Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) worries (sub. may be req'd?) in the latest issue of Science that the U.S. isn't doing what it could to continue the pace of innovation and "nuture the next Einsteins."
All revolutions begin with a seminal moment. This year, we will celebrate one of the greatest in the history of science: the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's 1905 landmark papers that introduced the special theory of relativity and the equivalence of mass and energy. As we explore their impact, we must ask ourselves if we as a nation are doing what it takes to spark new scientific revolutions. Are we nurturing the next Einsteins? Regrettably, the answer is no. The lack of federal investment in basic research and restrictive immigration policies are eroding America's leadership in the sciences. The ripple effects of these two troublesome trends are enormous: Our future economic competitiveness and quality of life depend on our ability to stay ahead of the scientific and technological curve.I'm getting more encouraged by the frequency with which the concept that federal support of R&D leads to innovation, which in turn enables U.S. competitiveness, is showing up in the press and out of the mouths of policy makers on both sides of the aisle. As soon as I get some time, I think I'll compile all the recent examples I can find -- it's a big list. But in the meantime, you can probably get more than a few examples by browsing the funding and policy categories in the archives on the left.The splitting of the atom ushered in an unprecedented era of public investment in basic scientific research after World War II. The National Academy of Sciences (citing the work of Nobel Laureate Robert Solow) estimates that nearly half of our nation's economic growth since that time can be attributed to advances in science and technology.
However, in recent years investment has shifted away from research in the physical sciences and engineering to the life sciences. The irony is that advances in the life and medical sciences will be impossible without their physical and engineering counterparts. I agree with the recommendation of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that the funding levels for the physical sciences and engineering be brought to parity with that for the life sciences, which has more than doubled over the past decade. Adequate funding alone, however, will not guarantee that science in the United States maintains its strength.
And the rest of the Alexander editorial is certainly worth reading.
Apologies for the lack of timely blogging, but things in CRA-ville are a little bit crazy as we prepare for our Spring Board Meeting, CRA's Computing Leadership Summit, and our annual congressional visits day -- all next week. But there is a story that is a little dated, but certainly worth a note here. CRA Board Member Leah Jameson, along with her colleagues Edward J. Coyle and William Oakes from Purdue's Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program were awarded the Bernard M. Gordon Prize by the National Academy of Engineering on Monday night.
The EPICS project pairs teams of undergraduate engineering students with nonprofit organizations to solve engineering problems in the community.
Community service agencies face a future in which they must take advantage of technology to improve, coordinate, account for, and deliver the services they provide. They need the help of people with strong technical backgrounds. Undergraduate students face a future in which they will need more than solid expertise in their discipline to succeed. They will be expected to work with people of many different backgrounds to identify and achieve goals. They need educational experiences that can help them broaden their skills.Apparently, the NAE felt EPICS was meeting that challenge. The Gordon prize is given annually for "innovation in engineering and technology education" and carries a $500,000 award. And it's not the first the program has received.The challenge is to bring these two groups together in a mutually beneficial way.
With a new Congress comes a new organization of congressional committees and memberships. We've covered the reorganization of the Appropriations committees and its impact on science funding. USACM's Cameron Wilson has a great writeup on some of the other IT policy implications on USACM's Technology Policy Weblog. It's a good look at the new congressional landscape for intellectual property, privacy, and security issues.
Update: (3/2) Fixed the link to Cameron's post.
NSF is facing a tough budget year (as we've noted). They're requesting a slight increase in funding -- about 2.4 percent for FY 2006 -- but it turns out most of the increase will go to fund the operation of some former Coast Guard icebreakers, as well as hiring some long-awaited new staff. Now news comes that a NSF-owned ship, the research vessel Maurice Ewing, apparently ran aground off the coast of Mexico this week and damaged a coral reef. The Mexican government is talking about "substantial fines" to NSF as a result of the accident and are threatening to seize the ship to ensure the fines are paid.
The story is only just starting to play out, but it bears some watching. Because the amount of increase planned for the agency budget is so small, a fine need not be terribly substantial to result in cuts to existing research budgets. And it wouldn't be the first time NSF's legal issues threatened to impact the Foundation's research budget....
