Following an extensive review by a task force to determine if the merit review criteria used by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to evaluate all proposals remain appropriate, the National Science Board (NSB) yesterday released its report — National Science Foundation’s Merit Review Criteria: Review and Revisions — recommending that NSF “better define the two criteria for the benefit of the science community.” According to the press release announcing the report: The NSB task force was put in place in February 2010, with a charge to examine the two merit review criteria and their effectiveness in achieving the goals for NSF research support of science, engineering and education. Based on the task force’s […]

President Obama, together with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and members of the Armed Forces, rolled out a new military strategy in a much-publicized event at the Pentagon last week. What’s interesting is that the strategy calls for an increased investment on technological innovation, including in areas of cybersecurity and intelligence systems. As the President penned in his written introduction to the strategy: As we end today’s wars and reshape our Armed Forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible, and ready for the full range of contingencies. In particular, we will continue to invest in the capabilities critical to future success, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; counterterrorism; countering weapons of […]

Google is calling for applications to its 2012 Google Policy Fellowships, which offer undergraduate, graduate, and law students interested in Internet and technology policy “the opportunity to spend the summer contributing to the public dialogue on these issues, and exploring future academic and professional interests.” According to Google: Fellows will have the opportunity to work at public interest organizations at the forefront of debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright and trademark reform, consumer privacy, open government, and more. Participating organizations are based in either Washington, DC, San Francisco, CA, Ottawa or Toronto, Canada and include: American Library Association, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, Center for Democracy […]

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), together with the recently created Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (COECI), launched the USPTO Innovation Challenge last week, offering $50,000 in prizes for specialized algorithms that can “help bring the 7 million patents presently in the patent archive into the digital age.” In particular, the USPTO Innovation Challenge is seeking new algorithms to automatically identify and locate specific elements within patent documents, as part of a broader effort to improve the patent examination process. According to Robynn Sturm Steffen, a Senior Advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP): Approximately half-a-million U.S. patents are filed by inventors, entrepreneurs, and businesses […]

Earlier this month, the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) released a new report — Rebuilding the Mosaic: Fostering Research in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation in the Next Decade — representing the results of a year-long visioning process assessing the directorate’s existing research investments and identifying important research directions for the future. What’s interesting is that the report, which is based on 252 white paper submissions from 240 authors (received through an open submission process) specifically touts “an interdisciplinary, data-intensive, and collaborative vision for the future of SBE research” — one that necessitates new partnerships and synergies between social […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is out with a brief overview of the results of its annual Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED) for 2010, finding that the numbers of Ph.D.s in the computer sciences increased by 3.5 percent that year, more than in any other discipline. (The total number of doctorates awarded by U.S. academic institutions declined for the first time since 2002 — and NSF notes that reclassification of degrees and discontinuation of data collection in certain areas contributed at least in part to this drop.) According to the NSF InfoBrief: