Big Tech, You Need Academia. Speak Up!

Communications of the ACM 

The current U.S. administration has launched a wara on academia. Indirect costs, or, more accurately, facility and administration expenses, support research but cannot be directly attributed to a specific project, such as lab infrastructure, utilities, and administrative support. These are real costs; the limit, which has since been suspended by courts, is a severe blow to biomedical research in the U.S. Beyond expanding this limit to other agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the administration is also reportedly considering slashing NSF's annual budget from approximately US 9 billion down to about US 3– 4 billion. This would deal a devastating blow to academic U.S. research, especially computing research. As statedc by the Computing Research Association (CRA), "NSF budget cuts would put the future of U.S. innovation and security at risk."