Anyway, keep it here for details....
Update: It's been suggested that because this is an international incident, perhaps the State Department will take care of it. That sounds plausible to me. But I'd love to hear from anyone with more detailed information. harsha [a t] cra . org.
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) -- a CRA-affiliated organization -- has named Vint Cerf and CRA Board Member Bob Kahn the winners of the 2004 A.M. Turing Award for pioneering work on the design and implementation of the Internet's basic communications protocols.
ACM President David Patterson said the collaboration of Cerf and Kahn in defining the Internet architecture and its associated protocols represents a cornerstone of the information technology field. "Their work has enabled the many rapid and accessible applications on the Internet that we rely on today, including email, the World Wide Web, Instant Messaging, Peer-to-Peer transfers, and a wide range of collaboration and conferencing tools. These developments have helped make IT a critical component across the industrial world," he said.Here's ACM's press release."The Turing Award is widely acknowledged as our industry's highest recognition of the scientists and engineers whose innovations have fueled the digital revolution," said Intel's David Tennenhouse, Vice President in the Corporate Technology Group and Director of Research. "This award also serves to encourage the next generation of technology pioneers to deliver the ideas and inventions that will continue to drive our industry forward. As part of its long-standing support for innovation and incubation, Intel is proud to sponsor this year's Turing Award. As a fellow DARPA alumnus, I am especially pleased to congratulate this year's winners, who are outstanding role models, mentors and research collaborators to myself and many others within the network research community."
More news coverage at the New York Times.
Lots going on today. The House Science Committee will hold the first of its hearings on the FY 2006 Science Budget today at 11 am. Scheduled to appear are:
It's always a little depressing to listen to directors of the science agencies forced to defend the lean budgets they've been saddled with, but for those who want to watch, the hearing will be webcast starting at 11 am today. Here's the hearing charter (pdf).John Marburger, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy;
Samuel Bodman, Secretary of Energy;
Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation;
Charles McQueary, Undersecretary for Science and Technology, Department of Homeland Security; and
Theodore Kassinger, Deputy Secretary of Commerce.
Also happening today is a press conference hosted by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation -- a coalition of industry and academic groups advocating for support of the physical sciences and engineering. The Task Force is releasing a series of benchmarks for measuring U.S. global competitiveness in research and innovation. Scheduled to appear at the press conference today at 1 pm are:
All will make the case for strengthening federal investments in science and engineering research, emphasizing the impact of those investments on long-term economic growth and prosperity.John Engler, President, National Association of Manufacturers
Craig Barrett, Chief Executive Officer, Intel
Nils Hasselmo, President, Association of American Universities
Deborah Wince-Smith, President, Council on Competitiveness
Burton Richter, Paul Pigott Professor in the Physical Sciences and former Director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University
Diana Hicks, Chair, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology.
The strength of this particular coalition, as can be seen above, is the strong participation of the high-tech companies and industry associations -- who have some influence in the current administration -- along with the academic groups (CRA is a member of the task force).
I'll have more coverage of the benchmarks, as well as some other comments after the event this afternoon.
Update: (2/16 6:30pm EST) - The Task Force press conference was remarkably well-attended -- the 70-person capacity room was filled, with people lining the walls. It appears a good number of attendees were actually press, too. I'll be posting links to coverage of the event here as I come across them.
For now, here is the official Benchmarks report (pdf). And the accompanying press release (pdf).
Reuters is already out with the story.
Just a quick note to point out an editorial in today's New York Times commending the State Department for finally "bringing some sanity" to the student visa issue. CRA has been urging this sort of reform since it became clear shortly after 9/11 that it was having a real impact on our member institutions. Thanks should go to AAAS, AAU and the National Academies -- some of the real heavyweight academic associations -- for moving the issue forward.
