When the Defense Department began funding research on computer networks in the 1960s and '70s, there was little inkling that it might revolutionize government transparency. Yet today, Internet technologies descended from that research are at the heart of open government efforts.

That history of innovation is the context for Designing a Digital Future: Federally Funded Research and Development in Networking and Information Technology. Released in December 2010 by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the report considers the impact of federal IT research on topics such as energy, education – and yes, government transparency. The report then looks ahead to ask: What sort of investments should we make in future research, and how can we extract the maximum benefit from those investments?

As the report correctly points out, "Advances in NIT are essential to achieving the goals of open government." Even as we struggle to make full use of today's technologies to improve citizen participation and access to public information, we can't stop developing tomorrow's technologies to go even further.

In our comments on the report, we make two broad points. First, federal IT research funding should advance the vision of open and accountable government, alongside other goals. Undoubtedly, it's hard to predict research outcomes, as the Internet example demonstrates. But to the extent that we can steer IT research toward identifiable goals, government transparency should be one of them. The report identifies several promising areas where a technical breakthrough could reap rewards for transparency, such as improved techniques to ensure data quality.

Second, useful new technologies must actually be put into practice. The stereotype of government technology as hopelessly behind the times may have eased in recent years, but adopting innovations is a challenge in any context. Bolstered efforts to translate fundamental research could streamline the path to real-world applications. The report proposes a multi-agency effort to evaluate new open government technologies and help put them into practice. Combined with a willingness to experiment and a robust role for public participation, such an effort could be a valuable mechanism to explore ways to continually make government more open.