Computing Research Policy Blog

Budget Cuts Mean Layoffs for Supercomputing Staff at NASA

Federal Computer Week has a depressing article today on the impact of recent and planned cuts to NASA's IT programs. The agency's IT R&D programs are due to decline $66 million in FY 2005, with a further cut of $89 million requested in the President's FY 2006 budget -- a figure that would represent a total cut of 60 percent since FY 2004. The Administration says that NASA's investments in IT R&D in FY 2006 will be reduced across the board, largely due to redirected funding to the President's Moon/Mars initiative and the Space Shuttle Return to Flight program -- the same reason given for the FY 2005 cuts that are putting pressure on agency supercomputing efforts now.

FCW says the cuts in FY 05 will result in 15 to 20 layoffs of NASA Ames' supercomputing staff and 20 to 25 layoffs in its robotics staff (currently at 70 and 100, respectively). Buyout packages are being offered.

Chris Knight, vice president for negotiations at Ames Federal Employees Union and a Computational Sciences Division employee, said the buyouts apply to all IT workers except three in visualization and robotics. But the amounts will not be enough to convince most people to leave, he said.

“A lot of the research centers are being basically bled dry,” Knight said.

Read the whole article.

Concerns about the Status of the Federal Effort in IT R&D

For the last several years, CRA has provided an analysis of computing research in the Administration's budget request for AAAS' annual look at R&D in the President's Budget Request. The book containing the CRA analysis won't be available until April, but I thought I'd post some of the core of that effort here. After the jump (the "Continue Reading..." link below) you'll find CRA's look at the current policy environment -- why we're concerned about the significantly changed landscape for federal IT R&D funding, including an examination of DARPA's diminished role and NSF's enhanced one. When the book is released, I'll post a link to it as well. CRA's chapter is just one of 26 or so focused on just about every aspect of the overall R&D portfolio.

Current Policy Environment

The landscape for computing research funding has changed significantly since PITAC began its review of the federal IT R&D effort in 1997. Since the early 1960s, the two federal agencies arguably most responsible for supporting computing research, the development of computer science as a discipline and much of the innovation that has resulted are NSF and DARPA. At the time PITAC began its review, both agencies bore an about equal share of the overall federal investment in IT R&D. In FY 1998, DARPA funding constituted 30 percent of federal IT R&D spending, compared to NSF's 27 percent share. However, as the overall investment has increased, DARPA's share of the research -- both as a percentage of the overall effort and in absolute dollars -- has declined. While NSF's $795 million investment in IT R&D in FY 2005 represents 35 percent of overall federal IT R&D (an increase in its total share since FY 1998), DARPA's $143 million in FY 2005 represents just 6 percent of the overall IT R&D budget, a significant decrease in its share since FY 1998.

There are concerns within the computing research community about the reasons for DARPA's diminished role in supporting computing research and the impact that it will have on the discipline, DARPA's mission, and the nation as a whole. Central to these concerns is the idea that the discipline -- and hence, the nation -- benefited greatly by having the two different approaches to funding computing research represented by the NSF model and the DARPA model. While NSF has primarily focused on support for individual investigators at a wide range of institutions -- and support for computing infrastructure at America's universities -- DARPA's approach has varied over the years. DARPA has had a number of "freedoms" that other funding agencies like NSF have not. Historically, DARPA program managers could fund individual researchers, or even "centers of excellence" -- typically university research departments -- without the requirement for equitable distributions of funding based on geography or any other factor beyond scientific capability. DARPA's requirement for competitive selection did not involve peer-review in the same way that competitive grants at NSF were evaluated. DARPA program managers had great flexibility in funding projects they believed to be promising. In this way, DARPA was able to create and nourish communities of researchers to focus on problems of particular interest to the agency and to the Department of Defense, with great success.

The combination of the two different approaches has proven enormously beneficial to the nation, the community argues, and to DARPA's overall mission of assuring that the U.S. maintains "a lead in applying state-of-the-art technology for military capabilities and [preventing] technological surprise from her adversaries." DARPA-supported research in computing over a period of over four decades, beginning in the 1960s, has laid down the foundations for the modern microprocessor, the internet, the graphical user interface, single-user workstations, and a whole host of other innovations that have not only made the U.S. military the lethal and effective fighting force it is today, but have driven the new economy and enabled a whole range of new scientific disciplines.

However, the computing research community argues that through a series of policy changes, including the use of "go/no-go" decisions applied to critical research at 12 to 18 month intervals and the increasing classification of research sponsored by the agency, DARPA has shifted much of its focus in IT R&D from pushing the leading edge of computing research to "bridging the gap" between basic research and deployable technologies -- in essence relying on NSF to fund the basic research needed to advance the field.

