(This post has been updated; please scroll down for the latest.) In just a few minutes, Earlier today, during a special session of the National Science Board — and before a large gathering of senior leadership from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), members of the media, and other invited guests — NSF Director Subra Suresh and OSTP Director John Holdren will unveiled the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps), a brand new “public-private partnership aimed at developing a national innovation ecosystem that strategically leverages the output of NSF-funded scientific research to help develop new technologies, products, and processes that benefit society […]

In a public session last Friday, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) spent time discussing the future of scientific research in the U.S. — hearing from Keith Yamamoto, Executive Vice Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine, and Venkatesh Narayanamurti, Professor of Technology and Public Policy at Harvard. The pair spoke about an upcoming American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Study on the Impacts of Federal and Industry Funding of Science, Engineering, and Medicine on American Universities (ARISE II). While much of the discussion centered on the life sciences, there were some interesting points raised about the divide between basic and applied research — as well as the future […]

In a post on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Blog today, Deputy Director for Policy Tom Kalil noted the Administration’s keen interest in Big Data — and singled out the CCC’s recent white papers on data analytics: …Researchers in a growing number of fields are generating extremely large data sets, commonly referred to as “Big Data.” For example, the size of DNA sequencing databases is increasing by a factor of 10 every 18 months!  Researchers need better tools to help them store, index, search, visualize, and analyze these data, allowing them to discover new patterns and connections.   Increases in the ability to make predictions and […]

Late last month, the White House announced a request for feedback on “Circular A-21” — a 7-year-old document that specifies key principles for determining costs applicable to grants, contracts, and other agreements between the Federal government and educational institutions. The goal is to identify a set of revisions that will revise and clarify the circular — and input from research faculty is strongly encouraged. As Sally Rockey, Deputy Director for Extramural Research at NIH and co-chair of the A-21 Task Force, wrote (emphasis added): This is your chance to have input on an important issue that greatly impacts the research community each and every day. Today, on behalf of the […]

At the Brookings Institution last week, Larry Summers, former head of the National Economic Council, and Eric Lander, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), discussed the role of government in fostering innovation — as well as the impact of science and technology R&D on the economy. Among the highlights, Lander discussed the long lead time in basic R&D investments: So current productivity is a lagging indicator of good investments made 25 years ago, perhaps. Where does, say, the information technology productivity that we celebrate today come from? You’re going to trace that all the way back to DARPA — to the DoD in the 1950s […]

Earlier this week, Google released a new report on energy innovation, in which it imagined a number of different possible energy scenarios for the U.S. Google concluded that energy innovation can grow the U.S. economy by $155 billion/year, create 1.1 million new net jobs, and save consumers almost $1000/year, while simultaneously reducing our oil consumption by 1.1 billion barrels/year and our green house emissions by 13%. The report didn’t delve into any specific technological breakthroughs — though we can all think of the many ways in which IT R&D is key here: Since predicting the probability, timing and magnitude of breakthroughs is likely to be impossible we assumed breakthroughs as fact and […]