| An Overview of R&D in the FY 2008 Budget On February 5, 2007, President Bush
released his proposed budget for fiscal year (FY) 2008. The new budget continues
old themes from previous budgets: large proposed increases for the three physical
sciences agencies in the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI), increases
for weapons development and human spacecraft development, and declining funding
for the rest of the federal research and development (R&D) portfolio. Within
an overall budget that once again proposes to restrain domestic spending but dramatically
increase defense spending, many agencies such as the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) would see their R&D funding fall. The overall federal investment in
R&D would increase to $143.0 billion, a 1.3 percent increase over the final
total for the recently completed FY 2007 budget, but development funding would
take up the entire increase and more. The federal investment in basic and applied
research would fall 2.1 percent from the 2007 total to $55.5 billion in 2008 as
gains in the ACI agencies would be more than offset by cuts in other agencies’
research funding. In real terms, the federal research investment would fall for
the fourth year in a row after peaking in 2004.
In its broad outlines, President Bush’s proposed budget
for FY 2008 once again offers the same themes as in previous years: big increases
for defense and homeland security, trims in some entitlement programs, extensions
of expiring tax cuts, and a promise to reduce the budget deficit primarily by
cutting domestic discretionary spending. Unlike last year, when the ACI made its
debut, there are no new R&D initiatives in the budget but rather a sustained
commitment to increasing funding for the three favored agencies of the National
Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, and
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratories in Commerce.
The three research-oriented ACI agencies lead the pack in R&D gains (see Figure
1), followed closely by proposed gains for development programs in the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Defense (DOD;
see Figure 1). But within a declining domestic budget, there would be stark contrasts
between these priority programs and everything else: nearly all other nondefense R&D programs
would face cuts, and defense research would also fall steeply.
 Figure
1. Most
federal agencies prepared their 2008 budgets this January and earlier based on
temporary funding levels contained in a continuing resolution (CR) that expired
on February 15. On that day, President Bush signed into law the final 2007 joint
funding resolution that had cleared Congress a day earlier (Public Law 110-5).
The resolution boosts funding for key R&D agencies, including NIH and the
ACI agencies. As a result, the 2007 funding baseline for many agencies shifted
dramatically after the February 5 release of the 2008 budget. (The FY 2007 figures
and FY 2007-08 comparisons are based on revised AAAS estimates of R&D in final
FY 2007 appropriations. In many cases, the revisions result in funding trends
that differ significantly from funding trends in the President’s budget documents.) -
The proposed federal R&D portfolio in
FY 2008 is a record $143.0 billion, $1.9 billion or 1.3 percent above the final
2007 funding level (see Table II-1). Once again,
development would be the clear winner: development funding would hit a new high
of $82.8 billion (up $2.3 billion or 2.9 percent) because of large increases for
DOD weapons and NASA spacecraft development, including new requests for $1.4 billion
in 2007 and $2.9 billion in 2008 for DOD development as part of the Bush Administration’s
war supplementals. -
Total federal support of research (basic and
applied) would fall 2.1 percent to $55.5 billion, even after large proposed
increases for physical sciences and related research in NSF, DOE’s Office of Science, and NIST (see Table
II-1). A rare cut in NIH research funding and steep cuts in research funding
at DOD, NASA, USDA, and other agencies would more than offset the ACI gains. In
real terms, federal research spending would fall for the fourth year in a row,
down 7.4 percent from 2004. -
President Bush’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) would once again
be the big winner among domestic programs. The three ACI agencies recently
won large increases in 2007 as part of the joint funding resolution; now, the
President proposes to boost ACI funding even higher in 2008. NSF R&D would
increase 8.3 percent over 2007 to $4.9 billion within a total budget of $6.4 billion
(up 8.7 percent). DOE’s Office of Science would get
a 15.4 percent increase in its R&D funding to $4.1 billion in 2008 over 2007.
