Assortment of FY 2011 Science and Technology Budget Nuggets

Neither a representative nor comprehensive sample follows:

First, the FYI publication of the American Institute of Physics is running a series of budget breakdowns by department.  They do this for the President’s request and usually for the Senate and House budget bills as well.  Of course, they focus on physical science research, so some agencies aren’t covered.

Jocelyn Kaiser at ScienceInsider looks at the National Institutes of Health budget to see whether or not new Director Francis Collins is steering the NIH towards more big science and away from individual grants.  The biomedical analysts she talked to do not have a unified answer to that question.  She avoids what I think is a more meaningful question – does the NIH need to diversify its funding mechanisms to better accomplish its desired public policy objectives?

The breakdowns presented at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) briefing on Monday have been moved to the R&D Budgets section of the revamped OSTP website.

Google notes the presence of cloud computing in the budget documents as a means of saving expenses on government IT.  I’d have no problem with movement of government data to a cloud, provided the cloud was well-defined, sufficiently secure and personal information was kept private.  Cloud providers will need to make the case that their systems would fit the bill, and I have my doubts.