What's New @ IEEE-USA - Eye On Washington

1) CAPITOL HILL WATCH

• House Science Committee will hold a hearing on "Science, Technology, and Global Economic Competitiveness

• Some Committees Using the Budget Reconciliation Process to Find Revenue Via Visas – Old and New

• Industry to Congress, "Leave IP Alone For Now"

• DOD FY06 Approps Bill Passes Senate With Additional Funding for Civilian Scientist Education Programs

• House Science Committee Chairman Says New Energy Bill Will Help No One But Industry

2) WHITE HOUSE & EXECUTIVE AGENCY WATCH

• NAGB Proposal Would Delete Technological Design From NAEP From K-12 Education

• NSF Wants to See Teraflops and Petaflops By 2010

• President Elevates Role of External IT Advice in the White House

• Internet Governance: The US v. The World

3) REPORTS, SPEECHES & DOCUMENTS OF NOTE

• US Could Lose "Privileged Position:" National Academies Panel Warns of an Erosion of the U.S. Competitive Edge in Science

• Study Puts Value Of U.S. Ideas At $5 Trillion A Year

• New CSIS Report on Access of Foreign Students and Scientists to the US

4) U.S. COURTS ACTIVITY

None at this time.

5) AWARDS & GRANTS

6) CONFERENCES, FELLOWSHIPS, PROGRAMS & INTERNSHIPS FOR ENGINEERS, and STUDENTS and SCHOLARS OF ENGINEERING

• 2007 Government Fellowships

• IEEE Student Members Encouraged to Apply for 2006 WISE Program

• WISE Program Seeks Senior Science & Technology Public Policy Advisor to Engineering Students (Nine Week Summer Position)

7) U.S. STATES WATCH

• Oregon Governor Signs Bill to Create Innovation Council

• Michigan Senate Passes Telecommunications Deregulation Bill

8) LATEST IEEE-USA ACTIVITIES

• Track IEEE-USA's Progress

9) U.S. COMPETITIVENESS: WHO'S DOING WHAT TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE?

• IEEE-USA Resource Web Page - U.S. Competitiveness: The Innovation Challenge

10) OTHER ITEMS OF POSSIBLE INTEREST

• And On the Other Side of the Pond, They're Also Worried About Competitiveness

1) CAPITOL HILL WATCH

• House Science Committee will hold a hearing on "Science, Technology, and Global Economic Competitiveness

See full info below in an item on the new National Academies report - Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future

• Some Committees Using the Budget Reconciliation Process to Find Revenue Via Visas – Old and New

On 29 September, The House Judiciary Committee approved HR 3648, a bill to require employers to pay a $ 1,500 fee for intracompany transfers of foreign workers into the US. HR 3648's sponsor, Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), said the fee would help the committee meet its goal of $300 million in savings over the next five years, an action required as part of the budget reconciliation process during which each committee is directed to find revenue or savings to help balance the budget. With time running out on this year's legislative session, the Committees seem to be grasping at straws to find the funds that will help Congress pay for new federal spending without greatly enlarging the federal deficit.

Under HR 3648, every time a foreigner applied for a non-immigrant visa to work in the United States, the State Department would charge the company listed on the application. If the US employer initiated the transfer, the same fee would apply, but would be paid to the Department of Homeland Security. Employers would be prohibited from passing the fee on to the employee seeking the visa and the proposed fees would apply only to foreigners seeking employment, and not family members accompanying them or following them later.

The Committee's Ranking Democrat John Conyers (D-Mich.) called the bill evidence that the government has "unfairly placed the burden of tax cuts on immigrants and businesses."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes the bill, and sent a letter to Sensenbrenner and Conyers this week asking that they seek an alternative means for meeting their budget reconciliation quota. Randel K. Johnson, the group's vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits, estimated in the letter that the fee would raise more than $150 million, but none of the money would be earmarked for addressing processing delays for business visa programs.

