OMB has issued guidance outlining the administration’s multi-agency science and technology priorities for formulating fiscal 2015 budget submissions.
Priorities covered in OMB memo M-13-16 require investments in R&D, support for activities, such as STEM education, technology transfer, R&D facilities, and scientific data collection and management that enable a robust science and technology enterprise, and cooperation among multiple federal agencies for success.
The fiscal 2015 budget should reduce spending on lower-priority programs, and agencies engaged in complementary activities should coordinate to maximize their investmentsas well as avoid inappropriate duplication and avoid duplicating research in areas that already receive funding from the private sector, the memo said.
It said agencies also should explain in their submissions how they are redirecting available resources from lower-priority areas to science and technology activities that address priority areas. Those include: advanced manufacturing, STEM education, biology and neuroscience innovation, clean energy, global climate change, R&D for informed policy making and management, IT, R&D for national-security missions, and innovation and commercialization.
Further, within research portfolios agencies are being encouraged to identify and pursue ambitious goals that require advances in science, technology and innovation to achieve, and to support high-risk, high-return research.