Thursday, September 2, 1999
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Technology Leaders Urge Congress to Increase Spending for Basic ResearchBy KELLY McCOLLUM
Washington
Information-technology experts from industry and academe pleaded Wednesday for increased federal support for technology research, arguing that such spending has stimulated and will continue to stimulate the U.S. economy. The experts stated their case here at a news conference to promote spending on a technology-research program that
The President's plan calls for an additional $366-million in fiscal year 2000 to support research in computing and networking through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies. Money provided to those agencies would make its way to academic researchers in the form of research grants. But because of spending caps that are intended to keep the federal budget in balance, the increases called for in the President's plan are not included in the current Congressional budget proposals. Of the $286-million in increases requested by the N.S.F., DARPA, and the Department of Energy, Congressional committees have so far approved only $70- to $80-million. House and Senate negotiators have yet to meet to iron out differences in their respective proposals, and speakers at the news conference clearly hoped the legislators could be swayed to appropriate more. The speakers outlined an assortment of arguments for increasing spending. They credited recent economic growth in the United States largely to high-technology industries. Those industries, in turn, benefit from government support of basic research, with colleges and universities playing a key role, the speakers said. "Without sufficient funding, we will not be able to attract the faculty to support the students who will go into these fields," said Ken Kennedy, a professor of computer science at Rice University. David C. Nagel, the president of AT&T Labs, said academic research is a motivator for the technology industry. Successful companies like Yahoo! and Excite were born through the efforts of university students, he noted, adding that academic institutions provide the workers and knowledge needed to fuel corporate research. "Our economic growth will suffer if we don't have continued contact with our colleges and universities," he said. By promoting basic, long-term, scientific research, universities and government laboratories fill a need that cannot be replicated by private industry, said Vinton Cerf, vice-president for Internet Architecture and Technology at MCI WorldCom. Because shareholders are interested in short-term gains on their investments, "corporations can't do the long-term, high-risk investment that government has been doing in the past," said Mr. Cerf, who helped design the basic protocols that make the Internet possible. The conference was organized by the Technology Network, a technology-industry lobbying group, and the Computer Research Association, an organization of academic computer-science and computer-engineering departments.
Background stories from The Chronicle:
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Copyright © 1999 by The Chronicle of Higher Education