Computing Research Policy Blog

CCC Announces New Networking Research Agenda

CCC’s Network Science and Engineering (NetSE) Council, led by Ellen Zegura, released a new agenda for networking research at the GENI Engineering Conference this week. The agenda, version 1.0, is available here (pdf) but the Council stresses that this is a “living document” and as such requests feedback and comments from the community at the CCC NetSE web site.

The agenda is the result of a process initiated in 2008 at the behest of the CCC, who charged the NetSE Council with developing a comprehensive research agenda that would support the development of better networks. Through a series of workshops and much community input, the NetSE council gathered the input to produce this draft, which includes four overarching recommendations:

Recommendation 1: The funding agencies of the United States government must increase investment in research that will lead to a better Internet or risk a marginal future role.

Recommendation 2: Funding agencies should rebuild the experimental capabilities of networking researchers, through funding individual systems-building efforts, providing adequate and persistent shared experimental infrastructure, and supporting research that leads to continued improvements in experimental methodology. Experimental work is expensive and long-term; typical NSF awards are insufficient, therefore either NSF will need to change its award portfolio or other agencies will have to play a significantly increased role.

Recommendation 3: Funding agencies should foster and support research activities relevant to network design within the theoretical computer science community, the new Network Science community, and other theoretical disciplines.

Recommendation 4: Funding agencies should support a broad array of interdisciplinary research activities related to understanding the current Internet and designing future networks to include the Internet.

More information on the NetSE effort and the full version of the report are available at the CCC NetSE web site. Also, feel free to comment on the
CCC Blog.