Computerworld has a story today that, I think, helps contribute to the common misunderstanding in some policy circles that "IT funding" is the same as "IT R&D funding." The story combines budget news about the president's proposed increases in federal IT funding -- in this case, funding for IT procurement -- with news about some aspects of the president's science and technology budget. Here's the first few paragraphs:
FEBRUARY 14, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - President George Bush's proposed budget for the federal government's 2006 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, includes an increase in IT spending, despite significant cuts elsewhere.The conflation in the article of IT procurement issues --buying IT for uses within the agency -- with science and technology funding issues aimed at supporting researchers working on the next generations of technology might lead the reader to conclude that IT R&D funding did well under the budget request. Indeed, the line about the 26 percent increase in funding at NSF, as well as Harris Miller's (ITAA) quote about the need for America to "pick up the pace in science, math and engineering," and the bit about the extension of the research and development tax cut seem to reinforce that.The plan also asks Congress to permanently extend a research and development tax credit while terminating a program to develop high-risk, high-payoff technology.
The 2006 Bush budget cuts back or eliminates 150 government programs while calling for a 7% increase in government IT spending, to $65.1 billion. About 55% of IT-related funding would go to defense and domestic security programs. At the same time, the plan raises IT funding for the National Science Foundation by nearly 26%.
Separately, Bush's science and technology budget would drop from an estimated $61.7 billion in fiscal 2005 to $60.8 billion in 2006. The science and technology budget includes programs such as space exploration, renewable energy and agricultural research, as well as technology-related research and development at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
...
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), an industry trade group, praised the IT budget plan.
"America must pick up the pace in science, math and engineering," ITAA President Harris Miller said in a statement. "Countries around the world have clearly signaled their intent to challenge U.S. leadership in technology. Our economic well-being depends on answering this challenge."
Of course, that's not quite the case. IT R&D funding overall would decline 7 percent under the President's plan. NSF funding for IT R&D would increase agency-wide, but only slightly -- $8 million or 1 percent over FY 05.
The irony is that the very important message conveyed in Miller's quote argues for much more robust IT R&D funding, which despite NSF's increase in IT procurement, isn't happening.
Michael Mandel notes in today's BusinessWeek Online op-ed that President Bush's proposed cuts to federal support of R&D in his FY 06 budget request are shortsighted because of the impact they'll have on the U.S. economy. He focuses on multifactor productivity (MFP). a measure of productivity that, when it goes up, means "output per hour of the average worker goes up without any additional skills or a change in equipment."
"An increase in MFP equals free money, extra production that you don't have to pay for," he writes.
The key, according to Mandel:
Multifactor productivity is borne of the essence of technological innovation -- the creation of new products and new opportunities out of ideas and thin air. For example, the spread of the Internet has not only made doing business easier and cheaper but also allowed people to do things that weren't even possible in the past. Think about Amazon, Google, and eBay. Wireless phones aren't just a substitute for landlines; they enable people to organize their activities in very different ways.Mandel notes that the President's cut to nondefense R&D spending "can only hurt the nation's ability to maintain a rapid pace of multifactor productivity growth."The rate of multifactor productivity growth represents the single best indicator of the economy's true strength. When MFP is increasing rapidly, the size of the economic pie expands, real wages rise, profits go up, and everyone feels good. When that figure stagnates, things are tough all around.
For example, multifactor productivity didn't rise at all in 1973-83, a period that included the era of runaway inflation, President Jimmy Carter's famous "malaise" speech, and the deepest recession since the Great Depression. During that stretch, the stock market, adjusted for inflation, fell by 34%, while real hourly wages for production and nonsupervisory workers descended by 11%.
By contrast, the birth of the New Economy can be clearly seen in the sharp acceleration of multifactor productivity growth starting in 1996. From that point to 2002 (the latest year for which figures are available), MFP gained a bit more than 1% a year. From 1995 to today, real wages have risen by 9%, while the inflation-adjusted stock market is up by 68%.
An economy with rapid multifactor productivity growth is potentially quite profitable for investors, which helps explain why the U.S. can attract so much foreign capital to fund its trade deficit. High MFP also generates lots of extra output, useful for paying for, say, military actions or better health-care benefits. It's like having a cushion or a security blanket.
Putting more resources into technology and education is the best way to ensure that the bounty of higher MFP continues in the future.Read the whole piece.
Thanks to Anthony Pitagno of ACS for the tip.
