Computation is the "third branch" of science, along with theory and experimentation.

Political, economic, and intellectual developments have shaped and continue to transform the U.S. agenda for research and information technology, resulting in key computational, networking, and data challenges for tomorrow.

The distinction between “basic” and “applied” research has fallen away. Though Vannevar Bush’s 1945 distinction between basic and applied research is still common in public discourse, sociologists of knowledge reject the distinction between basic and applied science as one-dimensional and replace it with a more complex array of linkages among various kinds of scientific activities. Similarly, the distinction between science and technology is falling away, since information technology is simultaneously the subject and the tool of inquiry.