FY 06 Appropriations: Energy and Water — Not so Awful…

On November 9, 2005, In FY06 Appropriations, By Peter Harsha

…all things considered.
The House passed the conference version of the FY 06 Energy and Water Appropriations bill (H.R. 2419) today (399-17). Included in the bill is funding for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and within the Office of Science, the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research. Both the Office of Science and ASCR will see slight increases in FY 06 compared to FY 05. Office of Science will see an increase of $33 million over FY 05 — $170 million over the Administration’s request — to $3.63 billion. ASCR received $237.1 million, $30 million more than the President’s request and $5 million more than FY 05 (an increase of about 2.2 percent).
Neither increase is particularly dramatic, but in a year in which the pressure to cut discretionary spending is relatively severe, DOE computing fared OK.
Here’s what the appropriations conferees had to say about the program:

Advanced Scientific Computing Research.–The conference agreement includes $237,055,000 for advanced scientific computing research, an increase of $30,000,000 over the budget request. This increase is provided to the Center for Computational Sciences to accelerate the efforts to develop a leadership-class supercomputer to meet scientific computational needs. Of this $30,000,000, $25,000,000 should be dedicated to hardware and $5,000,000 to competitive university research grants

The bill is expected to get Senate approval on Thursday.

 
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Cerf and Kahn to “Chat” from White House

On November 9, 2005, In Events, By Peter Harsha

Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom today at the White House, will also be fielding questions as part of a White House online chat at 4 pm ET today. So if you’re itching to ask these two networking pioneers their thoughts on the Internet, what it’s like to receive a Presidential medal, or anything else the White House webmaster might allow, today’s your chance.

 
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CNET: “Research Money Crunch in the U.S.”

On November 9, 2005, In R&D in the Press, By Peter Harsha

Marguerite Reardon writes in CNET News.com what’s becoming a very familiar refrain:

An outspoken group of information and communications technology innovators is worried that the United States is falling behind the rest of the world in technological innovation because fewer dollars are being allocated to long-term research.

The piece does a good job of laying out concerns of the computing research community, which should be very familiar to readers of this blog.

Many in the research community also believe that the research being conducted today is too focused on short-term, market-oriented results. The current DARPA policy, which mandates 12-month “go, no go” research milestones for information technology, has shortened deadlines, thus discouraging long-term research. And with more research focused on national security, programs formerly open to academics are now classified. DARPA has also slashed spending on academic research.
“Traditionally funding in computer sciences has come from the U.S. government,” Kleinrock said. “And it’s contributed to some remarkable advances, such as the Internet and artificial intelligence. They (the government) used to step back and with some direction let you go develop something new. But that’s not the case today. And DARPA is no longer thinking long-range.”
More competition, fewer dollars
The effects have been significant. In the last five years, IT proposals to the National Science Foundation jumped from 2,000 to 6,500, forcing the agency to leave many proposals unfunded. Other agencies, such as NASA, have also reduced spending on communications research. Since most government funding comes only from these two sources, researchers are flocking toward the NSF as DARPA cuts back or changes its priorities.

Read the whole thing here. And check here or here for good collections of similar stories that have run this year.

 
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