From: CRA Director of Government Affairs

By Lisa Thompson

As CRA's new Director of Government Affairs, I couldn't be more pleased with the way federal computing research policy is shaping up for 1999. The computing research community has a golden opportunity to build awareness of computing research and its contributions to the national interest, and my top priority is to make sure we are taking full advantage of that opportunity.

We have in President Clinton and Vice President Gore two techno-optimists who believe government has a responsibility to harness the power of technology for the good of society. They wasted no time in seizing on the recommendations of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and have proposed a new research initiative, Information Technology for the Twenty-First Century (see article, "Information Technology for the Twenty-First Century...," above) to accelerate R&D on a wide variety of computing and communications technologies. Congress, too, is in a pro-science mood, provided proposals have clear public-benefit rationales and accountability measures.

As you know from reading the excellent analyses in the columns of my predecessor, Rick Weingarten, the transformation of ideas into federal policy is not a straightforward matter. CRA will be devoting considerable effort to getting the proposed funding increases enacted, but we need your help, too. The active involvement of the computing research community is essential to ensuring the full implementation of the initiative.

Standing against us is a complicated budgetary environment. Although the federal budget is in surplus and is projected to be so for years to come, neither the White House nor the Congress is willing to spend the surplus until there is agreement on broad principles for doing so.

Congressional appropriators must be told early and often about the vast potential of the research that would be supported through increased funding, and those messages need to come from the computing research community. During my first few months at CRA, I have been working to formulate appropriate messages and devise a plan of action for conveying them. An important component of our activities is facilitating the individual efforts of computing researchers and leveraging their impact.

To that end, the CRA government affairs website, http://www.cra.org/main/cra.gov.html, has been reoriented to provide members of the community with the resources they need to become effective advocates for computing research. Visitors to the site will get crucial information on: the key policy issues affecting computing research; how the federal policy- and budget-making process works; and how to talk about computing research as part of that process.

For instance, we have collected links about the IT2 initiative in a central location, and an Advocacy section features two key CRA "Policy Briefs" that can be used by the community to promote the initiative.

In addition, CRA has established a Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN), a subscriber-based electronic mailing list outlining opportunities to educate about the role and contributions of computing research.

All members of the computing research community are welcome to join CRAN. I hope you will do so today. Please visit the CRA government affairs website, http://www.cra.org/main/cra.gov.html, for more details. Working together, we can make 1999 a watershed year for recognition and support of computing research.