Science policy of the United States

The United States has a long history of government support for science and technology.

Agencies involved in science policy

Science policy in the United States is the responsibility of many organizations throughout the federal government. Much of the large-scale policy is made through the legislative budget process of enacting the yearly federal budget, although there are other legislative issues that directly involve science, such as energy policy, climate change, and stem cell research. Further decisions are made by the various federal agencies which spend the funds allocated by Congress, either on in-house research or by granting funds to outside organizations and researchers.

Legislating science policy

In the Executive Office of the President, the main body advising the president on science policy is the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Other advisory bodies exist within the Executive Office of the President, including the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the National Science and Technology Council.

In the United States Congress, a number of congressional committees have jurisdiction over legislation on science policy, most notably the House Committee on Science and Technology and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and their subcommittees. These committee oversee the various federal research agencies that are involved in receiving funding for scientific research. Oversight of some agencies may fall under multiple committees, for example the Environmental Protection Agency.

There are also Congressional support agencies, which do not solely focus on science, but provide insight for Congress to make decisions dealing with scientific issues. These agencies are nonpartisan and provide objective reports on topics requested by members of congress. They are the Congressional Research Service, Government Accountability Office, and Congressional Budget Office. In the past, the Office of Technology Assessment provided Congressional members and committees with objective analysis of scientific and technical issues, but this office was abolished as a result of the Republican Revolution of 1994.

Further advice is provided by extragovernmental organizations such as The National Academies, which was created and mosly funded by the federal government, and the RAND Corporation, as well as other non-profit organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Chemical Society among others.

Executing science policy

There are a number of federal agencies across the government which carry out science policy. Some of these primarily perform their own research, such as:

• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• The "intramural" parts of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• The United States Geological Survey (USGS)
• The DHS Directorate for Science and Technology (S&T)
• The Veterans Health Administration Office of Research and Development (ORD)
• The Agricultural Research Service (ARS)
• The Army Research Laboratory (ARL)
• The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
• Most of the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL)

In addition, the federally funded research and development centers, which include most of the U.S. National Laboratories, are funded by the government but operated by universities, non-profit organizations, or for-profit consortia.

Finally, many government agencies exist to grant funds to external organizations or individual researchers. These include:

• The National Science Foundation (NSF)
• The "extramural" part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
• The Department of Energy's Office of Science and Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)
• The Office of Naval Research (ONR)
• The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
• The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA)

There are also a number of state and local agencies which deal with state-specific science policy and provide additional funding, such as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Science and technology in the budget

Federal funding of research by year. The spike in 2009 is due to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Figures for 2011 are requested levels; the enacted levels were significantly lower.

The research and development budget in the Obama administration's federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2011.

  Defense — $78.0B (52.67%)

  NIH — $32.2B (21.74%)

  Energy — $11.2B (7.56%)

  NASA — $11.0B (7.43%)

  NSF — $5.5B (3.71%)

  Agriculture — $2.1B (1.42%)

  Commerce (NIST & NOAA)—$1.7B (1.15%)

  Veterans Affairs — $1.2B (0.81%)

  Homeland Security—$1.0B (0.68%)

  Other (2.83%)

Research and development in the United States federal budget is not centrally enacted, but is spread across many appropriations bills which are enacted in the annual United States budget process, and spread across many federal departments.

With respect to the U.S. Federal Budget, scientists working in the United States are concerned with the amount and distribution of funding for research and development (R&D), which has a portion in both the defense and nondefense budgets. However, only a small percentage of the overall federal budget is allocated to R&D. Just over half of the R&D budget is mostly allocated to defense spending. Other Agencies that are allocated funding out of the R&D budget include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). There are many avenues in which scientific research is carried out: national labs, universities, research institutes and industry.

Government funding for research into defense-related technological research has historically been significant. Some of this takes place in public research institutions such as DARPA, whilst much else is carried out by major defense contractors in expectation of being able to sell the results to the government (so is funded privately, but on the basis of implicit or explicit agreement of costs being recouped from the government).

More detailed information about the federal research and development budget, including more detailed funding amounts, is available as part of the summary document Science, Technology, STEM Education, and 21st Century Infrastructure in the 2012 Budget from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Current funding debate

There was considerable debate on funding levels for science research by the federal government in the 2011 budget. The Obama administration's policy has been to support increases in research funding levels, including doubling the budgets of the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE SC), and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from their 2006 levels by 2017, and President Obama strongly featured innovation as a means for revitalizing the United States economy in his 2011 State of the Union Address. The Obama administration's fiscal year 2011 budget request included increases of $956 million for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), $479 million for the NSF, $172 million for DOE SC, and $126 million for NIST.