And R&D performed in the NIST laboratories would increase 13 percent to $420
million. But although the ACI aims to boost federal investments in physical sciences
research, the two other major sponsors of the physical sciences would face cuts
in their research support: DOD support of basic and applied research would fall
18 percent to $5.9 billion, while NASA research would slide 1.9 percent to $3.4
billion (see Table II-1). -
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget would fall in 2008 compared
to 2007. NIH received a surprise $600 million boost in the 2007 joint funding
resolution above what it had been expecting all year, but the additional 2007
money means the $28.8 billion NIH request for 2008 would be a cut instead of an
increase. NIH R&D would fall $333 million or 1.2 percent (see Table
II-9). -
NASA R&D would continue to climb to fund the development of new human spacecraft
to replace the Space Shuttle. NASA R&D would climb 6.7 percent to $12.6
billion, but the entire increase would go to two big projects: finishing the International
Space Station and developing the Crew Launch Vehicle / Crew Exploration Vehicle
combination. As a result, NASA support of research in the physical sciences, environmental
sciences, aeronautics, and other disciplines would fall once again (see Table
II-12). -
Nondefense R&D agencies not linked to the ACI
or space would see their R&D funding decline within a tight domestic budget
(see Figure 1). Even R&D in Administration priorities such as DOE’s energy R&D (down 8.9 percent to $1.4 billion, primarily
because of last-minute infusions of 2007 funds) and DHS R&D (down 0.8 percent
to $996 million within an expanding DHS budget) would fall in 2008. Commerce’s
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would see its R&D funding
decline 9.5 percent from a newly boosted 2007 funding level down to $544 million
despite an increase for oceans research. -
Nondefense R&D would increase 1.9 percent to $60.1
billion, far better than the flat funding requested for all nondefense discretionary programs and just short of 2.4
percent expected inflation (see Table II-1). Boosts
for the ACI and space vehicles development help to offset requested cuts in other
nondefense R&D programs, but even increases in these
areas are not enough to keep the nondefense portfolio from falling behind inflation for the
fourth year in a row. -
Defense R&D continues to climb to record levels in wartime, boosted by additional
billions for development in both 2007 and 2008 as part of war-related supplemental
requests. Total defense R&D would reach $83.0 billion in 2008 (including $2.9
billion in a war supplemental), up 0.9 percent over an FY 2007 total that also
includes supplemental funding that was just requested but has not yet been appropriated
for the current year. Department of Defense (DOD) weapons systems development
would increase dramatically by $3.5 billion or 5.5 percent to a new high of $68.1
billion (see Figure 1), but once again there would be steep cuts in DOD’s S&T
(DOD “6.1” through “6.3” plus medical research) programs. DOD S&T would plummet
20.1 percent down to $10.9 billion, with cuts in all three categories of basic
research, applied research, and technology development. -
President Bush’s FY 2008 budget goes to a newly Democratic-majority Congress,
where the R&D requests will go through a newly reorganized appropriations
process. Democratic appropriators have reorganized appropriations jurisdictions
into 11 bills, 10 of which fund some R&D (see Table
I-8). As in the past, 95 percent of the federal R&D portfolio will be
appropriated through 4 appropriations bills. - Despite increasing attention to climate
change and possible policy measures to address it, federal spending on climate
change science is falling (see Table I-9). Climate Change
Science Program (CCSP) funding would
decline 7.4 percent to $1.5 billion in 2008, falling steeply for the fourth year
in a row from nearly $2 billion in 2004. Although climate change funding in most
participating agencies remains stable, steep cuts in recent years to NASA research
(the largest sponsor of climate change science) have resulted in a diminishing
overall federal effort. Among other multi-agency R&D initiatives, funding
for the Networking and Information Technology R&D
initiative would level off at $3.1 billion. The National Nanotechnology Initiative would benefit from ACI increases for leading
members NSF and DOE Office of Science to reach $1.4 billion (up 3.8 percent).
(For more on the NNI, see Chapter 23; for more
on NITRD, see Chapter 22; for more on CCSP, see Chapter
15.) (Details of R&D in the largest R&D funding agencies can be found
in Chapters 5 through 12.) The Role of R&D
in the U.S. Innovation System Science and technology are
recognized as key drivers of economic growth, as well as improved health and quality
of life in the United States
and throughout the world. Economists estimate that up to half of U.S.
economic growth over the past five decades is due to advances in technology. A
study of recent U.S.
patents released several years ago found that nearly two-thirds of the papers
cited in these patents were published by researchers at organizations supported
by federal funds—and these linkages have been growing at an accelerating pace.
