A Look at Past, Present, and Future Federal R&D Budgets

Matt HourihanJune 9, 2014for the Asian S&T Forum

AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Programhttp://www.aaas.org/spp/rd

U.S. R&D in Global Context

Compared with other OECD members, US is… Near median in public R&D, top universities, and top

publications relative to GDP Better on industry R&D and entrepreneurship metrics

Compared to OECD median, the federal R&D enterprise is… Relatively more oriented towards national labs and

business; basic research; defense; and mission focus

WEF: top 10 in most innovation metrics, lower in education

The Fiscal Context for FY 2015

Sequester-level spending cuts partially rolled back (again)

Discretionary spending cap: $1.014 trillion 0.2% above FY14 $72 billion below original BCA cap $19 billion above sequester levels

FY 2016 and beyond – back to sequester levels

Administration R&D Priorities Department of Energy: NNSA, renewables and efficiency,

ARPA-E Neuroscience NASA: industry partnerships Transportation: highways and high-performance rail Extramural ag research Advanced Manufacturing

COMPETES Agencies: $11 billion for R&D (+1% from FY14) Research budget hit?

(not really)

Other Notes Defense S&T cut (~5%)

But NNSA boosted (science campaigns, computing, reactors)

NIH: Translational science, Alzheimer's, mental health, big data

NSF, DOE Science roughly flat

USDA “innovation institutes”

Appropriations So Far (continued)

Varying but positive numbers for USDA Transportation:

R&D generally down

Several others in play this week

For more info…

mhouriha@aaas.org

202-326-6607

www.aaas.org/spp/rd/