Number: RL33586
Title: The Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program: Funding Issues and Activities
Authors: Patricia Moloney Figliola, Resources, Science, and Industry Division 
Abstract: The federal government has long played a key role in the country's information technology (IT) research and development (R&D) activities. The government's support of IT R&D began because it had an important interest in creating computers that would be capable of addressing the problems and issues the government needed to solve and study. One of the first such problems was planning the trajectories of artillery and bombs; more recently, such problems include simulations of nuclear testing, cryptanalysis, and weather modeling. That interest continues today. Such complexity requires there be adequate coordination to ensure the government's evolving needs (e.g., homeland security) will continue to be met in the most effective manner possible.
Pages: 16
Date: October 23, 2008