The House effort would raise fees on existing fees.  In contrast, a plan introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee, would raise the number of H-1B visas issued by 60,000 annually, beginning in 2006 and continuing in future years until a backlog of nearly 300,000 visas approved but unused since 1991 has been exhausted.  This complicated provision would allow Congress to nearly double the number of visas issued without actually changing the legal cap. Along with the 60,000 new H-1B visas, the federal government collects an extra $500 fee to go with them.

Some members of the Senate Judiciary Committee think that issuing the unused H-1Bs, would help them in the budget reconciliation process; they expect to raise $30 million annually in new fees to off-set spending in other parts of the federal budget. 

IEEE-USA has issued an action alert on the Senate plan.  Find out more information by visiting the Legislative Action Center at http://ieeeusa.org/policy/default.asp. Concerned engineers need to express their opposition NOW before the provision is incorporated into the much larger Senate budget bill.

• Industry to Congress, "Leave IP Alone For Now"

28 SEPT: The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled "Protecting Copyright and Innovation in a Post-Grokster World."  Witnesses included, U.S. Register of Copyrights Mary Beth Peters, Recording Industry Association of America president Cary Sherman, and Consumer Electronics Association CEO Gary Shapiro.  As expected, the hearing centered on the tension between protecting innovation (the major concern of the technology community) and protecting intellectual property rights (the primary concern of the content industry). An often mentioned theme of the hearing seemed to be that Congress should leave the issue alone for now and wait to see what the Ninth Circuit Court does now that the Supreme Court has kicked the ball back to them. More information about the hearing, including witness testimony, is available at   http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1624

• DOD FY06 Approps Bill Passes Senate With Additional Funding for Civilian Scientist Education Programs

7 OCT: The Senate passed HR 2863, the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill for FY 2006. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Susan Collins (R-ME), and nine other Republican and Democratic members successfully tacked on an amendment increasing the funding for basic research and a new scholarship program for civilian scientists. The amendment increased funding in HR 2863 by a total of $40M. The Army and Air Force University Research Initiatives received an additional $10 million each; a similar Navy program received $5 million; the SMART National Defense Education Program received an additional $10 million; and the DARPA University Research Program in Cybersecurity received an additional $5 million. Despite the increases for these programs, the bill contains $7 billion below the Administration's request for DoD.

• House Science Committee Chairman Says New Energy Bill Will Help No One But Industry

In two "Dear Colleague" letters, Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R- NY) urged his fellow members to not pass HR 3893, the Gasoline for America's Security Act of 2005 sponsored by Joe Barton (R-Tex.)  Boehlert called the bill, "a misguided Energy Bill that will not help consumers; it will only benefit oil companies.  And the bill will harm taxpayers, states and the environment."

And he urged that his colleagues read what state groups are saying about many of the provisions in this bill. "The bill is opposed by the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities, the association that represents state environmental commissioners (ECOS), and the association that represents state air officials (STAPPA/ALAPCO)."

Boehlert's letters best summed up the impact of the bill.

Regarding the effects on oil companies, HR 3893 –

-reduces royalty payments to the government (now through rebates paid by the government to the oil companies);

-creates a fund that will pay oil companies if they are sued - even if they lose in court; and

-does not require oil companies to pay the government's legal fees if they sue the government and lose - even though losers suing oil companies must pay their legal fees.

Regarding environmental law, HR 3893 –

-limits the kinds of cleaner fuels states can require to meet their clean air targets;

-limits the kinds of diesel fuel that can be required, interfering with the low sulfur diesel rule pushed by the Bush Administration;

-rewrites the permitting process for refineries to limit environmental reviews without any evidence that current processes are a problem; and

-enables cities with dirty air to delay meeting Clean Air Act requirements.

HR 3893 undermines states' prerogatives by –

-federalizing many siting and permitting decisions relating to refineries;

-limiting the kinds of cleaner fuels states can require to meet their clean air targets; and

-changing long-standing legal tradition [by] exposing local governments to federal sanctions and lawsuits.