Recent advances in genetics and biotechnology,
as well as computers and information technology, have raised public awareness
of the vital economic role of research-based technology. High-tech industry is
sought after by economic development organizations in virtually every state and
locality. Policymakers regard universities as catalysts for high-tech economic
development both through entrepreneurial activity that spins off from their research
and through the concentrations of highly trained human resources they attract
and generate. The federal government plays a central role in research in the nation’s
universities. R&D is a substantial and
growing enterprise in the United States.
All in all, the U.S.
invested an estimated $312 billion in R&D in 2004. This represented 2.66 percent
of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The largest share of this money
(64 percent) came from industrial firms. Most of the balance (30 percent) came from the federal government. Colleges
and universities, private foundations, other nonprofit institutions, and state
and local governments provided the remainder. Industry’s share of national R&D
funding has been growing steadily for several decades. From the end of World War
II to 1980, the federal government supported the largest share of the nation’s
R&D. Despite its relatively modest share of total U.S. R&D
funding, the federal government’s role is critical to the nation’s science and
technology enterprise. Federal agencies support nearly two-thirds (62 percent)
of the nation’s basic research and nearly
two-thirds (64 percent) of the R&D performed in U.S. colleges and universities
(see Table I-10). Basic research is the primary source
of the new knowledge that ultimately drives the innovation process. At the same
time, federally funded research at colleges and universities plays a key role
in educating the next generation of scientists and engineers. Federal applied
research and development programs also provide direct support for key government
missions, such as improving the nation’s health and medical care, exploring space,
and national security. R&D in the
Federal Budget Although the President’s budget presentation each year
generally contains a section devoted to R&D and a number of tables summarizing
proposed federal R&D expenditures, it is important to recognize that
there is no overall “R&D budget” and no special treatment for R&D
within the budget. Expenditures for R&D programs are regular budget
items. They are contained, along with other types of expenditures, within the
budgets of more than 20 federal departments and independent agencies as shown
in Table II-1. For some of those agencies, such as
NSF, NASA, and NIH, R&D is a dominant activity. For others, such as the Department
of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it is a small part of a much larger set
of programs. Some R&D programs are “line items” in the budget and are relatively
easy to identify as R&D. Others are included within larger line items and
are more difficult to ferret out. Federal R&D expenditures represent 4.6 percent
of the overall proposed $2.9 trillion federal budget for FY 2008. Nearly all federal
R&D comes from the discretionary budget, the one-third of the budget that
is subject to annual appropriations decided by the President and the Congress.
(The remaining two-thirds of the federal budget goes to mandatory programs (entitlements)
such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the national debt.
Less than 0.2 percent of the federal R&D portfolio is mandatory spending.)
Federal R&D is roughly one out of every seven discretionary dollars (see Table
I-3). On the whole, trends in R&D funding have closely followed trends
in federal discretionary spending. Despite the fact that R&D funding trends
are the combination of hundreds of different budget decisions that are only aggregated
after a budget is done, the two trends match almost perfectly on the nondefense
side for the past 30 years. On the defense side, R&D has grown as a share
of the defense budget over the years as high-tech weapons systems have claimed
increasing shares of defense spending. Growth in overall discretionary spending over the past
four decades has allowed federal investment to grow in many areas, including R&D.
Efforts to balance the federal budget by cutting discretionary spending during
the mid-1990s resulted in reductions in most of these areas, including R&D.
Subsequent increases have erased these losses in several agencies and produced
significant gains for a few, but the return of budget deficits this decade has
resulted in flat to declining discretionary spending in 2007 and the 2008 proposal,
mirrored by similar trends in R&D spending. Federal R&D
by Performer Although the government maintains several hundred laboratories
around the country, only a quarter of federally supported R&D is actually
carried out in these labs. The largest share of federally funded R&D is performed
by industrial firms under contracts (40 percent of the total; see Figure 2). Less
than a quarter is conducted under federal grants in colleges and universities.
Other nonprofit institutions perform a small portion, and 8 percent of the portfolio
is performed by FFRDCs (federally funded R&D centers)
operated by contractors, such as the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee, which is operated in partnership by the University of
Tennessee and the Battelle Memorial Institute. Although these figures apply
to the overall federal R&D portfolio, each federal funding agency has its
own mix of performers depending on the agency’s mission and historical relationships
with performers. The majority of DOD’s R&D portfolio is performed by industry,
for example, while DOE sends the majority of its R&D portfolio to its network
of FFRDCs; nearly all of the NSF portfolio, however,
goes to universities. 
