report go to http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309090849?OpenDocument.

Drop in Enrollment of Foreigners in U.S. Math/CS Programs

The number of foreigners enrolling in Math and Computer Science programs in the U.S. declined 6.3 percent between the 2001/02 and 2002/03 academic years, according to a report by the Institute of International Education. This contrasts with a 13.1 percent increase between 2000/01 and 2001/02, and an 18.4 percent increase between 1999/2000 and 2000/01.

Open Doors 2003 reports that the 2002/03 increase of less than one percent in overall international enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities was the smallest increase since 1995/96, and follows five consecutive years of steady growth. Over the past 20 years, since 1982/83, the number of international students has increased by 74%. However, in seven of those years, the number has increased by less than 1%, as various factors, including political events, economic conditions, training needs, and in-country education capacity, have affected student flows from leading places of origin.

Findings from the report, Open Doors 2003, are available online at http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/. The final report will be published in late January.

Stay Rates of Foreigners Earning U.S. S&E Doctorates Increase

Seventy-one percent of foreign citizens who received science and engineering doctorates from U.S. universities in 1999 were still in the U.S. in 2001, according to a report by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. Among those who received doctorates in math and computer sciences in 1999, 75 percent were in the U.S. in 2001.

The two-year stay rate among science and engineering doctorate recipients has increased substantially. It was only 49 percent in 1989 and increased fairly steadily to 71 percent in 2001. In 1999 the number of foreign citizens who earned science and engineering doctorates in the U.S. and stayed here at least two years was about 3,600 higher than it had been 12 years earlier. Approximately 45 percent of this increase came from an increase in the number of doctorates awarded. The other 55 percent came from an increase in the stay rate of the new foreign doctorate recipients.

The NSF-sponsored report, Stay Rates of Foreign Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities, 2001, is available online at http://www.orau.gov/orise/pubs/stayrate03.pdf

CRA-W's Cohort of Associate Professors Project Now Accepting Applications

The Cohort of Associate Professors Project (CAPP), sponsored by an ADVANCE grant from NSF, aims to increase the percentage of women holding the rank of full professor in Computer Science and Engineering and to assist these women in preparing for other leadership positions. CAPP will bring together and mentor a cohort of women from the associate professor ranks. A number of Distinguished Professors -- chosen for an outstanding record of excellence in research and a demonstrated commitment to mentoring -- will participate as role models, mentors, and advisers. CAPP will begin with a two-day Professional Development Seminar to be held April 30-May 1, 2004 in Denver, Colorado.
 

Critical career information will be discussed along with workshops on building strategic leadership skills. Women who have been promoted to the associate professor rank in the last three years are invited to participate. See http://www.cra.org/craw/capp for details.

New Funding Opportunities at NSF - Emerging Models and Technologies Cluster

The Emerging Models and Technologies Cluster (CCF Division in CISE Directorate) seeks to advance the fundamental capabilities of computer and information sciences and engineering by incorporating insights from areas such as biological systems, quantum phenomena, nanoscale science and engineering, and other novel computing concepts. To bring fundamental changes to software, hardware and architectural design aspects of future computational models, collaborations among computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, biologists and other disciplinary scientists are imperative.

Research of interest should move beyond evolutionary technological advances to innovations that enable fundamentally different ways of computing.  These innovations should promise much higher speeds or should solve more complex problems than traditional approaches currently permit. Supported research areas are: Computational Biology; Biologically Motivated Computational Models; Quantum Computing; and, Related Nanoscience.  For more information go to http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04530/nsf04530.pdf or contact Dr. Mitra Basu, mbasu@nsf.gov. Proposals are due by March 15, 2004.

CISE Directorate Reorganization

According to the Assistant Director, Peter Freeman, of the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), the reorganization of the CISE Directorate is progressing well, but they have been getting signals from faculty around the country that they cannot easily understand what new program is intended to support their respective area. The Important Message from the CISE AD and the Crosswalk of CISE Activities (which is posted on the CISE website at http://www.cise.nsf.gov/news/pubs/crosswalk.cfm) provides further explication of the new CISE program structure. Bringing this information to the attention of faculty and staff would be greatly appreciated.

Programmable Wireless Networking Meeting on NSF NeTS Focus Area

The Programmable Wireless Networking focus area, http://www.cise.nsf.gov/prowin/, is part of the recently announced National Science Foundation program solicitation NSF 04-540, Research in Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS), http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04540/nsf04540.htm. This focus area seeks to exploit the capabilities of programmable radios to make more effective use of the frequency spectrum and to improve wireless network connectivity. An informational meeting will be held on February 5, 2004 in Arlington, Virginia to share the goals, scope, and logistics of the focus area, review the state of the art and challenges, and provide the opportunity to interact and answer questions from the research community.

The informational meeting will offer an overview of the focus area and its context within the NSF networking program, a discussion of research challenges in programmable wireless networking, details and logistics for the focus area, and presentations by industry on programmable wireless system platforms. In addition, researchers will have an opportunity to present their work at an open poster session, and participate in a question and answer session with the NSF program officer managing this area.  For more information about the meeting, visit http://www.cra.org/nsf.wireless/.