And finally, according to Boehlert, " …perhaps worst of all, the bill still does virtually nothing to limit the nation's growing demand for oil - the core cause of price spikes.  The nation's refining capacity has been increasing for a decade (despite the reduced number of refineries), but demand has increased even more.  The marketplace is providing all the incentives needed to build new refineries using the tremendous profits of the oil companies.  But the marketplace cannot control demand effectively."

2) WHITE HOUSE & EXECUTIVE AGENCY WATCH

• NAGB Proposal Would Delete Technological Design From NAEP From K-12 Education

The Framework for the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is currently being finalized by the Congressionally-created National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB).  The NAGB, which is the government agency responsible for the test, has invited public comment on the issue in Washington, DC on 25 October.

For the first time, developers of the Science Framework proposed that the process of technological (or engineering) design be tested along with inquiry. However, over the objections of Ioannis Miaoulis, President and Director, Museum of Science, Boston, the NAEP Steering Committee has recommended that the portion of the test framework concerned with technological design be deleted. 

In a letter to colleagues, Miaoulis wrote, "Whether or not we like it, assessment does tend to drive teaching priorities, and NAEP is an extremely important national assessment.  I urge you to weigh in on the issue if you are at all concerned about K-12 technology and engineering education. I've attached the letter of invitation from NAGB and my own response to this email message. You may download a copy of the draft Framework and learn about the Washington DC meeting at www.NAGB.org."

Read Miaoluis' letter to the NAGB here: http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/reports/nagbletter.pdf

Comments - due no later than October 26 - are accepted via email at mary.crovo@ed.gov. Or via fax or letter to:

Charles E. Smith, Executive Director

National Assessment Governing Board

800 North Capital Street, Suite 825

Washington, DC 20002

Fax: (202) 357-6945

• NSF Wants to See Teraflops and Petaflops By 2010

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released a public draft of a blueprint for upgrading the nation's supercomputing capabilities. The draft calls for significant sharing of resources with other agencies, and outlines investment areas and strategies for the 2006 to 2010 timeframe. The NSF requests comments on the document and will consider them for a final version due next spring.

NSF's goal is to create a petascale computing environment that can process one quadrillion floating point operations per second. By 2010, the agency wants a "significant number" of systems running at the one- to 50-teraflop range; "multiple systems" with a peak performance of 100 or more teraflops "that support the work of thousands of researchers nationally; and "at least one system" in the one- to 10-petaflop range "that supports a more limited number of projects demanding the highest levels of computing performance." A teraflop computer can process one trillion floating point operations per second and is currently the fastest available.

NSF does not plan to pay the entire bill. Instead, the agency suggests a resource-sharing model with other entities, including the Defense and Energy departments. "A strengthened interagency partnership will focus, to the extent practicable, on ensuring shared access to federal leadership-class resources." To get there, NSF suggests the creation of a Leadership Computing Council, "to include representatives from all federal agencies with a stake in science and engineering-focused high-performance computing."

NSF also is interested in working closely with software developers to build common operating systems that can serve various disciplines. Common research needs could include linear algebra, fast spectral transforms, optimization algorithms and symplectic integrators.

Over the next four years, NSF plans to make "significant new investments" in software -- though no dollar amounts were provided in the draft. For information, see: High Performance Computing System Acquisition: Towards a Petascale Computing Environment for Science and Engineering http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf05625

• President Elevates Role of External IT Advice in the White House

30 SEPT: The President signed an Executive Order designating the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) as the advisory panel that will be responsible for overseeing the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. The President also ordered that PCAST's membership be increased, so more members with relevant experience can be appointed to buttress PCAST's Information Technology (IT) assessment functions. The President is expected to make these new appointments in the near future.

PCAST's duties will include providing an independent assessment of progress made in implementing the NITRD Program and whether the research and development undertaken within NITRD is helping to maintain US leadership in information technologies and their applications.