These changes at DARPA, the community argues, have discouraged university participation in research, effectively reducing DARPA "mindshare" -- the percentage of people working on DARPA problems -- at the nation's universities. This fact, combined with an overall growth in the number of researchers in the field and an increase in the breadth of the discipline, has placed a significant burden for funding basic IT R&D on NSF. The agency reports that in FY 2004, NSF supported 86 percent of federal obligations for basic research in computer science at academic institutions -- and the agency's Computing and Information Science and Engineering directorate (CISE) is beginning to show the strain. In FY 2004, the funding rate for competitive awards in CISE fell to a decadal low of 16 percent, lowest of any directorate at NSF and well below the NSF average of 25 percent. Programs in critical areas like information security and assurance are enduring even lower success rates -- NSF's CyberTrust program reported an 8.2 percent success rate for FY 2004. Such low success rates, the community argues, are harmful to the discipline and to the nation as a whole.

PITAC began to explore these issues in 2004 as a result of its work on its report on the current state of the federal investment in cyber security R&D, Cyber Security: A Crisis in Prioritization, due for release in early 2005. [Ed. Note -- the report is out (pdf)] The committee found that DARPA's cyber security efforts were too short--term focused and that its increasing use of classification was limiting the participation of university researchers and likely limiting the benefits of the research. The committee also recommended that the Federal budget for fundamental research in civilian cyber security must be dramatically increased or the Nation's security and technological edge will be seriously jeopardized. As a first step, the committee agreed to recommend an immediate increase of $90 million per year to NSF's Cyber Trust program.

Because the cyber security report exposed the PITAC members to concerns about how the changed landscape of funding for computing research has impacted cyber security R&D, it also suggested that the problems likely go beyond cyber security R&D and extend to the overall IT R&D effort. As a result, it is likely that the committee will push forward with some effort to review the overall federal IT R&D program in the coming year. How that effort will move forward is unclear, and there is additional uncertainty whether the committee will be re-appointed when its current charter expires on June 1, 2005.

The committee could get further impetus to undertake an overall review of federal IT R&D from legislation introduced in January 2005, by Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL), Rep. Lincoln Davis (R-TN), and House Science Committee Chair Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY). The High-Performance Computing Revitalization Act of 2005, H.R. 28, would require PITAC to review NITRD every two years and report to Congress, in addition to helping assure researchers have access to high-performance computer systems and assuring "balanced progress" in high-performance computing research. The bill is identical to H.R. 4218, introduced by the same Members in the 108th Congress, which passed the House but failed to get consideration in the Senate. Previous efforts to reauthorize NITRD programs in the 106th and 107th Congress also failed to gain the approval of both chambers. Prospects for passage this year are better, given the early start and the uncontroversial nature of the legislation.

In addition to efforts to revitalize high-performance computing, Congress is likely to take interest in cyber security, though congressional reorganization has made the question of who will take the lead in coordinating cyber security policy difficult to answer. For now, the fact that four House committees share jurisdiction over the issue -- Energy and Commerce, Government Reform, Science, and Homeland Security -- likely means that prospects for any overarching legislation are slim. However, the release of the PITAC cyber security report will probably generate action in Congress and may lead to oversight hearings for the key agencies involved (NSF, DARPA and DHS).

Budget Request

Seven agencies included requests for FY 2006 funding as part of the NITRD activity. Under the President's plan, NSF, as the recipient of the largest amount of NITRD funds, would once again be designated as the lead agency for the initiative, with NSF Computing and Information Systems and Engineering (CISE) directorate head Dr. Peter Freeman serving as the head of the NITRD Interagency Working Group. For FY 2006, the President has requested $2.2 billion for the NITRD initiative, a decrease of 4.5 percent over the FY 2005 enacted level (see table I-10). Under the President's plan, NSF, Commerce, Defense, and EPA would see small to moderate increases in FY 2006, while Energy, HHS and NASA would see cuts of 7.8, 3.4 and 54.6 percent respectively.

National Science Foundation: NSF has requested $803 million in NITRD-related funding, an increase of $8.0 million over the FY 2005 request, or 1.0 percent. The bulk of IT-related funding in the NSF request is contained within the request for the CISE directorate, which would grow 1.1 percent over FY 2005 to $621 million. CISE program funding is detailed in table II-7. The Foundation's Information Technology Research (ITR) activity ended in FY 2004, so funding included in the ITR line reflects commitments to multi-year grants awarded prior to FY 2004. As with last year, NSF continues to invest the funding "freed up" from the ITR activity as grants end back into the "core" research activities of the directorate.

CISE has also adopted a number of strategies to cope with the low success rate the directorate is currently experiencing (detailed above) due to the significant increase in proposal pressure, an increase in annual award amounts, and budget growth that has not kept pace with demand. In some heavily subscribed programs, CISE plans to delay FY 2005 solicitation deadlines and use FY 2005 money to fund some meritorious FY 2004 solicitations it was unable to fund, and use expected FY 2006 money to fund some FY 2005 solicitations. In addition, CISE will limit the number of proposals that a researcher may submit to some competitions, while enforcing regulations that prohibit sending virtually identical proposals to multiple competitions simultaneously.

