04.27.12 – The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the Advancing America’s Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Act of 2012 [H.R. 3834], legislation that will amend the High-Performance Computing Act of 1991 [P.L. 102-194] as amended. The proposed legislation revises current federal funding policies for research and development within network and information technology. Primarily, the proposed legislation encourages interdisciplinary research and development activities and especially encourages collaboration among researchers in higher education, federal entities, and industry. In addition, all funded agencies would be required to develop 5-year strategic plans describing near and long term objectives as well as how proposed activities would create new technology that is beneficial to society, encourages interdisciplinary research, enhances network and information technology education, and increases the number of “women and under-represented minorities [who] pursue postsecondary degrees in networking and information technology.” The proposed legislation also calls for a task force to examine methods for employing collaborative research and development activities for cyber-physical systems as well as an interagency group to explore the research and development activities needed to enhance the use of cloud computing and determine the potential use of cloud computing for such activities.
[Source: U.S. Government Printing Office]
