Report on American Competitiveness
"If history teaches any lesson it is that no nation has an inherent right to greatness. Greatness has to be earned and continually re-earned."
"Only by providing leading-edge human capital and knowledge capital can America continue to maintain a high standard of living - including providing national security - for its citizens."
- Norman Augustine
A review of the report titled, "Is America Falling Off the Flat Earth?" is compelling reading, as is a summary of the report's recommendations. Mr. Augustine also recently briefed congressional staff on the report. His testimony can be found on the National Academies Press web site.
Let's hope our government is listening. There are strong cases made for new (or renewed) investments in education, research and infrastructure - all of which would have an impact on research institutions and their IT organizations.
Technorati Tags: cyberinfrastructure, psuits
It's a pity that the budget approved by Congress was a major blow to basic science research in the US. My former field, particle physics, was hit especially heavy...
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1218/1
Eric
The American Institute of Physics has a summary of some of the comments of the science world on the budget on its FYI Service. One of the most hard hitting comments in the summary was from the AAU:
When the metric for the health of an innovative company is the amount budgeted for R&D, what does it say about the health of our nation when the goals of the America COMPETES Act are not reflected in our budget priorities?