USACM's David Padgham has a good post on House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner's "Real ID Act," a bill inteded to disrupt terrorist travel and bolster U.S. border security.
Among privacy and civil liberties advocates, the bill has renewed worries about the development of a national identification system. Indeed, critics of the bill assert that implementing the standards and information sharing compacts would amount to a “de facto national ID card.” Supporters of the bill contend that the bill is needed to address a number of vulnerabilities in border and homeland security efforts.ACM has more info on national ID's here.
Read the whole post.
Proving once again that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) is the most powerful man in Congress, Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) announced yesterday a "bold reorganization" (to quote his press release) of his panel, a plan that mirrors much of a proposal DeLay originally proposed late last year. The reorganization will dissolve three appropriations subcommittees, including VA-HUD-Independent Agencies subcommittee -- home to NASA and NSF -- and is designed to "streamline and expedite" an appropriations process that has failed to finish up on time every year in recent memory.
Lewis plans to eliminate VA-HUD and spread its jurisdiction across several committees. Maybe most importantly to computing researchers, the reorganization would result in NASA and NSF moving to what was the Commerce, State, Justice subcommittee, but will now be called the Science, State, Justice and Commerce subcommittee.
While this isn't quite as far-ranging as the DeLay proposal originally floated in December (which we analyzed a bit here), it still accomplishes one of DeLay's primary goals: namely, to get NASA out from under the shadow of the Veterans' Administration and Housing and Urban Development. And in that sense, I think it's a net positive for NSF and NASA. They get moved to a subcommittee in which they'll enjoy a bit more prominence, and no longer have to compete with two relative behemoths (VA and HUD) for funding.
This is also a gain, I think, over the original Lewis proposal, which we told you about a few weeks ago. That plan would've seen NSF and NASA join DOE Science in the Energy and Water subcommittee, which raised concerns about the effect of NSF sharing a subcommittee likely to be staffed by members of Congress with DOE Labs in their districts. Would NSF, which has not been terribly affected by earmarks historically, then be in direct competition for funding with DOE in a subcommittee amenable to earmarking projects at DOE labs?
In any case, it looks as if the new organization plan avoids that potential pitfall by separating NSF and DOE. Of course, NSF will still have to contend with NASA -- focus of much special attention by the House Majority Leader -- and now adds NOAA, home to quite a few earmarks of its own. But, well, no plan is perfect....
The Senate appears to be close to adopting the House plan, according to Congressional Quarterly (sub. req'd). Failing to do so would mean absolute chaos come appropriations time -- as opposed to the moderate chaos already experienced during conference season. Adopting the change in the Senate would mean that long-time NSF champion Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) would lose his VA-HUD chairmanship and instead likely take over the new Transportation, Treasury, Judiciary and Housing subcommittee. That move would bump Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) to the Science, State, Justice and Commerce subcommittee.
On the House side, the new Science, State, Justice, and Commerce subcommittee will be chaired by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA). Former VA-HUD Chair Rep. James Walsh would take over the new Military Quality of Life and Veterans' Affairs subcommittee.
For the full shakeout, see Lewis' press release. We'll continue to monitor the reorganization and post the details as we get them.
Update: Roll Call reports (sub. req'd) that the Senate Republicans have rejected adoption of the House plan and want Appropriations Chair Thad Cochran (R-MS) to "negotiate further changes with his House counterpart."
Cochran said no decisions have been made, according to Roll Call.
I have learned not to bet against DeLay, however....
Cameron Wilson, USACM's new Director of Public Policy puts his experience as a former Hill staffer to good use in analyzing how the National Institute of Standards and Technology fares in the President's FY 2006 Budget Request. Read his excellent post on USACM's Technology Policy Weblog.
Short story: NIST IT R&D funding at NIST Labs did see a slight bump in the request, but the President's elimination of NIST's Advanced Technology Program and a 50 percent cut to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership -- both programs with considerable support in Congress -- once again puts funding at NIST Labs at risk in the appropriations process.
