OMB has issued updated guidance for the administration’s research and development priorities covering agency programs, investment criteria agencies should use to improve investments and manage R&D programs, and identifying interagency R&D efforts for special focus in agency budget requests,
The guidance calls on the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to propose budgetary increases for fiscal 2009 in line with a doubling of investment over 10 years for basic research in the physical sciences and engineering as part of the administration’s "American competitiveness initiative."
OMB said it would evaluate the requests together to determine agency allocations.
Agencies must also evaluate existing programs and, wherever possible, consider them for modification, redirection, reduction or termination, in keeping with national needs and priorities, according to OMB memo M-07-22.
It said proposals for new, high-priority activities should identify potential offsets.
Among the investments the Administration favors for R&D are for high-leverage basic research to spur technological innovation, economic competitiveness and new job growth; to enable high-payoff activities that require a federal presence to attain long-term national goals, especially national security, energy independence, and a next-generation air transportation system; and, to improve the ability to understand and respond to climate change and other global environmental issues.
The guidance also states that the President’s Management Agenda directs agencies to use the R&D investment criteria – relevance, quality, and performance – to improve investment decisions for and management of their R&D programs.
It notes that industry-relevant applied R&D must meet additional criteria.
The specific activities programs should undertake to demonstrate fulfillment are to be found in a 2003 memo, M-03-15.
