by Johannes Loschnigg

Federal funding for science and technology (S&T) research and development (R&D) is vital for our nation’s economic growth and national security. It is through these investments in our nation’s future that we ensure our ability to remain competitive in an increasingly globalized economy. Recently the Administration released their federal budget for fiscal year 2005. Although the budget proposes large increases in R&D for defense and homeland security, these increases hide the fact that funding for basic S&T research will, in fact, remain flat or actually decrease. Large federal budget deficits are projected for the next several years, resulting in tight constraints on discretionary spending. This will mean that most federal R&D programs would have difficulty even maintaining current funding levels. Few programs would see their budgets increase above the current inflation rate of 1.3 percent. Although the request for total federal R&D in FY05 is $5.9 billion or 4.7 percent more than FY04 (for a total of $131.9 billion), most of the increase would go to Department of Defense (DOD) development programs and R&D in the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS), leaving many other federal R&D programs collectively with flat or declining funding.