Networking and Information Technology Research and Development

Overview

The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program consists of a group of Federal agencies working together to research and develop a broad spectrum of advanced information technology (IT) capabilities to empower Federal missions; support U.S. science, engineering, and technology leadership; and bolster U.S. economic competiveness. The interagency program focuses on identifying research that will help the United States to “out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world.” NITRD Program activities are reported under a set of eight Program Component Areas (PCAs), four Senior Steering Groups (SSGs), and a Community of Practice (CoP). The NITRD Subcommittee convenes three times a year and the working groups meet approximately 12 times annually and provide input to the NITRD Supplement to the President’s Budget.

NITRD Program Component Areas (PCAs)

The following is an overview of the eight NITRD PCAs strategic priorities. These PCAs cover the range of Federal networking and information technology R&D. Thus, NITRD working groups are organized around these PCAs, and NITRD investments by agencies are reported by PCA in NITRD Budget Supplements.

Cybersecurity and Information Assurance (CSIA)

CSIA priorities are organized into four thrusts according to the 2011 Federal Cybersecurity R&D Strategic Plan, “Inducing Change, Developing Scientific Foundations, Maximizing Research Impact, and Accelerating Transition to Practice.” These thrusts provide a framework for prioritizing cybersecurity research and development that focuses on limiting current cyberspace deficiencies, precluding future problems, and expediting the infusion of research accomplishments into the marketplace. The principal objectives include achieving greater cyberspace resiliency to attacks, and enhancing our capabilities to design software that is resistant to attacks.  Inducing Change: Utilize game-changing themes to analyze the underlying root causes of known current threats to disrupt the status quo with radically different approaches that improve the security of the critical cyber systems and infrastructure that serve society.  Developing Scientific Foundations: Develop an organized, cohesive scientific foundation to serve as the cornerstone for cybersecurity by establishing a systematic, rigorous, and disciplined scientific approach that will promote the discovery of laws, hypothesis testing, repeatable experimental designs, standardized data-gathering methods, metrics, common terminology, and critical analysis that engenders reproducible results and rationally based conclusions.  Maximizing Research Impact: Catalyze integration across the game-changing research and development themes, cooperation between governmental and private-sector communities, collaboration across international borders, and strengthened linkages to other national priorities, such as health IT and Smart Grid. 1 “A Strategy for American Innovation: Securing Our Economic Growth and Prosperity,” President Barack Obama, February 4, 2011 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovation/strategy) 2 Released December 2011 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/fed_cybersecurity_rd_strategic_plan_2011.pdf) NITRD SUPPLEMENT TO THE PRESIDENT’S FY 2013 BUDGET 2  Accelerating Transition to Practice: Implement powerful new technologies and strategies that emerge from the research themes and from the activities to build a scientific foundation so as to create measurable improvements in the cybersecurity landscape.