However, the Republican majority in the United States House of Representatives has stated a focus on the principles of deficit reduction and fiscal conservatism, on which they campaigned in the 2010 elections where they made large gains in representation in Congress. House Republicans promote their plan as the largest reduction in discretionary spending in the history of Congress, saying that they have "weeded out excessive, unnecessary, and wasteful spending, making tough choices to prioritize programs based on their effectiveness and benefit to the American people" with the goal of "returning our nation to a sustainable financial path." They have thus proposed deep cuts to science research budgets, including cuts in fiscal year 2011 of $1.6 billion from the NIH, $400 million from the NSF, and $900 million from DOE SC.

The deal reached on the 2011 budget in early April 2011 resulted in modest cuts to science programs, much less than the earlier proposals by House Republicans. NIH funding was cut by about $310 million, the NSF by about $68 million, and DOE SC by $35 million.

Intellectual property policy

Main article: United States patent law

Inventions "conceived or actually reduced to practice" in the performance of government-funded research may be subject to the Bayh-Dole Act.

Science in political discourse

Most of the leading political issues in the United States have a scientific component. For example, renewable energy, Stem Cell Research, climate change, and national security. Despite the growing integration of science in policy there are only a handful of Congressional members and their staff who have sufficient background in science; therefore they refer to various congressional support agencies for analysis on science related issues. Important for thinking about science in political discourse is that congressional members weigh many factors when addressing an issue, not just the scientific merit of an issue.

History

The first President's Science and Technology Advisor was James R. Killian, appointed in 1958 by President Eisenhower after Sputnik created the urgency for the government to support science and education. President Eisenhower realized then that if Americans were going to continue to be the world leader in scientific, technological and military advances, the government would need to provide support. After World War II, the US government began to formally provide support for scientific research and to establish the general structure by which science is conducted in the US. The foundation for modern American science policy was laid way out in Vannevar Bush's Science - the Endless Frontier, submitted to President Truman in 1945. Vannevar Bush was President Roosevelt's science advisor and became one of the most influential science advisors as in his essay, he pioneered how we decide on science policy today. He made recommendations to improve the following three areas: national security, health and the economy. The same three focuses we have today.

Creation of the NSF

The creation of the National Science Foundation, although in 1950, was a controversial issue that started as early as 1942, between engineer and science administrator Vannevar Bush and Senator Harley M. Kilgore (D-WV), who was interested in the organization of military research. Senator Kilgore presented a series of bills between 1942-1945 to Congress, the one that most resembles the establishment of the NSF, by name, was in 1944, outlining an independent agency whose main focus was to promote peacetime basic and applied research as well as scientific training and education. Some specifics outlined were that the director would be appointed and the board would be composed of scientists, technical experts and members of the public. The government would take ownership of intellectual property developed with federal funding and funding would be distributed based on geographical location, not merit. Although, both Bush and Kilgore were in favor of government support of science, they disagreed philosophically on the details of how that support would be carried out. In particular, Bush sided with the board being composed of just scientists with no public insight. When Congress signed the legislation that created the NSF, many of Bush's ideals were removed. It illustrates that these questions about patent rights, social science expectations, the distribution of federal funding (geographical or merit), and who (scientists or policymakers) get to be the administrators are interesting questions that science policy grapples with.

Future of science policy

Congress is realizing that the current national policy is not as concise and easy to determine priorities for funding scientific research. The goal is to be able to include government and all the institutions involved in research to be a part of the conversations concerning science, technology and engineering. As of right now, the criticism is that there is not a "science policy" but rather a "budget policy", stifling the ability for the nation to move forward in the field of science. Congress is looking to the scientific community to participate and to submit their thoughts on the rising challenges for the community, nation and planet so to address these needs in scientific policy.

The Federal Research Public Access Act (111th congress S.1373, introduced 25 June 2009 but still in a Senate committee) would require "free online public access to such final peer-reviewed manuscripts or published versions as soon as practicable, but not later than 6 months after publication in peer-reviewed journals".

See also

• Science and technology in the United States
• Technological and industrial history of the United States
• Science policy
• NASA Budget