Advisory Committee calls for more multidisciplinary research
Look for an article in the April 15th edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) titled “Presidential Panel Recommends Steps to Promote Computational Science” that focuses on an as yet unreleased report about research and funding evolution for computational science. In the report, the President’s Information Technology Advisory Panel is calling for new approaches to computational science research. The report states that
universities and federal R&D agencies must make coordinated, fundamental, and structural changes that affirm the integral role of computational science.
Dan Reed of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who chairs the panel subcommittee that authored the report, calls for new ways of thinking and new ways of working together that will likely require new federal funding incentives to accomplish.
The report calls for both universities and federal agencies to restructure the way they coordinate and conduct joint research to better accommodate cross discipline efforts involving computer science and such fields as chemistry and biology. This line of thinking isn’t really new, but making it a higher priority on the national research agenda is. Word has it the report, “Computational Science: America’s Competitive Challenge”, could be released in a few weeks.