NSF remains active in every aspect of the NITRD program component areas and continues in its role as the principal source of federal funding for university-based basic research in computer science, computer engineering, information science, networking and the computational science disciplines. NSF's request of $803 million is significantly larger than the next largest NITRD participant (HHS, $569 million).

Department of Defense: The DOD request of $299 million for NITRD-related activities department-wide represents an increase of $21 million from the FY 2005 level. DARPA constitutes the largest share of NITRD-related defense funding at $176 million in the President's request, an increase of $28 million over FY 2005, with the bulk of that effort taking place within the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO). DARPA efforts in High End Computing would increase by $17 million (to $81 million) to support the High Productivity Computing Systems program, consistent with the recommendations of the Administration's High End Computing Revitalization Task Force released last year. Human-Computer Interaction and Information Management would see a $13 million increase (to $74 million) for research aimed at improving information access and analysis for warfighters.

The DOD request also includes $22 million for research in High Confidence Software and Systems and Software Design and Productivity supported by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), the same level as in FY 2005. The National Security Agency, also a part of the DOD request, would see its budget drop by $12 million in FY 2006 to $101 million, as it winds down the developmental support for its Black Widow computer system.

Health and Human Services (HHS): NIH constitutes the bulk of funding in IT R&D at HHS. For FY 2006, the President's plan includes $569 million in IT R&D funding at HHS, a decrease of 3.4 percent, or $20 million less than the FY 2005 level. The bulk of this reduction is due to the completion of testbed projects exploring medical applications of advanced networks.

Within HHS, NIH participates in NITRD by supporting research that advances its mission of developing the basic knowledge for the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of human disease. IT research in this area includes applying the power of computing to manage and analyze biomedical data and to model biological processes. AHRQ focuses on research into state-of-the-art IT for use in health care applications such as computer-based patient records, clinical decision support systems, and standards for patient care data.

Department of Energy: IT R&D activities in DOE's Office of Science and NNSA constitute DOE's participation in NITRD. The Office of Science focuses on computational and networking tools that enable researchers to model, simulate, analyze, and predict complex physical, chemical and biological phenomena important to the department's overall mission. NNSA supports research developing new means of assessing the performance, safety, and reliability of nuclear weapons systems through high-fidelity computer models and simulations. Under the President's plan DOE NITRD funding would be $341 million for FY 2006, a decrease of 7.8 percent, or $29 million, from the FY 2005 level. According to the request, this reduction reflects the completion of the initial leadership-class computer system acquisition, and consolidation of efforts in networking research and collaboratory tools into an integrated "Distributed Network Environment" focusing on basic research in computer networking and middleware.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration: Under the President's plan, NASA would see the largest reduction in NITRD funding both on a percentage and an absolute-dollar basis. The President's request includes $74 million for NASA IT R&D in FY 2005, a reduction of $89 million from the FY 2005 level, representing a 54.6 percent decrease. Though NASA will continue operating its 52-teraflop Columbia computer acquired in 2004-2005, funding in all aspects of NASA's IT R&D efforts will be reduced and redirected to support NASA's Vision for Space Exploration and mission needs for returning the Space Shuttle to flight.

Department of Commerce (DOC): The DOC request for FY 2006 contains NITRD-related funding requests from two agencies: NOAA and NIST. NIST IT R&D efforts include working with industry, educational, and government organizations to make IT systems more useable, secure, scalable, and interoperable. In addition, NIST works to apply IT to specialized areas like biotechnology and manufacturing, and to encourage industry to accelerate development of IT innovations. The President's request includes $42 million for NIST in FY 2006, an increase of $3 million over FY 2005.

NOAA supports IT research in emerging computer technologies for improved climate modeling and weather forecasting, and for improved communications technologies to disseminate weather products and warnings to emergency responders, policymakers, and the general public. The President's request includes $20 million for NOAA in FY 2006, a $1 million increase over FY 2005.

Environmental Protection Agency: The EPA would receive $6 million in FY 2006 under the President's plan, an increase of $2 million over FY 2005. EPA intends to use that funding to support IT technologies that facilitate ecosystem modeling, risk assessment, and environmental decision making at the federal, state, and local levels.

Department of Homeland Security: Because the Department of Homeland Security, established in 2003, was created well after the original passage of the legislation creating the current NITRD structure (the High Performance Computing and Communications Act of 1991), the agency is not officially a member of the NITRD Interagency Working Group. However, the agency has requested $17 million in FY 2006 for cyber security research and development, out of a total Science and Technology directorate budget request of $1.3 billion (see table II-20), a decrease of $1 million dollars compared to FY 2005. In the forthcoming PITAC report on cyber security R&D, the committee is expected to take DHS to task for its inadequate support of long-term cyber security research, given that IT systems constitute the control loop of so much of the nation's critical infrastructure. The report will note that of the $18 million DHS expects to spend in FY 2005 on cyber security R&D, only $1.5 million of that research can truly be described as long-term.

DOE/IBM's Blue Gene Nearly Doubles its Speed Record

BBC coverage of the jump to 135.5 teraflops.

