FY 2009 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities

Read the full White House memorandum to heads of Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government.

These are instructions to the Bush administration policy level officers for the preparation of the budget to be submitted to the Democrat controlled Congress in January 2008, to be put into law for the next administration to implement.

"Presidential Priority: American Competitiveness Initiative:

"The President is committed to the success of the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) announced in his 2006 State of the Union address. The ACI doubles investment over 10 years in key Federal agencies supporting basic research in the physical sciences and engineering. This innovation-enabling research includes high-leverage areas that develop and advance knowledge and technologies used by scientists in nearly every other field. President Bush has successfully begun the doubling path for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology core activities with an aggregate 17 percent increase in the first two years of the Initiative. To continue the doubling, these agencies should propose increases in FY 2009 that meet scheduled, ongoing facilities needs and provide for unique, high-value research opportunities. These proposals should be consistent with published out-year budget plans. We will evaluate the three requests together to determine final individual agency allocations. In addition to the doubling effort at these three agencies, real increases (above inflation) in the high-leverage basic research
of the Department of Defense should be a significant priority."

The memo defines"Interagency R&D Priorities" for:

• Homeland Security and National Defense
• Energy and Climate Change Technology
• Advanced Networking and Information Technology
• National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)
• Understanding Complex Biological Systems
• Environment
• Next Generation Air Transportation System
• Federal Scientific Collections
• Science of Science Policy

"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. Industry-relevant applied R&D must meet additional criteria. The specific activities programs should undertake to demonstrate fulfillment of the R&D investment criteria are described in a previous year’s memorandum, which is available at:"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/m03-15.pdf