The U.S. Federal R&D Budget: Overview and Outlook Matt Hourihan February 20, 2014 for the Australian Trade Commission AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program

Emergent Budget Tendencies Discretionary spending tends to be constrained… Early 1980s: nondefense constraints under Reagan Late 1980s/early 1990s: spending caps 2011 Budget Control Act caps While mandatory spending tends to grow Health care costs Expanding beneficiaries, aging population Medicare Part D, Affordable Care Act… …versus failed efforts at control/constraint/reform And, of course, anti-tax politics

Recent R&D Budget History R&D down by 8.4 percent between FY10 and FY12 August 2011: Budget Control Act AAAS estimated ~$50 billion R&D cuts in first 5 years January 2013: American Taxpayer Relief Act FY 2013: Sequester cuts nearly $10 billion more Summer 2013: Appropriators operate under two different spending baselines December 2013 budget deal: 50% sequester rollback for FY14

Positive outcomes Physical Sciences did well Defense S&T Department of Energy Technology programs and Science NSF facilities, EPSCoR, political science NASA Science and Exploration Defense contractors NIH overall Better for translational science, IDeA, BRAIN Environmental R&D But cuts avoided High-performance rail Less positive

Select International Programs Fogarty IC (NIH) keeps pace with most other institutes (3%) International Ocean Discovery Program (NSF) funding matched request USAID Global Health programs boosted above request ITER below request

Looking ahead… President’s budget to be released March 4 (and beyond) Priorities: manufacturing, clean energy, climate, IT and computing, biological innovation, neuroscience, STEM Ed Discretionary spending in FY 2015 has already been agreed And will increase hardly at all 25% of sequester reductions rolled back Beyond FY 2015: back to sequester levels Big-picture fiscal challenges remain largely unchanged

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