May 15, 2015

SENATE PRIORITIES FOR DEFENSE R&D: CYBER, SUBS, AND DIRECTED ENERGY

Highlights from the FY 2016 Senate Armed Services defense authorization include a $400 million "'Third Offset Strategy' to outpace our emerging adversaries." It would fund six "breakthrough technologies: cyber capabilities; low-cost, high-speed munitions; autonomous vehicles; undersea warfare; intelligence data analytics; and directed energy." R&D is largely decided by the Emerging Threats and Capability subcommittee, chaired by Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), right. While the full committee bill hasn't been published yet a summary includes these provisions:

• $12.4 billion for science and technology.
• An increase of $140 million for basic research across all services.
• Unspecified R&D cuts of $120 million "to eliminate inefficiencies, reduce redundancies, and terminate outdated efforts."
• A program to "enhance the defense laboratories with innovative academic and industry partners" to improve transfer of lab-generated innovations to the military or commercial development. 

HOUSE PASSES DEFENSE BILL: The vote was 269-151, CQ reported. Most Democrats opposed the measure because it sidestepped the budget limits imposed on domestic programs. Tens of billions of dollars were included in uncapped Overseas Contingency Operations. Here's the text of the bill before it reached the floor. R&D provisions start on page 50.

NSF PROTESTS 'ARBITRARY LIMITS' IN HOUSE 'COMPETES' BILL

The National Science Foundation lists eight objections to HR 1806, the GOP-backed reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act. The full House is expected to take up the bill as early as Tuesday. Topping NSF's list of problems are the  bill's specific authorization levels for the various directorates, "placing arbitrary limits on scientific disciplines" and running counter to way way NSF sets priorities. The agency says an 18 percent cut to the Office of Integrative Research would undermine the interdisciplinary research the sponsors claim to want. This cut, plus a proposed 10 percent cut to Education and Human Resources (EHR), would put at risk more than 250 Graduate Research Fellowships. The 58 percent gouged out of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) would have an impact on the recent Food-Energy-Water nexus, Risk & Resilience, and Understanding the Brain initiatives, NSF says.

TUGGING AT THE NOOSE: Jeffrey Mervis reports in ScienceInsider that "the noose" around NSF's social science and geosciences research is getting tighter. John Culberson, (R-Tex.), left, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that funds NSF, tells Mervis: “I want to make sure that they are spending about 70 percent of their money on the core sciences.” Nonetheless, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) plans to push an amendment to COMPETES that would reverse cuts to NSF's SBE and geosciences directorates and bring them up to the level in President Obama's budget.

A SMALL HIKE FOR NSF; NIST NIPPED: The appropriations bill Culberson's panel approved would add $50 million to NSF's current spending (the agency had sought $379 million); cut $9 million from the National Institute of Standards and Technology; and match the White House request for a $519 million boost at NASA. The panel would provide more for planetary science than the president sought. Ranking Democrat Chaka Fattah of Pennsylvania told Culberson: "“You have done a lot to benefit science.” See the account by the American Institute of Physics. This text may not be the final version.

A PERMANENT R&D TAX CREDIT: Despite support by presidents and members of both parties, this measure never seems to make it to the finish line. But it's cleared the House Ways and Means panel with the title, American Research and Competitiveness Act of 2015 and is headed to the House floor. 

The COMPETES 'Doubling Path': What Actually Happened?

In the original America COMPETES Act, passed in 2007, Congress authorized three year funding levels for the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of Energy's Office of Science. These levels set a course for doubling the funding at each agency over seven years from the 2006 baseline. The chart below, from the Congressional Research Service, compares the trajectory envisioned in COMPETES with actual appropriations. 

OVERALL JOBLESS RATES vs. STEM JOBLESS RATES

National Science Board, Revisiting the STEM Workforce

NASA's 20-YEAR TECHNOLOGY OUTLOOK: The space agency has released 15 applied-research roadmaps on the technology it anticipates will be needed to accomplish its missions over the next two decades. The technologies range from aeronautics to robotics, launch propulsion to life support. According to ASME's newsletter, the documents "are a key part of NASA's Strategic Technology Investment Plan." Comments are sought.

$7.8 MILLION IN PLANNING AWARDS: Nine universities are among the winners of the National Institute of Standards advanced manufacturing planning grants. According to the agency, the varied projects include next-generation gas turbines and aerospace manufacturing to hybridized semiconductor and synthetic-biology devices and glass manufacturing.

NEW TIMETABLE: The National Science Foundation's Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) intends to change submission windows "for its core programs as well as the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program for the 2015-16 academic year." Nine programs are affected. The anticipated submission windows are:  Medium and Large proposals: September 2015; and Small proposals: November 2015. Learn more. 

 

OPENING TO CUBA: Frances Colón, acting science and technology adviser to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, says America's "new approach" to its longtime Caribbean nemesis should make U.S.-Cuban academic and research collaboration easier to pursue. She tells Science that she's getting calls daily from universities and technology groups seeking guidance "on how to properly and strategically engage counterparts on the island." One reason is illustrated by an opinion piece in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Cuba's got talent. "For example, few research centers have been as influential in the quantitative analysis of brain electrical activity as have scientists at the (Cuban Neuroscience Center) CNEURO."