PCAST, the President's premier advisory board in the science and technology (S&T) arena, is co-Chaired by Dr. John H. Marburger, III, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and venture capitalist E. Floyd Kvamme. PCAST's members consist of top-level managers (e.g., corporate CEOs, university Presidents) drawn from industry, education and research institutions, and other nongovernmental organizations. PCAST has a history of issuing definitive reports on the important topic of maintaining US S&T innovation leadership.

PCAST is also designated as the National Nanotechnology Advisory Panel (NNAP), advising the President on the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a large multi-agency research program.

For its NNAP work, the PCAST formed a nanotechnology "technical advisory group," comprising about 50 top government and private sector nanotechnology scientists. This "TAG" proved highly beneficial to PCAST's NNI assessment activities, and PCAST intends to form a similar TAG resource in the IT arena.

• Internet Governance: The US v. The World

Government officials, meeting in Geneva since 19 September for the preparatory talks leading up to the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), have failed to reach a consensus on Internet governance. The issue is so contentious that a split between delegates attending the first WSIS in Geneva in 2003 forced U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to establish a separate task force to study it.

Currently, the U.S.-led group ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) manages crucial Internet infrastructure such as domain names, root servers and IP addresses. Although ICANN started as merely a technical administrative body, today its power is akin to owning decisions about the world's telephone numbering system or radio spectrum allocations. Developing countries say ICANN favors large nations and big corporations when it doles out IP addresses. Yet giving U.N. members control could have worse outcomes: Some regimes might win the power to allocate addresses within their borders — and then stifle competition or free speech by handing them only to state-run phone systems or denying them to political opponents.

The breakdown of talks in Geneva mean that additional conversations on the contentious issue of Internet governance are unlikely before the planned November gathering in Tunis, Tunisia. In Geneva, the E.U., previously aligned with the US, parted ways by calling for the creation of a new "forum" and a new "model of international cooperation," which could radically change if not completely override the status quo in which the US controls internet governance. Now the EU is joining most other countries in demanding a global body to take over supervision of the Net.

The E.U. proposal calls for a new forum to address policy issues at a global level but not to perform oversight tasks, and also for a new cooperation model to manage global allocation of IP number blocks, procedures for changing the root file system and rules for the DNS (domain name system). The proposal also calls for the role of government in the new cooperation model to be "mainly focused on principle issues of public policy, excluding any involvement in the day-to-day operations" and for the new model to build on "existing mechanisms or institutions" rather them replace them.

The US was represented by staff of the State and Commerce Departments, the US Copyright Office NASA and the US Patent and Trademark Office. For a full list of participants, visit: http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/pc3/participants-list-final.pdf

3) REPORTS, SPEECHES & DOCUMENTS OF NOTE

• US Could Lose "Privileged Position:" National Academies Panel Warns of an Erosion of the U.S. Competitive Edge in Science

12 OCT: A panel of experts, convened by the National Academies, has called for an urgent and wide-ranging effort to strengthen scientific competitiveness. The panel that included university presidents, CEOs, Nobel Prize winners, and former presidential appointees, wrote the report at the request of Congress.

The report - Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future - cited many examples of emerging scientific and industrial power abroad and listed four recommendations and 20 steps the United States should take to maintain its global lead. Some actions will involve changing existing laws, while others will require financial support that would come from reallocating existing budgets or increasing them. The panel believes that ongoing evaluation of the results should be included in all of the measures. The proposed actions include:

• creating scholarships to attract 10,000 top students a year to careers in teaching math and science, and 30,000 scholarships for college-level study of science, math and engineering;
• expanding the nation's investment in basic research by 10 percent a year for seven years; and
• making broadband access available nationwide at low cost.

The underlying goal is to create high-quality jobs by developing new industries and new sources of energy based on the bright ideas of scientists and engineers. "America must act now to preserve its strategic and economic security," the panel's chairman, Norman R. Augustine, retired chairman of Lockheed Martin, said in a statement. "The building blocks of our economic leadership are wearing away. The challenges that America faces are immense."

The report, Rising Above The Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future will be available online this fall at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/11463.html?onpi_newsdoc10122005.

