The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) issued a new National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing on Wednesday, documenting “the fundamental importance of advanced manufacturing” to the nation’s competitiveness and security and setting forth key objectives and priorities for Federal policy in this space. Among the objectives: Accelerating investment, especially by small- and medium-sized manufacturers; Making the education and training system more responsive to the demand for skills; Optimizing Federal advanced manufacturing R&D investments by taking a portfolio perspective; Increasing total public and private investments in advanced manufacturing R&D; and Fostering national and regional partnerships among all stakeholders in advanced manufacturing. Of particular interest are four categories of investments that “help to position […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released a vision and strategic plan for Advanced Computing Infrastructure (ACI) seeking “to position and support the entire spectrum of NSF-funded communities at the cutting edge of advanced computing technologies, hardware, and software.” The report “also aims to promote a more complementary, comprehensive, and balanced portfolio of advanced computing infrastructure and programs for research and education to support multidisciplinary computational and data-enabled science and engineering that in turn support the entire scientific, engineering, and education community.” ACI is a key component of the Foundation’s Cyberinfrastructure for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) framework. Here’s the vision articulated in the report: NSF will be a leader in creating and deploying a comprehensive portfolio […]

Last week, the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies released a consensus list — the result of input from “some of the world’s leading minds within the entire [Global Agenda Council] network” — of “the top 10 emerging technologies for 2012.” These are the technologies that have the greatest potential to create new industries and impact new ones by providing solutions to global challenges. Atop the list — which is ordered starting with the technology with the greatest potential — is “informatics for adding value to information”: The quantity of information now available to individuals and organizations is unprecedented in human history, and the rate of information generation […]

Beginning at 8:15am EST today, we will be streaming live via the web an all-day symposium — titled The Impact of NITRD: Two Decades of Game-Changing Breakthroughs in Networking and Information Technology — marking two decades of the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. Watch it live following the link!

NSF/CISE Assistant Director Farnam Jahanian has issued the following letter to the community describing yesterday’s FY 2013 budget rollout: Dear Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Community,   Yesterday, the President delivered the Fiscal Year 2013 Budget to Congress. The Administration is requesting a total of nearly $7.4 billion dollars for NSF, which is an increase of $340 million, or almost five percent, over the FY 2012 NSF Enacted level. The Request also includes an increase of $56 million, or 8.6 percent, over the FY 2012 Current Plan for the CISE Directorate, for a total of $709.7 million. For more information on the NSF FY 2013 budget, see: http://www.nsf.gov/about/budget/fy2013/index.jsp.  

(This post has been updated; please scroll below for the latest!) Later this morning, President Obama will unveil his budget request for FY 2013. A number of budget briefings by Federal funding agencies are scheduled throughout the day, including one at 3:30pm EST at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Our colleagues at CRA’s Policy Blog will have a complete breakdown of the numbers for those agencies with ties to computing research. And we’ll highlight a few specific research priorities here later in the day. Stay tuned! *** Updated Monday, Feb. 13, at 1:00pm EST: The FY 2013 budget request has been released. More details on the Policy Blog, including this handy summary of the […]