The National Science Foundation today announced it has selected BBN Technologies to create and run the project office for its proposed Global Environment for Networking Innovations (GENI) research facility. BBN, which won the original government contract to build the ARPANET in 1969, will manage the planning and design of the GENI network facility, in consultation with the research community and the GENI Science Council.
GENI is conceived as a large-scale research instrument to test and mature a wide range of research ideas in data communications and distributed systems. While GENI itself isn’t a replacement for the current Internet (or any other communications technology), it is designed to create an environment within which researchers can pursue ideas and develop technologies that might lead to an Internet fundamentally better than the current one.
Initially, the job of the GENI Program Office (GPO) will be to develop detailed engineering plans and costs for the facility. NSF’s original solicitation for the GPO estimated a budget of up to $12.5 million a year for four years ($2.5 million a year for administrative costs, $10 million for development and prototyping). GENI still has quite a few hurdles to jump in the NSF approval process, but the naming of a GPO contractor, coupled with the CCC’s naming of a GENI Science Council in March, should provide more heft to the effort.
The GPO is online now and includes this useful FAQ.
The BBN press release is here.
NSF’s Press Release: Three Wishes for a Future Internet? GENI Project Will Soon Be At Your Command
The House and Senate have announced a conference agreement of the Joint Budget Resolution for FY08 (PDF), a key step in the annual appropriations process once it’s passed by both chambers. The General Science, Space and Technology account, known as Function 250, is the total budget amount for NASA (except aviation programs), NSF, DOE Office of Science and DHS S&T. Research funding in Function 250 fares well in the conference agreement, growing by $1.7 billion over the FY 2007 level, which budget committee members intend to use to provide significant increases for NSF and the DOE Office of Science and fully fund the Presidents FY2008 request for NASA at $17.3 billion (according to the report accompanying the resolution).
While this sounds like great news, like everything in Washington, it isnt nearly as simple as it sounds. As we wrote in this space on the FY07 budget resolution (PDF), the budget resolution really only helps the appropriators and the congressional leadership set the overall level of funding for the year, not the agency-by-agency numbers. The leadership will use the resolution to determine how much money goes to each appropriations subcommittee and the subcommittee will then decide how much each agency in their jurisdiction gets. This all means that we need to continue working to ensure that everyone on the Hill knows how important basic research funding is and that the Appropriations bills should fully fund the American Competitiveness Initiative.
We will keep you updated as the Appropriations process moves forward.
The House Armed Services Committee Friday passed its version of the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill (H.R. 1585). The authorization includes increases for Army and Navy basic research and keeps Air Force basic research funding level. Defense wide basic research, which includes DARPA, is up $22.25 million with an increase of $8 million for semiconductor focus research in the Defense Research Sciences.
The committee released a report Monday for the authorization bill and it includes language stating the committees concern with the Department of Defense science and technology research budget requests, specifically basic research. The committee requests a report from the Secretary of Defense that shall also outline a long-term, strategic plan for how the Department believes a sustained increase in funding for DOD basic research could be effectively utilized.
It also included language regarding the education programs at the department and shifted funds between the programs that the department requested while staying at the same total level of funding. The committee gave a lower authorization to the Pre-engineering modules, a new program, at $3.5 million and transferred that money to the Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) funded at $27 million, Materials World Modules (MWM) funded at $3.5 million, and the National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowships funded at $7.4 million.
Thanks to Jason Van Wey of MIT for providing the breakdown and report language information.
From the CCC Blog
- DARPA Issues PERFECT Solicitation Erwin Gianchandani
- Microsoft Announces New Policy-Focused Internship Program Erwin Gianchandani
- NAE Elects its Class of 2012 Erwin Gianchandani
- NIST to Fund Pilot Projects Advancing Trusted Identities Erwin Gianchandani