Federal R&D in FY 2015: Context, Overview, Outlook

Matt HourihanJune 12, 2014for the Council on Government Relations

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

The Fiscal Context for FY 2015 Reminder: Budget Control Act’s two baselines

“pre-sequester” and “post-sequester”

Congress keeps rolling the cuts back (partially) FY14: 50% reduction, FY15: 20% reduction

Discretionary spending cap: $1.014 trillion 0.2% above FY14

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 (“innovation institutes”) Advanced Manufacturing

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

(not really)

Other Notes NIH: Translational science, Alzheimer's, mental health,

big data

Federal R&D drops to 0.75% of GDP (post WWII low)

Opportunity, Growth and Security Initiative: Extra funding

Appropriations So Far

Bills in play have covered funding for NSF, NASA, NOAA, USDA, Transportation, DOE, Defense, NIH, DHS

A typically mixed bag, but perhaps more positive than negative Sequestration recovery sustained/continued

Appropriations So Far (continued) Senate: NIH gets a boost

House: DOE offices flat or cut

House: DHS, Defense science boosted above request

Varying numbers for USDA

Transportation: mostly “no thanks”

For more info…mhouriha@aaas.org202-326-6607www.aaas.org/spp/rd/