The panel cites many examples that led to their conclusion that nation's old advantages, "are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength." For example, last year, more than 600,000 engineers graduated from institutions of higher education in China, compared to 350,000 in India and 70,000 in the US; recently, American 12th graders performed below the international average for 21 countries on general knowledge in math and science; the cost of employing one chemist or engineer in the United States is equal to about five chemists in China and 11 engineers in India; and chemical companies last year shut 70 facilities in the United States and marked 40 for closure. Of 120 large chemical plants under construction globally, one is in the United States and 50 are in China.

You can watch Norman Augustine testify in front of Congress next Thursday, 20 October 2005. The House Science Committee will hold a hearing on "Science, Technology, and Global Economic Competitiveness"

10:00a.m. - 12:00p.m.

2318 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC

View the WEBCAST at http://www.house.gov/science/hearings/full05/index.htm

Contacts:

Republican Staff: Elizabeth Grossman, 225-7858

Democrat Staff: Jim Wilson, 225-6375

Press contact: Joe Pouliot, 225-0581

• Study Puts Value Of U.S. Ideas At $5 Trillion A Year

The value of the ideas and innovation that the U.S. economy generates exceeds $5 trillion a year and comprises an estimated 42 percent of the country's gross domestic product, according to a study by USA for Innovation. The paper concludes that the value of the ideas and innovation that the U.S. economy generates is more than $5 trillion a year, roughly 42 percent of the country's gross domestic product and far more than any other nation's GDP.

• New CSIS Report on Access of Foreign Students and Scientists to the US

The CSIS Commission on Scientific Communication and National Security issued a White Paper on Security Controls on the Access of Foreign Scientists and Engineers to the United States. The White Paper:

• explains the importance to the United States scientific and technical base -- and to U.S. national security and economic vitality -- of ensuring that foreign students, scholars, researchers, and technical professionals are able to visit the United States;
• outlines problems that have been experienced with visa approval and border security processes as a result of post-9/11 reforms; and
• makes a number of recommendations for improvement, including short-term fixes that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our visa and border screening processes, as well as more fundamental shifts in the U.S. approach to visa policy, which would require rethinking some assumptions and may also require legislative change.

The Commission's paper is available online at http://www.csis.org/hs/051005_whitepaper.pdf

The Commission on Scientific Communication and National Security, co-chaired by former Secretary of Defense and CSIS Trustee Harold Brown and Nobel Laureate and CalTech President David Baltimore, consists of 27 distinguished members of the scientific and national security communities, and was formed to address the implications of post-9/11 security reforms on the U.S. scientific and technological enterprise.  A companion White Paper on Security Controls on Scientific Information and the Conduct of Scientific Research was released in June 2005 and is available online at http://www.csis.org/hs/0506_cscans.pdf.

• New GAO Reports

Higher Education: Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Programs and Related Trends (GAO-06-114) 12 October 2005

http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-06-114

Highlights - http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d06114high.pdf

4) U.S. COURTS ACTIVITY

None at this time.

5) AWARDS & GRANTS

• AAAS Grant Site

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has a service called GrantsNet Express.  Each week GrantsNet will provide a listing of science funding opportunities from private foundations and organizations, and new U.S. government grant announcements in the sciences. AAAS will send GrantsNet by e-mail to AAAS member subscribers. The weekly emails will include: — New science funding programs, divided into opportunities for postdocs/graduate students and undergraduates — Submission deadlines for funding opportunities scheduled in the upcoming week — New listings of funding for science-related grant programs from U.S. government agencies To register, visit http://www2.sciencecareers.org/promos/grantsubmit.asp

• National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced a series of initiatives that will greatly expand efforts to inform the general public about nanotechnology, and to explore the implications of that fast-moving field for society as a whole. For information, http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=104505

The Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network - NSF has selected the Museum of Science, Boston, along with the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Exploratorium in San Francisco, to create and lead this network, which will also include many other science museums and research institutions (partial list below). The $20 million, five-year effort represents the largest single award NSF has given to the science-museum community, and will be a cornerstone of the foundation's multidisciplinary Nanoscale Science and Engineering Education program. The award was made by NSF's Informal Science Education program, with additional funding provided by 12 research programs from across the foundation.

