Update: 2/1/06 ACM’s President Dave Patterson issued a statement about the President’s initiative stating, “the White House’s commitment to increased investment in education and basic research is the key to sustaining innovation.” He particularly noted, “that IT research has been critical to this nation’s leadership in technology, and has driven innovation with results that reach well beyond the IT sector. He cited the personal computer, the Internet, and search engines as examples of benefits derived from investing in research.”

I also added some links that I didn’t get to last night.

Finally, here is some Congressional reaction:

Senator Domenici (Republican, Chairman of the Senate Energy Committee)
Senator Mikulski (registration required) (Democrat, Senior Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee)
Senator Feinstein (Democrat, Senate Appropriations Committee)
Senator Alexander (Republican, Senior Member of the Senate Energy Committee)
Congressman Boehlert (Republican, Chairman of the House Science Committee)
Congressman Ehlers (Republican, Senior Member of the House Science Committee)
Congressman Goodlatte (Republican, Co-Chairman of the House Internet Caucus)

Original Post 1/31/06: Anyone who has paid the slightest bit of attention to the swirling national competitiveness debate in the media knows the President’s remarks reflect what most of the science and technology community has been saying for some time. Until tonight, however, there was little agreement between the Bush Administration and the community on what to do about it. President Bush is now embracing a comprehensive competitiveness/innovation agenda that reflects much of the science and technology community’s “wish list,” including new investments in research and education and reforming immigration and workforce programs. Let’s look at the some of the initial details:

On Research:

• Double funding for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology over the next 10 years. Specifically, he will propose an increase in each agency’s budget by 9.3 percent, or about $910 million in total, next year. The National Information Technology Research and Development program will be a key piece of the agenda.
• Make the corporate research and development tax credit permanent.

On Education (an increase of about $380 million for the following programs):

• Placement/International Baccalaureate Program (AP/IB) focused on expanding AP opportunities for low-income students through increasing training of AP/IB teachers.
• Adjunct Teacher Corps focused on getting math and science professionals to teach their field in high-school classes.
• “Math Now” for elementary schools, promoting research-based learning in math and science to prepare kids for more rigorous programs in higher grades.
• “Math Now” for middle schools, to help schools that are performing below their grade level on standardized math and science tests.

On Workforce:

• With the goal of retraining approximately 800,000 workers annually, implement flexible self-managed reemployment accounts for new training and education. (This is an old proposal that President Bush has been pushing for a while.)

On Immigration:

• Reform policies to attract and retain high-skilled workers from abroad, which will include addressing ongoing student visa problems and possibly may include changes to the high-skilled workers’ visa program (also known as H1B).

The debate about how to address global competitive pressures now moves over to an already receptive Congress. The Senate has two major bills pending (Protecting America’s Competitive Edge (PACE) Act and the National Innovation Act (NIA)) that hit on many of these issues, and the House of Representatives won’t be far behind in proposing their own legislation to implement the President’s agenda. Further, because the President is proposing specific increases in funding for science agencies, Congress will have much more room to actually allocate funding for research this year instead of just authorizing a cap that will never be reached. Instead of fighting for scraps, much of the science community will be able to tell Congress collectively, “Fund the President’s request.” That is a powerful ask of Congress.

This is a stunning change from where we were just one year ago. Prospects have never been better to improve the research and education systems that underpin America’s economic growth. Now it is up to the community to make sure Congress understands that this is top priority.

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