Here's the breakdown for the major NSF accounts:
(in millions) | |||
FY 05 plan v. FY 06 request |
FY 05 plan v. FY 06 request |
||
| Research and Related Activities | $4,333 | $113 | 2.7% |
| Education and Human Resources | $737 | -$104 | -12.4% |
| Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction | $250 | $76 | 43.9% |
| Salaries and Expenses | $269 | $46 | 20.5% |
| National Science Board | $4 | $0.03 | 0.8% |
| Inspector General | $11.5 | $1.5 | 14.7% |
| Total | $5,605 | $132 | 2.4% |
Some details from Bement's presentation today:
Here are the directorate-by-directorate breakdowns. If you focus only on the final columns -- $ Change and % Change over FY 05 -- it might appear that CISE has been de-emphasized among the directorates. This would run counter to Bement's stated goal of ramping up CISE funding quickly to provide some immediate relief to the proposal pressure the directorate currently faces -- its 16% success rate is the lowest among the directorates in the Foundation.
However, as CISE AD Peter Freeman pointed out after the briefing today, Bement was able to prioritize funding for CISE for FY 2005, [provided the appropriators approve of Bement's FY 05 plan] even though the final FY 05 appropriations included a 2% cut overall for NSF. So, you'll note that CISE does reasonably well, relatively speaking, when compared to the other directorates, lagging only Polar Programs (not included in the chart) -- which was transferred 3 icebreakers and $45 million from the US Coast Guard -- in total dollar increase since FY 2004.
Nevertheless, even with the increases in FY 05 and in the President's request for FY 06, CISE's rate of growth, along with that of the rest of the Foundation, still lags inflation.
Anyway, here's the table:
FY 2006 Congressional Request (in millions) |
|||||||
| NSF Account | FY 2004 Actual | FY 2005 Current Plan | FY 2006 Request | $ Change FY 04 Actual v. FY 06 Request |
% Change FY 04 Actual v. FY 06 Request |
$ Change FY 05 Plan v. FY 06 |
% Change FY 05 Plan v. FY 06 |
| BIO | $587 | $577 | $582 | -$5.26 | -0.9% | $5.18 | 0.9% |
| CISE | $605 | $614 | $621 | $15 | 2.5% | $6.84 | 1.1% |
| ENG* | $566 | $562 | $580 | $14 | 2.5% | $18 | 3.2% |
| GEO | $713 | $694 | $709 | -$4.31 | -0.9% | $15 | 2.2% |
| MPS | $1,092 | $1,069 | $1,086 | -$5.36 | -0.5% | $16 | 1.5% |
| SBE | $184 | $197 | $199 | $14.5 | 7.9% | $1.9 | 1.0% |
The full set of NSF budget charts are on the web.
The budget is out and the numbers, as promised, don't look very good. Here's the breakdown for the Networking and Information Technology R&D program -- the federal budget crosscut for all agencies involved in funding IT R&D:
(budget authority in millions) | |||||
Actual | Estimate | Proposed | FY05 v FY06 | FY05 v FY06 | |
| Defense | $241 | $277 | $299 | $21 | 7.6% |
| National Science Foundation | $773 | $795 | $803 | $8 | 1% |
| HHS (primarily NIH) | $542 | $573 | $569 | -$20 | -3.4% |
| Energy | $343 | $383 | $341 | -$29 | -7.8% |
| Commerce | $47 | $58 | $62 | $4 | 6.9% |
| NASA | $258 | $192 | $74 | -$89 | -54.6% |
| EPA | $2 | $4 | $6 | $2 | 50% |
| Total | $2,206 | $2,282 | $2,155 | -$101 | -4.5% |
There are some caveats to this table. The first is that the President's budget submission indicates that DOD will "reassess which of its IT R&D programs are appropriate to count as part of the NITRD program, and any changes will be reported in subsequent NITRD publications."
The second is that the baseline budgets (FY 2004 actual and FY 05 estimated) of just about every agency have increased significantly since last year's budget submission. You can see that by comparing this year's "Trends in IT R&D" chart with last year's chart. The change in baseline makes it a little trickier to put the cuts in context. It also makes NIH look like a much more significant supporter of IT R&D than previously reported...