6) CONFERENCES, FELLOWSHIPS, PROGRAMS & INTERNSHIPS FOR ENGINEERS, and STUDENTS & SCHOLARS OF ENGINEERING

• 2007 Congressional & State Department Fellowships

An engineer once changed careers to serve as Calvin Coolidge's Vice President. As vice president, Charles Dawes influenced the public policy process and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. Dawes might be an extreme example, but that doesn't mean engineers can't influence the public policy process in other ways.  If you don't want to run for office but would like to take a year off from your regular job, IEEE-USA is now accepting applications for the 2007 government fellowship program that links engineers with government.  Our 2005 fellows are working on issues such as homeland security and R&D funding. For more information on what past fellows have learned and experienced, see http://ieeeusa.com/policy/govfel/cfalumni.html.  The deadline is 20 February 2006 and application materials are available at:http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/govfel/default.asp

• IEEE Student Members Encouraged to Apply for 2006 WISE Program

Next summer, the IEEE will sponsor three outstanding student members to participate in the 2006 Washington Internships for Students of Engineering (WISE) Program. The select candidates will spend nine weeks in Washington, D.C., learning how engineers contribute to the legislative the decision-making process. For more information, visit www.wise-intern.org, or contact Sharon Richardson at s.richardson@ieee.org. The application deadline is December 16, 2005.

• WISE Program Seeks Senior Science & Technology Public Policy Advisor to Engineering Students (Nine Week Summer Position)

An outstanding individual capable of teaching and mentoring engineering students on the interaction between engineering, technology, and public policy is sought to serve as Advisor-In-Residence (AIR) for the 2006 WISE Program (Washington Internships for Students of Engineering).

For more information, please visit: http://www.wise-intern.org/advisor.html

View a PDF of the announcement, here:  http://www.wise-intern.org/FMR/WISEAdvisor.pdf

7) US STATES WATCH

• Oregon Governor Signs Bill to Create Innovation Council

Governor Ted Kulongoski last month signed Senate Bill 838, creating the Oregon Innovation Council.  The Council will provide the legislature with advice regarding business innovation in order to strengthen competitiveness in global markets, and will include representatives from industry, education and government.

In addition, the bill recognizes the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute (ONAMI) as the state's first Signature Research Center and appropriates $7 million for operations and leveraging of private and federal funds. According to the governor's office, every state dollar invested into ONAMI delivers a $30 return through private investment.

Among its key tasks, the council will work to increase Oregon universities' role in driving economic growth. The council will provide advice on enhancing educational programs for engineering, science and technology. Another primary goal is identifying and addressing business development issues in key industry sectors such as early-stage funding and entrepreneurial capacity.

• Michigan Senate Passes Telecommunications Deregulation Bill

The Michigan Senate unanimously passed a telecommunications bill that would strip state regulators of the right to oversee telephone rates. Specifically, the measure would get rid of state-approved phone rates for residents and business customers who make more than 200 local calls per month. Other services like caller identification and call waiting would not be affected. The state House already has passed the bill, but it likely will face changes during negotiations between the chambers. "What we passed today is probably nothing like what the final version will look like in many ways," said Ari Adler, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Ken Sikkema, a Republican.

Also in Michigan, the Departments of Information Technology and Environmental Quality have teamed with Dell, Inc. to host free computer recycling collections on Saturday, 15 October. For more information, see: http://www.michigan.gov/som/0,1607,7-192--127654--,00.html

8) LATEST IEEE-USA ACTIVITIES

• Track IEEE-USA's Progress

Review IEEE-USA's year-to-date progress in working for the IEEE's U.S. members at the new IEEE-USA Year-in-Review Web page. Check out what IEEE-USA activities and programs helped the IEEE's U.S. members in 2004 at the new IEEE-USA Annual Report online. And find out what's on IEEE-USA's agenda through 2009, with the new, online IEEE-USA Strategic & Operational Plan.

