Information Technology Research in a Competitive World
Audio recording of public briefing (56 minutes; Requires RealPlayer)
Project Scope Ongoing efforts to boost federal funding for information technology (IT) research and development (R&D) reflect a growing consensus on the importance of IT in supporting a broadening array of societal functions. But as IT is increasingly integrated into business, government, and personal applications, many new questions must be answered: Are current IT R&D programs sufficient in scale and scope to support society's increasing reliance on IT systems? Do additional areas of IT research need greater attention? Are existing mechanisms for supporting and conducting IT research well-suited to the kinds of IT research that will be needed in the future? If not, what new organizational structures may be needed?
To help answer these questions and help guide future endeavors, the National Science Foundation (NSF) asked CSTB to conduct a study of IT research that would examine ongoing trends in industry and academic research, determine the possible effects of those trends on the well-being of the nation's IT industry and the nation as a whole, and explore options for strengthening the research base. Of particular interest is support for research that advances fundamental understanding of capabilities, architectural designs, and principles that can have a pervasive influence on innovation throughout the IT industry (i.e., "fundamental research") rather than advancing a single product, process, or service (i.e., "applied research"). The project examines promising approaches to filling in gaps in the nation's IT research portfolio and the types of institutional approaches might be the focus of experimentation. Committee Members
Samuel H. Fuller, Co-Chair
Analog Devices Inc.
David G. Messerschmitt, Co-Chair
University of California at Berkeley
Paul Baran
Com21 Inc.
Linda R. Cohen
University of California at Irvine
John A. Copeland
Georgia Institute of Technology
Albert M. Erisman
The Boeing Company
Daniel T. Ling
Microsoft Corporation
Robert L. Martin
Lucent Technologies Inc.
|
Joel Moses
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Norine E. Noonan
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
David A. Patterson
University of California at Berkeley
Stewart Personick
Drexel University
Robert Sproull
Sun Microsystems Laboratory
Mark Weiser (deceased)
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
Patrick Windham
Windham Consulting
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
IBM Corporation
|
Staff Jerry R. Sheehan, Senior Program Officer (Study Director)
Lisa L. Shum, Project Assistant (through August 1998)
D.C. Drake, Project Assistant (after August 1999)
Marjory S. Blumenthal, Director Sponsors National Science Foundation
|