ZDNet has more.

The feat won't show up on the current Top500.org list until they release the next revision of the list, which I think will be in May (the last was released in November at the Supercomputing 2004 conference in Pittsburgh, and it seems to be issued at six month intervals).

Update: John West, Director of the ERDC MSRC -- one of four DOD HPC program centers -- e-mails with a helpful clarification:

Top500 lists are published twice a year: in June and in November. The November list is announced at the annual Supercomputing series of conferences (www.supercomp.org), which is probably part of the reason for its not-quite-six-months timing.

He also notes that the LINPACK score (upon which the Top500 list is based) isn't the best way to assess a supercomputer's relative benefit to a discipline, despite it's popularity -- something I probably should have noted in my post.

In my defense, as limited as the LINPACK score is in what it says about a particular machine, it is the one number most people out here (certainly in the policy world) cling to when trying to understand progress in supercomputing. Though it wasn't the message we sought to convey, the fact that the Japanese Earth Simulator was X teraflops faster than our "best" machine certainly focused the mind of a lot of policymakers in Congress last year, for better or worse. In talking about high-end computing with them, we certainly tried not to emphasize that measure; rather, we tried to talk about the importance of a sustained research effort on a diverse set of approaches to enable progress on a wide range of different problems.

John also notes that there are some interesting efforts to develop a new metric coming out of DARPA's HPCS program, but those measures are likely to be a bit more complex -- almost certainly spelling doom for their adoption over the "one number fits all" of the LINPACK.

PITAC Cyber Security Report is Out!

The long-awaited PITAC report on Cyber Security, Cyber Security: A Crisis of Prioritization (pdf, 2.2mb) has just been released. The committee spent nearly a year reviewing the federal government's cyber security R&D effort, a process we've covered in this space. The resulting report concludes that the IT infrastructure -- beyond the public Internet -- is a crucial piece of the nation's critical infrastructures, such as power grids, air traffic control systems, financial systems, and military and intelligence systems. Given it's importance, the committee finds that the federal cyber security R&D investment is inadequate and "imbalanced" towards short-term, defense oriented research, with little support for fundamental research to address the larger vulnerabilities of the civilian IT infrastructure. As a result the committee recommends changes to the portfolio to:

Increase Federal support for fundamental research in civilian cyber security by $90 million annually at NSF and by substantial amounts at agencies such as DARPA and DHS to support work in 10 high-priority areas identified by PITAC.

Intensify Federal efforts to promote recruitment and retention of cyber security researchers and students at research universities, with an aim of doubling this profession’s numbers by the end of the decade.

Provide increased support for the rapid transfer of Federally developed cutting-edge cyber security technologies to the private sector.

Strengthen the coordination of the Interagency Working Group on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection and integrate it under the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program.

I'll have more detail on the report as I work my way through it, but wanted to get a link up to it ASAP. At 72 pages cover-to-cover, the report is a very revealing examination of the federal cyber security R&D portfolio.

Update: (3/19/05) - The NY Times' John Markoff has more on the report today, including this quote from PITAC co-Chair Ed Lazowska:

"The federal government is largely failing in its responsibility to protect the nation from cyberthreats," said Edward D. Lazowska, chairman of the computer science and engineering department at the University of Washington and co-chairman of the panel. "The Department of Homeland Security simply doesn't 'get' cybersecurity. They are allocating less than 2 percent of their science and technology budget to cybersecurity, and only a small proportion of this is forward-looking."

Michelle Petrovich, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, disputed the criticism. "We take cybersecurity seriously and have taken aggressive measures to address various needs," she said. "Our cybersecurity budget has gone up every year."

For the record, it may be true that DHS' overall budget for "cyber security" activities has gone up, but cyber security R&D -- the focus of this report and, one would think, a focus of the DHS Science and Technology directorate -- has actually been flat at DHS for the last two fiscal years at a paltry $18 million out of an overall S&T budget of just about $1 billion per year. And of that tiny share only $1.5 million could truly be called "long-term" research -- research beyond patching the holes in the current systems. As the report points out, without research into fundamentally new approaches, we'll be "endlessly patching and plugging holes in the dike" for years to come. It's also worth noting that the President's budget for cyber security research at DHS this year actually takes a step backwards. For FY 2006, the President's budget would cut cyber security R&D at the agency to $17 million, a decrease of $1 million from FY 2005....

House Science Passes HPC Authorization

The House Science Committee marked up a series of bills today including H.R. 28, the High Performance Computing Revitalization Act, a bill we covered in depth last year when it was introduced as H.R. 4218. CRA endorsed that bill, and has endorsed H.R. 28. Here's a summary of today's activities from the House Science Committee press release.

The bill, which was introduced by Energy Subcommittee Chairman Judy Biggert (R-IL), Representative Lincoln Davis (D-TN), and Chairman Boehlert, would strengthen U.S. supercomputing capabilities by requiring NSF and DOE to ensure U.S. researchers access to high-performance computers, and by prescribing a comprehensive, balanced approach to the nation's computing strategy.  It would also place responsibility with the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to ensure a coordinated, on-going effort among the federal agencies that have a role in high-performance computing.  An earlier version of the bill was endorsed by the Bush Administration at a May 13, 2004 Full Committee hearing.

