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WASHINGTON NEWS BUDGET PROCESS EVEN SLOWER THAN USUAL Election year scheduling and political jockeying, combined with war spending necessities and the looming federal debt ceiling, make a post-election lame-duck session of Congress more and more likely. Although several committees in both houses held hearings on the 9/11 Commission recommendations during the August recess, Congress was not officially in session and no work on the budget is being done until mid-September – just a few short weeks before the start of fiscal year 2005 on October 1. The House has drafted all 13 appropriations bills and approved 10 of them in July, but debate on most science and engineering related bills was postponed to September. The Senate is further behind, with only 4 of 13 appropriations bills drafted and one approved. The only final Congressional action was on the Department of Defense appropriations bill, which was signed by the President early in August. SECURITY R&D UP, OTHER SECTORS CUT Taken together, all the House appropriations bills would provide a record-high federal R&D portfolio of $131.2 billion in FY 2005. Virtually the entire increase over FY 2004 would go to defense and homeland security R&D, according to an analysis by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The federal investment in non-defense R&D would increase only 0.2 percent to $56.1 billion in the House bills, far less than the predicted inflation rate of 1.25 percent. Excluding a modest increase at the National Institutes of Health, physical science and engineering R&D budgets would fall 2.1 percent under the House plan, the AAAS analysis shows. Detailed tables are available at http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/ NSF A MAJOR LOSER While the Administration had proposed a 3 percent increase in the NSF budget for FY 2005, the bill reported out by the House Appropriations Committee calls for a 2 percent cut in spending for the agency’s programs. The committee’s report explains that, “given the overall funding constraints, (among other programs) no funds are provided for the proposed Workforce for the 21st Century program, the proposed new class of Science and Technology Centers, or the proposed Innovation Fund.” Funding would be reduced across the board in the Education and Human Resources Directorate, including the Math and Science Partnership program, although this program would not be completely shifted to the Department of Education as proposed by the Administration. The Coalition for National Science Funding and other science and engineering advocacy groups are working to get the figures increased when the “VA-HUD” bill (which funds NSF) reaches the floor of the House, and also are urging the Senate to make appropriations consistent with the spirit of the NSF Authorization Act of 2002 which authorizes a doubling of the agency’s budget over five years. MATERIALS WORLD NETWORK The National Science Foundation has issued a solicitation for proposals for collaborations between materials researchers from the US and their counterparts in the Americas, through the Inter-American Materials Collaboration (CIAM); Europe, including European national funding organizations, the European Science Foundation and the European Commission (EC); and other countries or regions. Proposals must have clear relevance to fundamental materials phenomena, synthesis, characterization, properties and/or processing. NSF will consider support for the US side of such collaborations, with the expectation that funding or research organizations from the appropriate countries/regions will consider supporting the costs of the non-US participants. Projects proposed to NSF are expected to offer students and junior researchers the opportunity to participate in an international research and education experience and, more generally, for integrating research and training in an international environment. The exchange of students and post-doctoral research associates between the US and abroad is strongly encouraged. Further guidance is available from Carmen Huber, Program Director, Office of Special Programs, Division of Materials Research, National Science Foundation at chuber@nsf.gov NSF
RELEASES FUNDING DATA According to preliminary data from the National Science Foundation, federal obligations are expected to reach over $105 billion in fiscal year 2004 for activities related to R&D. The estimates are provided in advance of the detailed statistical report, Federal Funds for Research and Development: Fiscal Years 2002, 2003, and 2004, which will be released this fall. The new figure represents a 4 percent increase over the FY 2003 level. Research (both basic and applied) accounts for $54 billion. Development, which comprises design, development, and improvement of prototypes and new processes, accounts for $47 billion, or 45 percent of the total. This reverses a decreasing share of development funding, which fell from 64 percent in FY 1990 to an estimated 43 percent in FY 2003. In both basic and applied research, the life sciences account for over half the federal funding. The InfoBrief is available at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/infbrief/nsf04331 At the same time, NSF has released a report on Federal R&D Funding by Budget Function: Fiscal Years 2002-04, which is available in electronic format only at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/ Finally, NSF has released Academic Research and Development Expenditures: Fiscal Year 2002. This report, a census of the full population of eligible institutions, includes total current expenditures for separately budgeted science and engineering R&D specifically organized to produce research outcomes and either commissioned by an agency external to the institution or separately budgeted by an organizational unit (i.e., research centers) within the institution. In addition, schools were asked to provide the percentage of the total and the percentage of the federally financed expenditures that are considered basic research. Also included are research funds for which an outside organization, educational or other, is a subrecipient. The data also are broken down by detailed science and engineering fields, and by portions used for the purchase of research equipment. The report is available at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/
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