Barron’s Editorial Slags Federal Support for Basic Research, Lazowska Replies

On August 26, 2008, In R&D in the Press, By Peter Harsha

Thomas G. Dolan, editorial page editor for Barron’s asserts in an editorial yesterday that federal support for basic research is overrated — what’s really needed to drive innovation in this country are R&D tax cuts for American business and “permanently opening the golden door for foreign scientists and engineers.” And while he’s not wrong that both tax cuts and improved visa policies are probably key pieces keeping America’s innovation ecosystem powering along, his understanding of the (crucial) role of basic research in that process is somewhat lacking.
Fortunately, CCC Council Chair Ed Lazowska (who is also the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington), has penned this response to help fill out the picture a bit. Here, with permission, is the note he sent to Barron’s:

Your editorial tackles a critical issue.
The steps that you focus on — tax policy (particularly, making permanent the R&D tax credit) and immigration policy — are important elements of a solution.
But improvements to our education system, to federal support of fundamental research, and to various policies that create “friction” in the innovation ecosystem, are equally important.
There have been several authoritative studies of how innovation actually occurs in information technology — my own field.
Let me focus on research here, although there is just as much to say about the other elements of the innovation ecosystem.  America is the world leader in IT innovation due to a complex interplay of universities, industry, and the federal government.  Essentially every aspect of IT upon which we rely today – every billion-dollar sub-category of the IT industry – bears the clear stamp of federally-supported university-based research.  See, for example, the figure on pages 6 and 7 of this National Academies study.
Continued investment is necessary to maintain our leadership and competitiveness.  Achieving many of the “societal grand challenges” of this century will depend critically on further fundamental advances in IT:  the engineering of new tools that will transform scientific discovery; advancing personalized learning; shifting towards predictive, preventive, personalized, participatory medicine; enhancing national security; developing smart controls and smart electric grids needed to address energy and climate challenges.  Many of the “grand challenges” of IT itself will have broad implications for society:  securing cyberspace; designing truly scalable systems; enhancing virtual reality; creating the future of networking; infusing “computational thinking” into a wide variety of disciplines which are themselves becoming “information sciences”; driving advances in entirely new approaches to computing such as quantum computing.
Research is the key to making progress on these grand challenges.  Both industry and the federal government have important, but different, roles to play.  It is crucial to avoid confusing the IT industry’s research and development (R&D) expenditures with fundamental research that is guiding our way to the future.  The vast majority of corporate R&D in IT – far more than 95% – involves the engineering of the next version of a product.  This “development” is essential.  But the transformative ideas – and our nation’s long-term leadership – come from long-range research.  It is a natural and essential role of government to support this fundamental research – R&D that looks out 5, 10, or 15 years, rather than just one product cycle.  This federally-supported research takes place primarily in America’s universities and has the benefit of producing not just the ideas that will power the nation and the world, but the people who will make them happen.  The relatively modest federal investment in IT research has played an essential role in the past, and will play an equally essential role in the future.
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Ed Lazowska
Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering
University of Washington
http://lazowska.cs.washington.edu

 
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NSF Study Confirms that Federal R&D and CS Funding Decreased for Second Straight Year

On August 26, 2008, In FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations, Funding, Policy, R&D in the Press, By Peter Harsha

The Chronicle of Higher Ed yesterday covered the release of a National Science Foundation Info Brief on the decline of U.S. funding for academic research for the second straight year, noting that NSF declares the decline “unprecedented for this data series, which began in 1972.”
Though federal funding for academic research technically increased from FY 2006 to FY 2007 by 1.1 percent to $30.4 billion in constant dollars, once adjusted for inflation the “increase” actually represents at 1.6 percent decline. This follows a 0.2 percent adjusted decrease between FY 2006 and FY 2005. And, though NSF isn’t reporting it yet, we already know (barring a surprising 2nd second emergency supplemental appropriations) that FY 2008 will continue that negative trend.
The Chronicle piece notes that industry’s support for academic research has ramped up and actually covered most of the federal decline overall. But that was not the case in Computer Science, which still saw a decrease of 1.4 percent in academic funding from all sources. It remains to be seen how some recent highly-publicized university-industry partnerships in computing will affect FY 08 and beyond, but at this point, every little (and big) bit helps.
As the Chronicle piece also points out, it’s also too soon to know how the next President might handle the situation. What we do know is that the FY 2009 appropriations bills that Congress ought to be moving in advance of the Oct 1, 2008 beginning of the fiscal year are hopelessly mired in budget politics that won’t likely get resolved until post November at the very earliest (and more likely next February or later). That’s more bad news for science, which was again slated for big increases in those FY 09 bills. We’ll keep an eye on all developments here and keep you posted.

 
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A Look at the Presidential Candidates Technology Agendas

On August 15, 2008, In American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, People, Policy, By MelissaNorr

Senator John McCain released his technology agenda this week. He supports some of the ideas that have high importance to the S&T community. McCain’s plan includes:

  • Making the R&D tax credit permanent

  • Lowering the corporate tax rate to 25%
  • Allowing companies to write off of new equipment and technology in the first year
  • Keeping the Internet tax-free
  • Limiting taxes on wireless services
  • Fully funding the America COMPETES Act
  • Expanding H1B visas
  • A crack down on piracy
  • Increased funding for Patent Office
  • Protecting intellectual property around the world
  • Increasing broadband to underserved areas
  • Increasing S&T expertise and use in government

Of course, a big focus of the computing research advocacy community has been seeing the funding commitments approved as part of the COMPETES act, which include doubling the budgets of three key federal science agencies — NSF, NIST, and DOE Science — over the next seven years fully realized. And it appears that McCain supports that goal. However, his senior policy staff has sent mixed messages. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a senior policy advisor to McCain told NPR that “Doubling is a nice fun number for political purposes. It’s clean, it’s smooth. But it doesn’t reflect a balancing of political priorities. There will be competing demands for funds.”
Senator Barack Obama has had a technology agenda on his campaign web site for awhile but now that McCain has come out with his the comparisons can begin. There are several areas of agreement between the two such as making the R&D tax credit permanent, increasing broadband to underserved areas, and increasing the protection of intellectual property around the world. Obama, however, supports Net neutrality (though he doesn’t use that term) and flatly states he would double the funding for basic science research. Obama’s plan also calls for allowing foreign students who earn degrees at US higher education institutions to stay in the country and earn citizenship and emphasizes the need to increase the number of American students, particularly women and minorities, who obtain undergraduate degrees in STEM fields. Also, in addition to increasing the intellectual property protections around the world, Obama calls for reforming the patent system.
While most of this sounds great, there is very little in either plan about how to accomplish these goals. However, knowing that science and technology issues are being discussed at the highest levels of campaign politics means the messages the community are sending are getting through.

 
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