I'll have much more parsing of the numbers a little later today. For now, I'm off to NSF for their budget briefing. I'm not terribly optimistic.
Update: (3/28/05) -- Table now reflects the latest revised numbers (pdf) from the NITRD National Coordinating Office. The NITRD cut is now "only" 4.5 versus FY 2005.
The New York Times reports today that the President will include a request for a slight increase to the National Science Foundation when he delivers his budget plan to Congress on Monday. The Times, which had reported that NSF's budget would be flat -- an improvement over an initial OMB passback that called for a 5 percent cut for the agency -- reports that the President will request $5.6 billion for NSF in FY 06, an increase of 2.4 percent over FY 05.
The increase, though small, would appear to make up the ground lost by the agency after Congress elected to cut funding by 2 percent in FY 05. However, coupled with the rate of inflation, the small increase is actually closer to flat-funding the agency, or even a slight real-dollar decrease.
Still, any increase in a budget which is otherwise rumored to be quite austere is symbolic, indicating areas where the Administration places priority. The Times also reports that the National Institutes of Health, which saw its budget double over the last six years, will receive only a 0.7 percent increase in the President's request.
The President's budget is only the first step in the annual budget cycle. Once the President reveals his plan on Monday, the ball shifts to Congress' court. Congressional and Presidential priorities don't always line up -- as NSF experienced last year. The President requested a 3 percent increase for the agency in his FY 05 request, only to see Congress instead cut the agency by 2 percent in the final omnibus appropriation.
No details yet on directorate by directorate numbers, but we'll only have to wait until Monday afternoon. Keep it here for all the details as they emerge.
Just a quick note on an otherwise busy Friday to point to a piece from the editors of MIT's Technology Review about concerns in the high-tech VC community about the federal government's commitment to funding fundamental research. Here's the opening:
The appetite of venture capitalists for investing in new technologies is rebounding: in 2004, venture capital financing in the United States was up 8 percent from the year before, following three years of decline. With the success of Google’s initial public offering (IPO) in August 2004, technology again excited the public imagination. Indeed, the window on IPOs opened wide in 2004, with 233 companies going public on U.S. stock exchanges and raising $43 billion, up from 79 companies and $16 billion in 2003. Biotechnology IPOs were particularly successful, raising $2.5 billion, the most since the $8.7 billion raised in 2000. So why are many of those involved in the funding of emerging technologies so worried?And a little more from later in the piece:According to some experts, the kind of basic research necessary to create tomorrow’s technologies is under siege—or at the very least, suffering from neglect. Venture capitalists never entirely stopped investing in companies with technologies just emerging from the lab. But after several years in which high-risk investments were unpopular, many startups developing innovative technologies (especially in such areas as nanotechnology and new genomic approaches to medicine) are starving for capital. Even more worrisome, the federal government’s preoccupation with funding homeland security and national defense, and its resulting cutbacks in support for basic research in other areas, has left many wondering where the funding for research on new core technologies will come from.
"Defense and homeland security are very important. I can’t criticize funding increases per se in those areas," says Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York and the 2004 AAAS president. "But the bigger issue is sustaining focus and support for funding of basic research across broad fronts. We have to have a robust base of basic research. We’re talking about potentially eroding that base." Jackson adds, "Other places will innovate. The question is, are we going to be a leader? If we don’t pay attention to the warning signs, 15, 20 years from now, we could find ourselves in a relatively disadvantageous position in terms of global leadership."Something to keep in mind as we brace for the release Monday of the President's Budget Request for FY 06.Experts also worry that the federal R&D budget has become too skewed toward relatively mature technologies. "A lot of the federal funding has gotten a little more conservative and risk averse. The government needs to put a bigger percentage in radical innovation and more-exploratory research—technology that’s going to be transformational," says Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness, a group of industry, university, and labor leaders based in Washington, DC. Amar Bose, professor emeritus at MIT and founder of the Bose audio company in Framingham, MA, puts it more bluntly: "Research funding is going downhill, and I don’t see it turning around. We’re going to have trouble."
Read the whole article here.
Thanks to fellow CRA'er Jay Vegso for the tip!
