2020 Quadrennial Papers Released

With the help of the Computing Research Association (CRA) and its subcommittees, you can now read the first of more than a dozen white papers focusing on computing research and national priorities over the next four years. The Quadrennial Papers are white papers aimed at illustrating computing research directions, challenges, and recommendations for policymakers and the computing community. The 2020 papers cover a variety of topics, including:

• Core Computer Science
• Broad Computing
• Socio-Technical Computing
• Artificial Intelligence
• Diversity & Education

The first set of four papers explore the foundations of our algorithmic world through theoretical computer science, ponder computing challenges in the post-Moore’s Law world with IEEE Computer Society members Tom Conte and Bill Gropp, address the opportunities with next-generation wireless technologies, and prepare us for the challenges of security in a post-quantum computing world.  The Quadrennial Papers are intended to help prepare the computing community for future research directions in the field. CRA’s Computing Community Consortium subcommittee (CCC), Committee on Widening Participation in Computing Research (CRA-WP), and Education subcommittee (CRA-E), all contributed white papers to the effort. The topics selected represent areas of shared interest among the committee members extending over various subdisciplines of computing research. The Computing Research Association, primarily through the Computing Community Consortium subcommittee, has been producing these white papers every four years since 2008 on a wide variety of topics. The papers have frequently had notable impact, including helping motivate a re-envisioning of DARPA, establishing the need for a Big Data Initiative, buttressing support for a National Robotics Initiative, and laying the groundwork for an Artificial Intelligence Research Roadmap.  Members of CRA committees and experts in academia and industry inside and outside the computing research community have contributed to the development of the Quadrennial Papers. CRA thanks all who were part of the effort to finalize the papers. As each of the 2020 Quadrennial papers is released (over the next few weeks), it will be available at https://cra.org/cra-quadrennial-papers.