The Drumbeat Continues: SJ Merc News on DARPA IT R&D and Universities

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Peter Harsha <harsha () cra org>
Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2005 10:53:04 -0400
To: <dave () farber net>
Subject: The Drumbeat Continues: SJ Merc News on DARPA IT R&D and
Universities

FYI - The House Science Committee will hold a hearing on the issue on
May 12th. Scheduled to testify are John Marburger, Dir. of OSTP; Tony
Tether, Director of DARPA; Bill Wulf, Pres. of Nat'l Acad. of
Engineering; and Tom Leighton, Co-Founder of Akamai and Chair of
PITAC's Cyber Security R&D Subcommittee. I've got some additional links
and details on the blog:
http://www.cra.org/govaffairs/blog/archives/000319.html

Here's the article:
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/11417234.htm

Posted on Sun, Apr. 17, 2005
Quiet change in priorities poses dire threat
IT'S TIME TO SOUND THE ALARM OVER SHIFT FROM BASIC, UNIVERSITY PROJECTS

Mercury News Editorial

Of all the government sources of funding for basic technology research,
few have delivered more breakthroughs for Silicon Valley and the U.S.
economy than the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
or DARPA.

That's why a shift away from basic and university research in DARPA
funding is alarming for the valley and for the future of innovation in
the United States. Long-term casualties could eventually include
America's competitiveness and military readiness.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration doesn't get it. White House
representatives have said that warnings about America's fading
competitiveness are false alarms.

Perhaps lawmakers can set them straight. Some 35 senators and
representatives recently expressed concerns about the falloff in
Pentagon funding for basic research. They need to turn up the volume
and broaden this debate.

The shift at DARPA already is affecting computer science and
engineering departments at leading universities across the country. It
is taking money away from basic research and putting it into narrowly
defined projects with short-term goals. These kinds of projects tend to
favor military contractors over academic institutions.

That's undermining an irreplaceable resource. The kind of university
research that DARPA historically funded has produced breakthroughs in
knowledge itself. Its results were shared broadly by the tech industry
and defense circles alike.

What's more, the shift is undermining a symbiotic relationship between
university and military researchers with a long list of successes,
including recent advances in network-based battlefield technologies and
sensor networks. By focusing on shorter-term projects, many of them
classified, university graduate students are unable to participate.
``That's a bad thing, because our mission is to educate the next
generation,'' says Jim Plummer, dean of Stanford's engineering school.

Indeed, students schooled on DARPA projects have in the past joined the
tech industry, military contractors or even DARPA itself. Cutting off
that supply of top-quality researchers is short-sighted.

The shift at DARPA is all the more troubling as it goes hand in hand
with decreases in funding for basic research across the Pentagon and at
the National Science Foundation. What's more, these subtle yet
significant changes have occurred without a national debate.

The time to have that debate is now. If these trends continue, America
will pay dearly for them.

--
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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