By voice vote, the Committee agreed to an amendment offered by Chairman Biggert that added a finding that emphasizes the importance of commercial application of the results of federal investment in computer science.  By a vote of 19 to 17, the Committee rejected an amendment offered by Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA) that would have added a requirement that the National Science Foundation support research into the implications of computers that would be capable of mimicking human abilities to learn, reason, and make decisions. 

The Sherman amendment was agreed to by the Committee in the 108th, Congress.  Explaining the Majority's opposition today, Chairman Boehlert said, "We've learned that it is adamantly opposed by the bill's sponsor who happens to be one of our subcommittee chairs.  We've learned that it is adamantly opposed by both industry and the Administration.  We've learned that it is an obstacle to dealing with the Senate.  And we learned all that the hard way while keeping to our agreement by trying to get this language through on another bill - Mrs. Biggert's Energy Department computing bill that we got signed into law last year.  Now I might be willing to continue to support this amendment despite all that if I thought that it dealt with a crucial and pressing problem.  But it doesn't.  All the experts tell us we are nowhere near creating the dystopia that Mr. Sherman fears." 

From here, the bill will advance to the House floor where it's expected to pass without difficulty, as H.R. 4218 did last year. Unfortunately, the hurdle for reauthorizations of NITRD programs lately has been the U.S. Senate. As Boehlert noted, H.R. 4218 failed to receive consideration by the Senate in the 108th Congress, though that seemed related to time constraints rather than any substantive objection to the bill. Previous efforts in the 107th and 106th Congresses also met a similar fate. However, this time Science Committee staff are optimistic that the earlier start they've gotten introducing and marking up the bill combined with its uncontroversial nature (there are, for example, no dollar amounts included in the bill that might earn the wrath of budget hawks -- or prove helpful to the computing community in making the case for funding to appropriators...) means that the bill has a serious shot gaining Senate approval.

We'll keep an eye on all the developments here....

Even Tom Friedman weighs in on NSF

In a column focusing on China, Tom Friedman notes that cutting NSF will leave us without the kind of workforce the U.S. will need to compete:

Finally, on competition policy, the Bush team and Congress cut the budget of the National Science Foundation for this fiscal year by $105 million. I could not put it better than Congressman Vern Ehlers, one of the few dissenting Republicans, who said: "This decision shows dangerous disregard for our nation's future ... at a time when other nations continue to surpass our students in math and science and consistently increase their funding of basic research. We cannot hope to fight jobs lost to international competition without a well-trained and educated work force."

Industry Continues to Push for Basic Research, White House Growing Defensive

Interesting article (sub. req'd) in Tech Daily today about an event hosted by the Semiconductor Industry Association which brought together Intel CEO Craig Barrett, Micron Technology CEO Steve Appleton, and Harvard Economist Dale Jorgenson to talk about the importance of federal support for fundamental research and math and science education. They sounded a theme that's been heard increasingly from industry groups and policymakers in the last few weeks: "American technology leadership is under an assault that can only be countered through improved basic research investment and better science education in American schools."

"Congress shouldn't play Sputnik with this; we have to plan in advance," Intel CEO Craig Barrett said at a press conference convened by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Sputnik was the Russian rocket launched in 1957 that began the "space race" with the United States.

...

For the semiconductor industry, the problem is physics. Current technology uses complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS) -- the ubiquitous silicon chip. But in the race to cram more tiny transistors onto chips, the industry will exhaust the parameters of CMOS and need to make a major technical jump into nanotechnology, which focuses on matter at the atomic level.

"U.S. leadership in nanoelectronics is not guaranteed," Barrett said. "It will take a massive, coordinated U.S. research effort involving academia, industry, and state and federal governments to ensure that America continues to be the world leader in information technology."

The press conference once again put the Administration on the defensive for a budget request that cuts basic research in the physical sciences by $39 million in FY 2006. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Marburger repeated what he told a House Appropriations Committee earlier this week, when he said he didn't believe that U.S. competitiveness was at risk:

Presidential science adviser John Marburger said he hears the warnings but feels that U.S. competitiveness is not facing an immediate crisis. "It's kind of hard to see into the future," he said. "The U.S. is so far ahead in these areas that we are going to be able to maintain our competitive strength. I don't see the same danger signs."

...And then argued that R&D advocates shouldn't focus on what the President is proposing this year, they should look at the growth over the last 5 years:

Many high-tech advocacy groups are relying on R&D budget figures that misrepresent the level of true federal investment, Marburger said. Taken in five-year increments, overall basic research spending between fiscal 2002 and fiscal 2006 is up $28 billion over the same period starting in 1997, in constant dollars, according to data from the White House Office of Science and Technology. But for fiscal 2006, the administration has requested cutting spending on basic physical sciences by $39 million, to $2.8 billion.