For the IEEE-USA Year-in-Review, go to: http://www.ieeeusa.org/about/yearinreview.asp

For the IEEE-USA Annual Report, go to: http://www.ieeeusa.org/about/Annual_Report/2004.pdf  

For the IEEE-USA Strategic & Operational Plan, go to:

http://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/strategicplan/index.html

Also, full listing of IEEE-USA lobbying activities can be found on our web site at: http://ieeeusa.com/policy/policy/index.html

9) U.S. COMPETITIVENESS: WHO'S DOING WHAT TO ADDRESS THE ISSUE?

• New IEEE-USA Resource  Web Page

U.S. Competitiveness: The Innovation Challenge http://ieeeusa.org/policy/issues/innovation/index.html

10) OTHER ITEMS OF POSSIBLE INTEREST

• And On the Other Side of the Pond, They're Also Worried About Competitiveness

20 OCT: With Brazil, China and India emerging as innovation hubs, the European Union  announced a series of research and development measures to maintain global competitiveness.

"Innovation and research are crucial if the European Union is to return to sustainable growth," Vice President Gunter Verheugen, who is responsible for enterprise and industry policy at the union, said in a statement. "This plan addresses the weakness the EU has in this field."

Known as the Lisbon program, the four-pronged action plan set forth by the European Commission includes 19 actions to boost innovation among the union's 25 nations. The first prong encourages the nations to promote policies that enable a favorable regulatory environment to support emerging technologies. To fulfill that need, the European Union needs a tax-driven financing scheme to aid states in maintaining a level playing field in a single European market. The commission said aid from EU nations would better steer cross-border research cooperation.

The union's target investment for research and development is 3 percent of the region's gross domestic product by 2010. "Europe's investment is stagnating," said Janez Potocnik, the science and research commissioner. The current rate of investment stands at less than 2 percent, according to the report. The program also aims to boost private R&D investment from 55 percent to roughly two-thirds. China's R&D investment is growing 20 percent each year.

The EU plan also calls for strengthened cross-border protection of intellectual property rights, market-driven government procurement policies to encourage private innovation, and tax incentives to stimulate business research.

The second prong of the plan focuses on funding policies that would support test projects, transnational technology transfers, and business services aimed at helping workers adapt economic changes, as well as implementing other financing mechanisms for businesses.

To reinforce the region's industrial base, the plan's third prong calls for greater research collaboration between the public and private sectors. The commission also said it would adopt guidelines to reinforce collaboration between university and research institutes. Another goal is to attract foreign investors by promoting industrial "clusters," or innovation centers. But to do so, the commission said improved networking among training centers, regional development agencies, financial institutions, and intellectual property consultants is necessary.

The final prong of the plan aims to harmonize national or regional research policies. To monitor the progress of R&D initiatives, the commission hopes to establish a reporting system on research policy developments.  "Every cent which goes into innovation and research is a cent invested in jobs, growth and hence our future," Verheugen said.

****Excerpted from an article by D. Belopotosky in National Journal’s Technology Daily News

Top of Page | What's New@IEEE | EyeOnWash Archive | IEEE-USA

What's New @ IEEE-USA's Eye on Washington highlights important federal legislative and regulatory developments that affect U.S. engineers and their careers. In addition to this biweekly newsletter, subscribers receive legislative bulletins and action alerts on IEEE-USA priority issues, including: retirement security, employment benefits, research & development funding, computers and information policy, immigration reform, intellectual property protection and privacy of health/medical information. EDITOR: Erica Wissolik, IEEE-USA, 2001 L Street, N.W., Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036-5104 You can change your IEEE-USA Eye on Washington subscription status by using the forms at http://whatsnew.ieee.org/ or at http://www.ieeeusa.org/emailupdates/. Copyright © 2005, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.  Permission granted to copy for personal use or for non-commercial republication with appropriate attribution.

Updated: 14 October 2005
Contact: e . wissolik @ ieee . org