Op-Ed on DARPA's short-term thinking

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The CRA’s Policy Blog points us this week to an Op-Ed piece in Friday’s Washington Post. Here’s the quote Peter pulled for his blog post:

DARPA once liked to boast that it took on impossible problems and wasn’t interested in the merely difficult. But in recent years, the scientists argued, DARPA has become nearly as cautious and prone to micromanagement as the government’s science behemoth, the National Institutes of Health. Before making most of its grants, the NIH demands such detailed evidence of success that it is “funding the past, not the future,” one scientist complained.

“DARPA seems to be shifting to the NIH model — more near-term, more risk-averse,” said Don Ingber, a professor of pathology at Harvard.

Peter’s post also includes links to previous press reports on this issue.