R&D spending advocates, including the Alliance for Technology Research in America, SIA and TechNet, point to a 25-year flat line on funding for basic research on physical sciences and engineering at $8 billion per year as proof of the problem.

Marburger said they are slicing data to support their case. "We are by far the major investor in basic research in most fields," he said.

Honestly, Marburger is doing just what he accuses ASTRA of doing. While it's true that basic research is up in aggregate over the time-period he suggests, almost all of that increase is the result of the doubling of NIH. Every other agency, including those agencies responsible for supporting basic research in the physical sciences, is essentially flat over the period.

(click to enlarge)

Of course, this is exactly the point SIA and ASTRA were trying to make...in addition to the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, Council on Competitiveness, the American Electronics Association, CSPP, TechNet and all the others who have argued in recent weeks that our failure to adequately support fundamental research in the physical sciences reduces our future innovative capacity and ultimately our future competitiveness.

President's Science Advisor Gets Frosty Reception From Approps Committee

In his first appearance before the newly constituted Science, State, Justice, and Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee, John Marburger, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, found himself "rebuked" for "arrogant" and "inappropriate" testimony by the members of the Subcommittee, according to National Journal's Tech Daily (sub. req'd). Marburger apparently had the temerity to highlight an "earmark" from lawmakers creating a science program in his opening statement, prompting subcommittee chair Frank Wolf (R-VA) to interrupt him.

Wolf accused Marburger of insinuating that "if it's an earmark from the Congress, then it's automatically wrong."

"I think there is a degree of arrogance in your answer," said Wolf, who chairs the House Science, State, Justice and Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee. "I think it's inappropriate."

Wolf, who was criticized in his re-election campaign last year for supporting earmarked projects in his district, rattled off a list of congressional mandates for science programs and grilled Marburger about whether he believes they were a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Marburger answered that certain earmarks, typically characterized by critics as pork-barrel spending, are "not as bad as others" and then quickly added that "some are better than others."

Both answers had Wolf and other members on the panel visibly irritated. Several lawmakers lectured Marburger about their constitutional obligation to control the government's purse strings and create government programs.

While I probably side with Marburger over the issue of earmarks -- they've increased in number every year and often compete with peer-reviewed, merit-based funding in the budget -- I have to side with the committee when they raise concerns over U.S. competitiveness being at risk because of a failure to invest in fundamental research, as they also did in yesterday's hearing.

Marburger also told the panel that he does not agree with recent reports that the United States is losing its competitive edge in science and technology.

"I think you are in the minority in regard to our competitiveness," said Wolf, who had announced earlier in the hearing that he would introduce legislation to forgive the interest on student loans for individuals who major in math and science.

Wolf also said he is worried that the Bush administration's budget request has "zeroed out" some science programs because he argued that the United States is "falling behind" other countries.

At a separate event on Friday, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., echoed Wolf's sentiments. "This country is sadly slipping behind in its cadre" of scientists and mathematicians, Warner said.

The senator added that he would like to allocate funding from the $13 billion Pell Grant program for math and science education, and give students who major in cyber security a free education in return for public service in the government to combat cyber attacks.

So in the first science-related hearing of the new subcommittee there's reason for both optimism and concern. Clearly the leaders of the subcommittee have embraced the idea that support for fundamental research and math and science programs will help the U.S. retain its competitive advantage in the global economy. However, they've also vigorously defended earmarking the science budget. Wolf, the new committee chair, is sort of a blank slate for the science community, so we need to take the opportunity to make him comfortable with the case for basic research. Expect to see more in the coming weeks....

Are We Taking NSF for Granted, Part II

Following up on a previous post about European efforts to create a National Science Foundation-like agency of their own because of the recognition of that value of the NSF to U.S. competitiveness -- and juxtaposing that with our own government's apparent waning support for fundamental research -- I thought I'd just note this article from Science that indicates India has reached a similar conclusion to the EU's and is hoping to establish an NSF-like agency of its own.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has endorsed the creation of an independent agency to support basic research--with a proposed budget that's more than three times the amount the government is now spending.

Scientists have long complained about the current process for winning grants, including inflexible rules and funding decisions that take more than a year. Last week Singh attended the first meeting of the new Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and embraced its recommendation for a National Science and Engineering Research Foundation with a mandate to "strongly promote and fund research in all fields of science and engineering." The new foundation "is being patterned on the lines of the acclaimed U.S. National Science Foundation," says C. N. R. Rao, chair of the council, who has campaigned for more than a decade for such a freestanding body. "A foundation that manages its own accounts and is run by a scientist is the only hope for reversing the rapid decline in Indian science," he adds.

The whole article is here (sub. may be req'd).

Cyber Security is a Vulnerability for U.S. Power Grid, Wash Post Says

In a story today, the Washington Post notes that the U.S. power grid remains at risk from cyber security threats that could have real physical effects on the network and that the federal government is stepping up its efforts to make sure utility companies are addressing the threat.

