Investing in America’s Future through R&D, Innovation, and STEM Education: The President’s FY 2016 Budget
President Obama announced his Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Budget. The Budget details the President's spending plan for implementing the agenda he laid out in his State of the Union address to invest in America's future.
This plan involves robust investments in research and development (R&D) to drive science, technology, and innovation that will serve all Americans. Such investments help create jobs; improve human health; enhance access to clean energy, water, and food; address global climate change; manage competing demands on environmental resources; and ensure the security of the Nation. Federal government funding for R&D is essential to address pressing needs in these and other crucial areas.
The Budget provides $146 billion for R&D overall, an $8 billion (or 6 percent) increase from 2015 enacted levels. The Budget continues to strengthen U.S. international leadership in public and private sector R&D by supporting technology- and innovation-driven growth industries.
The President's 2016 Budget targets resources to key areas most likely to lead to transformational knowledge and technologies that can benefit society and create the businesses, jobs, and opportunities of the future, including:
- Continuing the commitment to world-class basic research. The Budget provides $67 billion for basic and applied research (the "R" in R&D), a $2 billion increase from 2015 enacted levels. The Budget increases total funding for three key basic research agencies (the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology laboratories) by $0.7 billion over the 2015 level to $13.8 billion. The Budget provides $31.3 billion to support research at the National Institutes of Health, an increase of $1 billion over 2015 enacted. The Budget also supports increases for basic research at other Federal science agencies, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
- Preparing students with STEM skills. The Budget invests more than $3 billion - an increase of 3.6 percent over 2015 enacted levels - to improve and expand science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) learning in the United States, under the guidance of the Federal STEM Education Five-Year Strategic Plan.
- Advancing precision medicine. The Budget invests $215 million to launch the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) - an ambitious effort to move beyond "one size fits all" medicine toward tailored, effective treatments based on individual patient characteristics. The PMI will establish a large-scale national volunteer research cohort to propel understanding of health and disease, accelerate development of more effective approaches to cancer treatment, and support robust and appropriate regulatory, privacy, and security standards in precision medicine.
- Combating antibiotic resistance. The Budget invests more than $1.2 billion to combat and prevent antibiotic resistance, nearly doubling funding for these activities from 2015 enacted levels. This funding will improve antibiotic stewardship; strengthen antibiotic risk assessment, surveillance, and reporting capabilities; and drive research innovation in the human health and agricultural sectors.
- Investing in innovation. The Budget ensures that innovation continues to be the wellspring of American economic growth. This means providing strong support for R&D that is likely to create the foundations for the industries and jobs of the future, including robotics, cyber-physical systems, big data, the Materials Genome Initiative, the National Nanotechnology Initiative, and engineering biology. It also means accelerating the Administration's Lab-to-Market Initiative with increased funding for NSF's "Innovation Corps" and increased funding at NIST to strengthen interagency lab-to-market efforts.
- Investing in homegrown clean energy. The Budget provides approximately $7.4 billion for clean energy technology programs government-wide to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy and position the United States as the world leader in the energy industries of the 21st Century. In DOE, the 2016 Budget provides $2.7 billion for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) to accelerate research and development, build on ongoing successes, increase the use of critical clean energy technologies, and further reduce costs. The Budget includes $325 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a program that seeks to fund transformative energy research.
- Taking action on climate change. The 13-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates Federal research to improve our ability to understand, assess, predict, and respond to the human-induced and natural processes of global change and their related impacts and effects. The Budget includes approximately $2.7 billion for USGCRP; USGCRP outcomes support the Administration's Climate Action Plan.
- Making America a magnet for jobs. In the area of manufacturing, the Budget will support the development and scaling of new advanced manufacturing technologies, helping smaller manufacturers adopt new technologies to increase their competitiveness, and accelerating the transfer of new technologies from Federal labs to industry. The 2016 Budget provides $2.4 billion for Federal R&D directly supporting advanced manufacturing at NSF, DOD, DOE, the Department of Commerce (DOC), and other agencies, consistent with the goals and recommendations of the National Strategic Plan for Advanced Manufacturing. The Budget funds a national network of 45 manufacturing innovation institutes that will position the United States as a global leader in advanced manufacturing technology.
- Investing in innovation for national security. The Budget invests in innovative security capabilities. The 2016 Budget proposes $12.3 billion for the Department of Defense's (DOD) Science & Technology program. The Budget also maintains DOD's critical role in fostering breakthrough approaches for discovering promising technologies with $3.0 billion for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Together, R&D investments in the President's FY 2016 Budget will facilitate the science, technology, and innovation advances needed to ensure that America's future is a future we can all look forward to.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), responsible for advising the President on the Federal Research and Development (R&D) budget and shaping R&D priorities across Federal agencies, has released information on the science, technology, innovation, and STEM education components of the President's FY 2016 Budget.
Posted by Kei Koizumi on February 02, 2015 at 04:41 PM EST.
Kei Koizumi is Assistant Director for Federal R&D at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
