Setting Priorities: What Research is Worth Funding?

Kei Koizumi is the Assistant Director for Federal Research and Development at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Prior to joining OSTP, Koizumi was on the Obama transition team’s Technology, Innovation & Government Reform Policy Working Group, before which he was the longtime Director of the R&D Budget and Policy Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He received his Masters in International Science and Technology Policy from George Washington University and his Bachelors in Comparative Political Economy from Boston University.

The US R&D system is decentralized relative to many other countries, with many different agencies funding R&D. Within that context, how do you coordinate priorities for R&D funding? What are the highest priority funding areas for science and technology?

You’re right that the United States has a highly decentralized R&D funding system. We don’t have a Department of Science, instead we have two dozen departments and agencies supporting R&D because they need science and technology to carry out their missions.

But there are several science and technology areas that cut across agency missions and have broad benefits for meeting the nation’s challenges. We want to be sure that, as a nation, we support the funding areas that have great promise for meeting multiple agencies’ needs. These priority areas do change from year to year, because of changing scientific and technical opportunities, changing economic conditions, and changing national political priorities.

To identify these priority areas, my office (OSTP) collaborates with the Office of Management and Budget annually on an interagency R&D priorities memo that identifies key interagency science and technology (S&T) priorities for the coming year.

The latest memo, released June 2012, is available on the White House web site and identifies the following highest priority funding areas: advanced manufacturing; clean energy; global climate change; R&D for informed policymaking and management; information technology R&D; nanotechnology; biological innovation; STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education; and innovation and commercialization. The memo explains in more detail what the opportunities are in each of these areas.

OSTP has minimal budget power relative to similar agencies in other countries. What mechanisms does the OSTP have to promote the President’s R&D agenda?

It’s true that OSTP has minimal budget power. OSTP itself doesn’t fund research, we’re a policy office with a small budget of less than $5 million. But we do advise the President, senior White House officials, and other White House offices (including the Office of Management and Budget) on how the Federal R&D funding agencies might best promote the President’s R&D agenda, and we try to formulate and implement R&D funding policies across the Federal government.

OSTP also has the convening power to bring the Federal agencies together to implement the R&D agenda. We rely heavily on informal conversations inside the Federal government, but we also rely on policy documents such as the R&D priorities memo, interagency reports on science and technology, engagement with the US science and engineering community and the broader public to build support for R&D funding policies, and expert advice from the science and engineering community.

What countries have good models for funding science and technology? How much does the OSTP look at how other countries allocate R&D funding?

OSTP does look at how other countries allocate R&D funding for lessons, but we find that in most cases the unique character of the US system means we have to craft our own models. That said, time and time again we find that the US has been and continues to be the model for other nations in S&T funding.

The US S&T funding system is built on competitively-awarded research grants distributed to investigators with the best ideas identified through peer review, and this system has helped to build US leadership in science. That competitive model is a US invention that is now being copied around the world, from the European Union to Japan to China. The US funding system is also diverse enough and flexible enough to take in Federal labs, industry labs, universities, national labs (contractor-operated labs), and nonprofits with many links between them, including steady flows of talented people.

The result is a system in which bright ideas make the transition from the laboratory to the marketplace more smoothly and quickly than other nations; other nations are trying to learn from US technology transfer policies and other policies that make this system possible.

I’ll also add that US universities are the world-leading institutions for combining research, education, and economic development because of US S&T funding policies encouraging a tight linkage between research and education; other nations are trying to learn from these policies. But we are always trying to learn, too! For example, you may have noticed that in his recent State of the Union address the President commended Germany for its education system, which does an excellent job of preparing high-school graduates for technical careers. So the Federal government is working with high schools, community colleges, and companies to figure out what the right Federal policies are for US high school students to have similar skills when they graduate.

Amid federal budget cuts, how do you determine what areas of S&T research get funded and which get cut? How can you be sure funding is being spent effectively?  

These are always very difficult decisions. When resources are scarce, as they are now and are likely to be in the future, we try to rely first on the science and technology community’s judgments about the most important research areas.

The Federal government periodically asks the science community, through the National Academy of Sciences, to tell policymakers what the most important scientific opportunities are in a field and to rank science projects by importance. These reports, which we call decadal surveys, are important guides for policymakers because they give us the science community’s best judgment as to which areas or projects to cut first and which investments to protect when budgets are tight. There are many other similar prioritization exercises undertaken by the community through scientific advisory boards, the National Science Board, and other groups of scientists and engineers.

Once research projects are underway, we rely on many mechanisms for tracking progress. Federal agencies and their Inspectors General keep an eye on spending efficiency, to make sure that Federal research funds are being spent appropriately and efficiently. But there are many other ways in which we try to ensure that Federal research projects are making progress toward science and policy outcomes.

Just to give a few examples, OSTP asks the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), a group of Presidentially-appointed scientists and engineers, to review periodically our nanotechnology and our IT research programs to make sure that they continue to answer the right scientific questions and that they make progress toward solving problems. Federal agencies have put in place scientific advisory boards for their programs; they meet periodically to look at research portfolios to judge how well they are meeting scientific and policy goals, and they often recommend changes in research funding and policies to improve their performance.

We, PCAST, and advisory boards rely on data that Federal agencies collect about their research programs, everything from scientists supported to papers published to new inventions and companies created. And we look at the scientific literature within a field and studies about a field to ensure that the US research effort is world-leading and productive. If the US effort is not what it could be then we can work with Federal agencies to try to improve performance through follow-up policies.

Feature Photo: cc/estherase