Patrick H. Wood III, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, warned top electric company officials in a private meeting in January that they need to focus more heavily on cyber-security. Wood also has raised the issue at several public appearances. Officials will not say whether new intelligence points to a potential terrorist strike, but Wood stepped up his campaign after officials at the Energy Department's Idaho National Laboratory showed him how a skilled hacker could cause serious problems.

Wood declined to comment on specifics of what he saw. But an official at the lab, Ken Watts, said the simulation showed how someone could hack into a utility's Internet-based business management system, then into a system that controls utility operations. Once inside, lab workers simulated cutting off the supply of oil to a turbine generating electricity and destroying the equipment.

Describing his reaction to the demonstration, Wood said: "I wished I'd had a diaper on."

In our work before Congress and the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (pdf), we've tried to emphasize the importance of cyber security R&D, especially long-term R&D, because IT systems constitute the "control loop" of most other elements of our nation's critical infrastructure (e.g., the electric power grid, the air traffic control grid, the financial grid, the telecommunications grid), and constitute a significant vulnerability. While the federal government has been reasonably quick to warn companies of the risk, it hasn't done quite as well in ramping up the long-term research to reduce vulnerabilities. Hopefully the imminent release of PITAC's report (pdf) on the state of cyber security R&D will help move things forward at agencies like DHS and DARPA, and result in increased funding for NSF's cyber security R&D efforts.

In the meantime, USACM's Cameron Wilson has more, and Jim Horning has a related post on how the nuclear industry is reacting to new proposed voluntary standards for the increased security of digital systems. Short answer: not well.

Kudos to TechNet

TechNet, a "bipartisan, political network of CEOs" of technology companies including Intel, HP, Cisco, 3Com and others, has released its Innovation Priorities for the coming year, which includes a call for an increase for basic research funding at federal agencies. The priorities result from a series of "Innovation Summits" with industry, academia and policymakers the group held over the last half of last year, which found that:

The U.S. education system is not preparing young Americans for the careers of the future;

The United States is no longer assured of attracting and retaining the world's best innovators;

Global innovation leadership requires a long-term, strategic approach to create an ecosystem that fosters innovation;

We are gravely under-investing in research and development as a nation;

The U.S. lags behind other nations in the deployment of broadband networks that are the foundation of the next wave of technology innovation.

The findings led a series of recommendations, which are worth reading. Here are a couple:

Strengthen education and develop a skilled technology workforce. Specific education recommendations include continued implementation and full funding of the No Child Left Behind Act; making science, math, engineering and technology education a national priority by increasing funding for math and science partnerships; effective retraining for displaced and unemployed U.S. workers; and, efforts to ensure that foreign innovators trained in the United States are able to remain to create technologies, companies and jobs.

TechNet is also announcing today the formation of an CEO Education Task Force. It includes Craig Barrett, CEO, Intel Corporation; Art Coviello, President and CEO, RSA Security; Paul Deninger, Chairman, Broadview - A Jeffries Company; John Doerr, Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; John Morgridge, Chairman, Cisco Systems, Inc.; Henry Samueli, Chairman and CTO, Broadcom; Stratton Sclavos, President and CEO, VeriSign; Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster Worldwide; and Joe Tucci, President and CEO, EMC Corporation.

And:

Increase federal funding for basic research at key agencies and enact a permanent extension of the R&D tax credit. A sustained public and private investment in R&D will foster a skilled American workforce, stimulate new technologies and maintain U.S. dominance in vital industries. It is critical that Congress enact a permanent R&D tax credit and take steps to achieve a doubling of the basic research budget of the National Science Foundation.

With that, TechNet joins a growing group of companies and industry associations that are drawing attention to the importance of federal investment of basic research in fueling the innovation that drives U.S. competitiveness. In recent weeks, the American Electronics Association, the Council on Competitiveness (pdf), the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation (pdf), and the Computer Systems Policy Project (to name a few) have all put out reports or issued statements affirming the importance of the federal investment in basic research. The message is starting to resonate will policymakers. In the Democratic response to the President's State of the Union speech this year, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) mentioned the importance of spurring R&D to create "the jobs of the future." And Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) wrote recently that the U.S. isn't doing enough to "nuture the next Einsteins."

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.

We'll be working hard this year to make sure that the message does more than resonate -- that it results in some real priority in the budget for fundamental research investments.

Update: Here's more coverage.

Another Update: MIT's Technology Review says more companies and industry groups need to step up their advocacy for fundamental research support:

It's time for those who make their livings by investing in emerging-technology companies to voice concern. Rational voices in the university research community, like [Shirley] Jackson's [President of AAAS], wont be heard unless financial leaders amplify the message.

The next few months will be crucial, as President Bush's proposed 2006 federal budget is debated in Congress. While the nation's enormous deficit will certainly mean greater frugality, legislators need to strengthen, even if only modestly, funding for NSF and NIH. A good starting point would be to hold President Bush and Congress accountable for reneging on 2002 legislation that authorized a doubling of NSFs budget by 2007. That doubling wont happen now: thats clear. But financial leaders who are dependent, one way or another, on government funding of research should ask why not. There should be outrage over the erosion of U.S. research institutions.

