NY Times - "A Blow to Computer Science Research"

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Peter Harsha <peter.harsha () gmail com>
Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2005 22:40:06 -0500
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: NY Times - "A Blow to Computer Science Research"

Hi Dave,

Just posted the following to the Computing Research Policy Blog:
http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/archives/000311.html

Here's the NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/technology/02darpa.html?
ex=1270098000&en=e081c19247a119ed&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland
+++++

John Markoff writes in detail in Saturday's NY Times about DARPA's
diminishing investment in university-based computer science research
and its potential impact.

----
      The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency at the Pentagon -
which has long underwritten open-ended "blue sky" research by the
nation's best computer scientists - is sharply cutting such spending at
universities, researchers say, in favor of financing more classified
work and narrowly defined projects that promise a more immediate
payoff.

      Hundreds of research projects supported by the agency, known as
Darpa, have paid off handsomely in recent decades, leading not only to
new weapons, but to commercial technologies from the personal computer
to the Internet. The agency has devoted hundreds of millions of dollars
to basic software research, too, including work that led to such recent
advances as the Web search technologies that Google and others have
introduced.

The shift away from basic research is alarming many leading computer
scientists and electrical engineers, who warn that there will be
long-term consequences for the nation's economy. They are accusing the
Pentagon of reining in an agency that has played a crucial role in
fostering America's lead in computer and communications technologies.

"I'm worried and depressed," said David Patterson, a computer scientist
at the University of California, Berkeley who is president of the
Association of Computing Machinery, an industry and academic trade
group. "I think there will be great technologies that won't be there
down the road when we need them."
----

Markoff's piece is largely based on answers the agency provided the
Senate Armed Services Committee in response to the committee's
questions about DARPA's historical support of IT R&D and the role of
universities. In their response, DARPA noted that their overall support
for computer science activites has averaged $578 million a year
(inflation adjusted) for the last 13 years and that university
participation in that research over the last 4 years has plummeted.
(Due to "data constraints" they don't have figures prior to FY 01.) In
FY 01, DARPA funded $546 million in IT research overall, $214 million
in universities. By FY 2004, the overall funding had risen to $583
million, and the university share had dropped to $123 million.

DARPA cited five "factors for the decline":

1. A change in emphasis in the high performance computing program from
pure research to supercomputer construction;
  2. Significant drop in unclassified information security research;
  3. End of TIA-related programs in FY 2004 due to congressional decree,
a move that cost universities "a consistent $11-12 million per year" in
research funding;
  4. Research into intelligent software had matured beyond the research
stage into integration;
  5. Classified funding for computer science-related programs increased
markedly between FY 2001 and FY 2004, but Universities received none of
this funding.

Essentially, they conceded that their focus in IT R&D is increasingly
short-term (at least in the unclassified realm) and that universities
are no longer significant performers of DARPA IT R&D (classified or
unclassified). Not surprisingly, these are the two major concerns CRA
has repeatedly cited about the agency.

Anyway, the article is a must read.

+++++

--
Peter Harsha
Director of Government Affairs
Computing Research Association
1100 17th St. NW, Suite 507
Washington, DC 20036
p: 202.234.2111 ext 106
c: 202.256.8271
CRA's Computing Research Policy Blog: http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog


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