President’s S&T Council Recommends Restructuring Federal IT R&D Spending

A new report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) proposes new categories for IT research investment in the coming years. Federally-funded IT research is currently grouped in eight categories introduced in 1995 for the purposes of budgeting and tracking. PCAST is recommending an overhaul of these categories to reflect the contemporary IT landscape. Other recommendations focus on continued investment in cybersecurity, Big Data, health IT and other hot topics. However, PCAST also advocates stronger federal support for education and workforce training with on-ramps for underserved communities.

The PCAST report is the Congressionally-mandated periodic update on the progress of the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program, the cross-agency coordination body for IT research. The last such update was issued in 2013. As the coordinator of research, NITRD plays a key role in developing, implementing and tracking federal investments in IT R&D. For this reasons, the structure of its “Program Component Areas (PCAs),” the research categories used by NITRD, have an impact on federal investment.

Under the proposed recommendations, these areas would be updated to reflect technology developments in FY 2017 and be put up for review every five years after that. The current list of eight PCAs includes:

• High-end computing infrastructure and applications;
• High-end computing R&D;
• Cybersecurity and information assurance;
• Human-computer interaction and information management;
• Large-scale networking;
• Software design and productivity;
• High-confidence software and systems; and,
• Social, economic and workforce implications of IT and IT workforce development.

The recommended set of updated PCAs includes:

• Large-scale data management and analysis;
• Robotics and intelligent systems;
• Computing-enabled networked physical systems;
• Cybersecurity and information assurance;
• Computing-enabled human interaction, communication and augmentation;
• IT foundational research and innovation;
• Enabling R&D for high-capability IT systems; and,
• Large-scale research infrastructure.

PCAST also recommends that the NITRD subcommittee work with the National Science Foundation, the Department of Education and the private sector to introduce model programs to allow a wider variety of students into the pipeline for the IT workforce. Programs should be introduced to help pre-college students into IT training opportunities to address disparities in gender, economic status and race. Additional programs should create new training on-ramps for workers of all ages to enter IT careers.

Download the report at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/08/07/pcast-assesses-federal-information-technology-rd