Catching Up: Senate Reorganization (Appropriations and Commerce)

[Apologies once again for the lag in posts. I've been in babyland.]

The Senate has finally begun to get its act together and organize some key committees, announcing yesterday the chairs and ranking members of the 10 Commerce Committee subcommittees and last week announcing a reorganization of the Appropriations Committee to fall more in line with the House Appropriations revamp (as we predicted).

On the Commerce Committee, the new chairs and ranking members that are likely most relevant to computing researchers are Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) who take over as the chair and ranking member of the Subcommittee on Science and Space; and Sens. John Ensign (R-NV) and John Kerry, chair and ranking member of the new Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness. The agenda for this new subcommittee hasn't yet been set, but given that it's grown out of the work of the Senate Republican High-Tech Task Force headed by Ensign, chances are good that it will involve itself in issues important to the computing community.

The Senate Appropriations Committee, initially reluctant to adopt the House Appropriations reorganization, ultimately decided that failing to adopt some realignment would guarantee chaos come conference time and agreed to reshape the panel to reflect most of the changes made by the House. Most importantly to computing researchers, the Senate VA-HUD committee, which included responsibility for NASA and NSF, was dissolved and its jurisdiction the two science agencies was placed in the new Commerce-Justice-Science panel, matching the House plan. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) will take the helm of the new subcommittee, meaning that long-term NSF champion Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) will no longer oversee the agency in the appropriations process. It's not clear how Shelby's leadership will impact the NSF budget, though he has apparently said that within the committee, NASA and NSF are his number one and two priorities. In any case, a new chairman represents a new opportunity for the science community to make the case for priority. On the minority side, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, long-term NSF champion and former ranking member on VA-HUD, will join Shelby as ranking member on the new panel.

CS Bachelor's Degree Production Set for Decline

Each year, CRA conducts a survey of the PhD-granting CS/CE departments in the US and Canada. The results for US CS bachelor's degree production and enrollments are now available.

Highlights:

Bachelor's production increased in 2003/2004 at the lowest rate (5 percent) since the mid-1990s. Degree production by the top schools declined slightly from the previous year.

The number of new CS majors declined for the fourth straight year. The number of students that declared CS as their major in the Fall of 2004 is 39 percent lower than it was in the Fall of 2000.

Enrollments have declined by 7 percent in each of the past two years.

The full article can be found here.

Nice Writeup for CRA-W's Grad Cohort Program

CRA's Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W) held its 2005 edition of the Grad Cohort Workshops over the weekend in San Francisco. If you're not familiar with the program, it aims to increase the ranks of senior women in computing by building and mentoring nationwide cohorts of women through their graduate studies as they make the transition from student to researcher. Here's how CRA-W describes the workshops:

At the Workshop, [we] welcome Cohort participants - Computer Science and Engineering students in their first or second year of grad school - into the community of computing researchers and provide them with a variety of professional role models. The Grad Cohort Workshop [are] modeled on the CRA-W's very successful Academic Careers Workshop. Students meet for two days with 10-15 senior researchers who share pertinent information on the transition from student to researcher as well as more personal information and insights about their experiences. The rewards of a research career [are] emphasized. The workshop includes a mix of formal presentations and informal discussions and social events. All participants - students and researchers - [are] present for the whole time, making it possible for students to build mentoring relationships and develop peer networks.

Jim Horning points to a nice writeup of the event in Campus Technology. This is just one of a number of important programs CRA-W runs aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of women in computing research -- a complete list is here. And it isn't the first time they've received recognition for their efforts. Just last year, CRA-W was honored by President George W. Bush as "exemplars" for their role as leaders in the national effort to more fully develop the Nation's human resources in science, mathematics and engineering. Though this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone in the discipline, as CRA-W has been doing great work since 1991.

While CRA-W put this particular event together, they couldn't have done it without the generous support of Microsoft, Google, and Lucent, as well as federal support from agencies and programs like NSF, EOT-PACI and others.

Seventeen Computer Scientists File Amicus in Grokster

A group of seventeen computer scientists yesterday filed an amicus brief (pdf) in the MGM v. Grokster case before the Supreme Court, "to call to the Court's attention several computer science issues raised by Petitioners [i.e., the movie and music companies] and amici who filed concurrent with Petitioners, and to correct certain of their technical assertions." If you're not familiar with the case or the potential impact it may have on anyone who creates technology, there's an interesting summary and some thoughts about what Congress might do as a result at the 463 Communications blog.

Ed Felten, one of the 17 amici (along with CRA board members Gene Spafford and Jennifer Rexford), has a summary of the arguments in the compsci professor's brief over at Freedom to Tinker, and a series of good posts on the case.

USACM has been tracking the issue as well.

Update: USACM joined an amicus brief with sixty law professors in support of Grokster. Cameron Wilson has the details.