February 27, 2012 - IMM@BUCT

tial breakthroughs will be shelved, and new
business opportunities grounded in medical
discovery will evaporate as research
institutions struggle with leaner budgets,”
says Mary Woolley, president and chief
executive officer of Research!America, a
group that advocates for increased investments
in federal R&D. A frozen budget
for NIH will also “flatline medical breakthroughs
in the coming years and stifle the
business and job creation that begins with
research and development,” she says. —
BRITT ERICKSON
DEFENSE: SCIENCE
& TECHNOLOGY
HOLD THEIR OWN
The Administration’s fiscal 2013 budget
request proposes cuts to the largest shareholder
of federal R&D support:
the Department of Defense.
DOD would receive $69.7 billion
for research, development, test,
4.4%
and evaluation in 2013, down 4.4% from
2012. All R&D funds DOD receives include
additional funds called Overseas Contingency
Operations requests.
DOD’s R&D proposal includes some
$11.9 billion for early-stage science and
technology programs. Of that, $2.1 billion
would go to basic research, essentially the
same as for 2012. The high-priority areas
here are cybersecurity, robotics, advanced
learning, information access, biodefense,
and cleaner and more efficient energy.
DEFENSE
Basic research is flat as overall R&D increases
$ MILLIONS 2011 a 2012 b 2013 c 2012–13
CHANGE
Operational systems development $30,441 $28,388 $26,394 -7.0%
System development & demonstration 14,346 14,140 14,697 3.9
Advanced component development 14,142 13,462 12,433 -7.6
Advanced technology development 5,340 5,411 5,266 -2.7
Applied research 4,329 4,739 4,478 -5.5
RDT&E management support 5,661 4,584 4,268 -6.9
Basic research 1,877 2,112 2,117 0.2
TOTAL $76,136 $72,836 $69,653 -4.4%
NOTE: All values include Overseas Contingency Operations requests. a Actual. b Enacted. c Proposed. RDT&E =
Research, Development, Testing & Evaluation. SOURCE: Department of Defense
The other two science and technology
programs would see lower funding in 2013:
Applied research would drop 5.5%, or $261
million, to $4.5 billion, and advanced technology
development would drop 2.7%, or
$145 million, to $5.3 billion.
Other highlights of the 2013 DOD
request include expanded support of advanced
manufacturing R&D through new
public-private partnerships in targeted
technology areas. And for agencywide
programs, including the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the
budget request proposes a 5.4% increase,
for total funding of $5.5 billion.
On the development side of R&D at
DOD, funding for weapons-systems development
activities would be reduced as
systems mature and transition to the production
phase. —SUSAN MORRISSEY
DHS: SCIENCE &
TECHNOLOGY OFFICE
GETS RAISE
Set at $668 million in fiscal 2012, the
budget of the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) Science & Technology
Directorate (S&T) would
increase 24.4% in 2013, bringing
its overall budget back up to
24.4%
$831 million. This increase would restore
a significant portion of the funding the directorate
lost when Congress trimmed its
budget for 2012.
S&T, DHS’s main source of scientific
and technological expertise, had a budget
of slightly more than $1 billion as recently
as fiscal 2010. But as lawmakers cut federal
spending in the wake of massive deficits,
DHS has been on the chopping block.
WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG 41 FEBRUARY 27, 2012