Search
CRA TumbleLog
Archives
October 2009
September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004
Archives by Category
Action Alerts (2)
American Competitiveness Initiative (96) CRA (61) Computing Community Consortium (CCC) (22) Computing Education (6) Diversity in Computing (26) Economic Stimulus and Recovery (13) Events (34) FY06 Appropriations (13) FY07 Appropriations (32) FY08 Appropriations (37) FY09 Appropriations (28) FY10 Appropriations (1) Funding (204) Misc. (49) People (106) Policy (249) R&D in the Press (90) Research (85) Security (30)
Recent Entries
National CS Education Week
Prizes and Computing Research House S&T Committee Considers Cyber Security R&D President Obama Touts Role of Basic Research in Innovation Business Week on Research in Industry A Systems Approach to Improving K-12 STEM Education Healthcare Robotics Briefing CCC Announces New Networking Research Agenda NSF Shows Off Cyber-Physical Systems on the Hill New DARPA Director Announced
CRA Links
Computing Research News
CRA-Bulletin Computing Data and Resources CRA in the News Computing Research in the FY05 Budget
What We're Reading
Computational Complexity
CNSR Online Danger Room Defense Tech Freedom to Tinker InsideHPC Lessig Blog Nothing is as simple... Reed's Ruminations Schneier on Security Techdirt UMBC eBiquity Blog USACM Tech Policy Blog
Advocacy Materials
IT R&D One-pager (pdf)
DARPA and University Research One-pager (pdf) Cyber Security R&D One-pager (pdf) Current and Requested IT R&D Funding Charts (pdf)
Recent Testimony
|
September 18, 2007CS Profs and the DODLong-time readers of this blog, or anyone familiar with CRA's policy efforts, will know that we've spent a lot of time raising concerns about policy shifts at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that have cut university participation rates in DARPA-funded computer science research. In congressional testimony and blog posts, we've pointed out that a shift at DARPA -- a focus on nearer-term efforts with an emphasis on go/no-go milestones at relatively short intervals and an increased use of classification -- has sharply reduced the amount of DARPA-supported research being performed in U.S. universities. In fact, between FY 2001 and FY 2004 (the last year for which we have good data), the amount of funding from DARPA to U.S. universities for computer science research fell by half -- and informal evidence suggests university shares are even lower today. There are a number of reasons we're concerned about this trend. For one, DARPA's diminished support for university CS leaves a hole in the federal IT R&D portfolio -- both in funding, but maybe more importantly, in the loss of the "DARPA model" of research support. Since the early 1960s, the country (indeed, the world) has reaped the benefits of the diverse approaches to funding IT research represented by the two leading agencies -- NSF and DARPA. While NSF has primarily focused on small grants for individual researchers at a wide range of institutions -- and support for computing infrastructure at America's universities -- DARPA's approach has been to identify key problems of interest to the agency and then assemble and nurture communities of researchers to address them. The combination of models has been enormously beneficial -- DARPA-supported research in computing over the last four decades 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 made the U.S. military the best in the world, driven the new economy, changed the conduct of science and enabled whole new scientific disciplines. But DARPA's policy shift also impacts its own mission, which is to ensure the U.S. never again suffers the sort of technological surprise marked by the Soviet launch of Sputnik (which motivated the establishment of the agency nearly 50 years ago). DARPA's move away from support of university researchers means that many of the brightest minds of the country (indeed, the world) are no longer working on defense-related problems. This loss of mindshare -- the percentage of people working on DARPA-related problems -- is very worrisome to those in the community who understand how much of America's advantage on the battlefield (and in the marketplace) is owed to a network-centric strategy. I hear concerns from the "old guard" in many of America's top university CS departments that there's a whole generation of young researchers who have no experience working with DARPA or the Defense Department and who are not attuned to defense problems -- a fact that doesn't bode well for the future of the U.S. technological advantage and DARPA's goal of preventing technological surprise. To their credit, the folks at DARPA recognize that this lack of awareness among younger faculty of the types of problems DARPA would really like to solve is a situation that needs addressing. And one way they're approaching the problem is very direct -- they're finding young faculty with research areas of interest to the agency and, well, taking them on a little tour of the DOD. The Computer Science Study Group, run by the Institute for Defense Analysis for DARPA, serves to "acclimate a generation of researchers to the needs and priorities of the DOD," by mentoring, holding workshops, field trips to DOD facilities and fairly elaborate (and pretty kewl) show-and-tells. An interesting article today on Rensselaer ECSE professor Rich Radke's experience has some details on CSSG goals and methods: The multi-year program familiarizes up-and-coming faculty from American universities with DoD practices, challenges, and risks. Participants are encouraged to view their own research through this new perspective, and then to explore and develop technologies that have the potential to transition innovative and revolutionary computer science and technology advances to the government.Read the whole piece for details of his adventures. 2007 was the first year for the CSSG and the $4.5 million program supported about a dozen young researchers. DARPA has requested an increase in the program for FY 08 ($7 million) and FY 09 ($7.7 million), so hopefully we'll see that number start to rise. The DARPA CSSG program is one part of addressing the overall problem. The larger concern is the importance of bringing DARPA back into the university research fold -- not because it would benefit academic researchers, but because it impacts the mission success of the Department of Defense (and hence our national security). A number of factors suggest that maybe it's time to focus on the goal of increasing mindshare of the best brains working on U.S. defense-related problems. For one, because of U.S. visa policies, increasingly the best minds in the world won't necessarily be coming to the U.S. Second, the research capacity of our potential adversaries increases daily. And finally, the increase in foreign investment in U.S. university research departments means that competition for U.S. university mindshare is only increasing, and in some cases, maybe from countries we'd rather not gain a competitive leg-up on us. So, programs like CSSG are really important. But maybe so are some bigger policy issues across the agency.... Posted by PeterHarsha at September 18, 2007 11:34 AMPosted to People | Policy | R&D in the Press | Research |