A memorandum released by the White House earlier this month cites high-performance computing and big data as essential technology areas for 21st century governance. Building on the administration’s past budget priorities, the memo calls for federal agencies to prioritize a set of nine science and technology areas when making coordinated FY 2017 Budget submissions to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The multi-agency R&D priorities are focused on economic growth and job creation, a safe and sufficient food supply, health and well-being, clean energy and natural resource management, climate change mitigation, and insuring the nation’s security.
High-performance computing plays an important role in many of these multi-agency research activities, but it is also a priority in its own right.
“Agencies should coordinate with each other and with the private sector to promote innovation in high performance computing; modeling and simulation; and advanced hardware technology to support national security, scientific discovery, and economic competitiveness,” the authors advise. “Agencies should also give priority to investments that address the challenges and opportunities afforded by the expansion of Big Data to advance agency missions and further scientific discovery and innovation while providing appropriate privacy protections for personal data.”
In line with the nine priority areas, the OMB is also calling for investment in R&D; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce development; technology transfer; R&D infrastructure; and scientific-collection management.
Agencies are instructed to “support the R&D infrastructure (i.e., facilities, platform technologies, IT, digital tools) needed to ensure that U.S. science and engineering remain at the leading edge, and leverage resources from other agencies, state and local governments, the private sector, and international partners.”
In a section on STEM education guidelines, the authors note that “investments in STEM education should be guided by the priorities outlined in the Federal STEM Education 5-Year Strategic Plan developed by the Committee on STEM Education under the National Science and Technology Council, and should continue to pursue the goals of enhancing program effectiveness and reducing program fragmentation.”