The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is charged with catalyzing and empowering the U.S. computing research community to articulate and advance major research directions for the field. To do so, the CCC needs truly visionary leaders — people with great ideas, sound judgment, and the willingness to work hard to see things to completion. Please help the computing community by nominating such people for the Council. Established in 2006 through a cooperative agreement between the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Computing Research Association (CRA) — representing over 220 North American academic departments, industrial research labs, and professional societies with computing research interests, the CCC provides a voice for the national computing […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently announced four awards totaling more than $5 million to establish regional hubs for data science innovation. These Big Data Regional Innovation Hub (BD Hubs) awards will create a consortia to catalyze multi-sector partnerships. The consortia are coordinated by top data scientists at Columbia University (Northeast Hub), Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of North Carolina (South Hub), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Midwest Hub) and the University of California, San Diego, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington (West Hub). The projects from this first phase of the program will help establish the governance structure of the BD Hub consortia, support the […]

The Computing Research Association (CRA) has launched a new blog! The CRA Bulletin is a news and announcement blog that focuses on topics of interest to the computing research community. The blog will highlight interesting opportunities for researchers and students, news from the field, developments in diversity, and announcements from award programs and other CRA initiatives. The Bulletin is the perfect complement to the Computing Community Consortium (CCC) Blog. Subscribe to it today!

The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014 mandated a report to Congress on the status of a Cybersecurity Research Plan, specifically focusing on software security. The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is in a unique position to provide input from the computer science research community to the report before it is finalized. There is a hope that this report will influence decisions about the areas on which to focus and make future research funding available through different federal agencies. In order to prepare this feedback, we have formed an editorial team consisting of Kevin Fu, Lorrie Cranor, Cynthia Dwork and Avi Rubin.  Specifically, we are looking for a brief response to the below […]

A careful distinction between quality and quantity is key to promoting the future growth of the computing and information field. Toward that end, Batya Friedman, Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington, and Fred B. Schneider, Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Cornell University, put together a Best Practices Memo that advocates adjustments to hiring, promotion, and tenure practices as well as to the publication culture. Contributions in a small number of high quality publications or artifacts are what should be emphasized; success as a researcher is then not primarily a matter of numbers. These Best Practices recommendations were developed over an 18-month period by the Computing […]

The Education Committee of the Computing Research Association (CRA-E) have announced the winners of the 2015 Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers Award. This year’s nominees were a very impressive group. A number of them were commended for making significant contributions to more than one research project, several were authors or coauthors on multiple papers, others had made presentations at major conferences, and some had produced software artifacts that were in widespread use. Many of nominees had been involved in successful summer research or internship programs, many had been teaching assistants, tutors, or mentors, and a number had significant involvement in community volunteer efforts. CRA gratefully acknowledges the support of Microsoft Research and […]