Figure 2.
Altogether, including the research that firms support
with their own funds and that which is conducted under government contracts, industry
is responsible for performing more than two-thirds (70 percent) of the nation’s
total R&D. U.S. academic institutions perform 14 percent, while federal laboratories,
nonprofit institutions (research institutes, hospitals, etc.), and FFRDCs
perform the remainder. Federal R&D
by National Missions Most of the federal government’s R&D is mission
oriented; that is, it is intended to serve the goals and objectives of the agency
that provides the funds (e.g., agricultural
research in the U.S. Department of Agriculture). Only NSF, whose mission is to
support basic and applied research, research facilities, and education across
a wide range of science and engineering disciplines, has a primary mission to
support science and engineering. For the remaining 97 percent of the federal R&D
portfolio, R&D investments are the means to achieve other government ends.
The federal government divides the budget into 20 “functional”
groupings to illustrate these national missions, each with a function number. The
President’s budget and the congressional budget resolution divide the total budget
“pie” into functional “slices,” which serve as non-binding guides for appropriators
in allocating funds to agencies and programs. Viewing the R&D budget by function
sheds light on the funding priorities assigned to different areas over time, and
allows for international comparisons with other nations’ spending on R&D by
objective. Table I-4 shows R&D by function in the
FY 2008 budget. (Chapter 2 discusses historical trends
in federal R&D missions.) The
Administration priority missions of defense development, space exploration, and
basic physical sciences research would all receive large increases in 2008, while
R&D for other national missions would fall sharply (see Table I-4). Space-related
R&D (252) would
continue to be a beneficiary of the Bush Administration’s January 2004 Vision
for Space Exploration to return humans to the Moon within the next decades as
a stepping stone to Mars. Space R&D would
gain 8.4 percent to $12.0 billion, though entirely from gains in development of
new space craft instead of the broader space R&D portfolio. Defense R&D
(050) continues to be a high priority with a 0.9 percent boost to a record $83.0
billion. Boosts to DOE Science and NSF R&D as part of the ACI make up the
11.4 percent gain for general science R&D (251) to $8.9 billion. But
R&D for other national missions, including agriculture (350; down 12 percent),
transportation (400; down 8 percent), and the environment (450; down 5 percent),
would all fall in a tight domestic budget. Despite increases for some alternative
energy R&D programs, cuts in energy conservation, fossil fuels, and some renewables
would result in an 8 percent cut for energy R&D (270) to $1.5 billion. Even
health R&D (550) would fall down to $30.1 billion after decades of steady
gains. 
Figure
3.
Although there is much talk of homeland security becoming
a major new federal mission, in the budget homeland security spending is a category
that cuts across spending on traditional government missions such as national
defense, transportation, and justice. R&D in the new Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), for example, serves the three missions of defense, justice, and
transportation. (See Chapter 11 for more information
on DHS.) Federal homeland security-related R&D
would total $4.9 billion in FY 2008, a gain of $212 million or 4.5 percent after a steep fall in 2007 (see
Figure 3 and Table I-6; the totals are significantly
higher since 2005 than in previous years because DOD recently expanded its reporting
of homeland security-related spending). The majority of the multi-agency portfolio
would remain outside DHS, with the largest part in the National Institutes of
Health (NIH). NIH’s portfolio, mostly in the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), would total $1.8 billion
in FY 2008, down 0.7 percent within a declining NIH budget. The DHS R&D portfolio
fell sharply for the first time in 2007 from $1.3 billion down to $1.0 billion,
and would decline a little more in 2008. Increases would go to food safety research in
USDA, basic research on terrorism-related topics at NSF, and decontamination and
drinking water protection projects at EPA. R&D by Character
of Work The total federal R&D portfolio is made up of five
different kinds of investments, known as the “character of work” of R&D. Within
the R&D portfolio, distinctions are made among basic research, applied research,
development, R&D facilities construction, and capital equipment for R&D
(See Appendix 2 for definitions. AAAS tables combine
R&D facilities construction and capital equipment for R&D, often described
together as “R&D facilities” or “R&D plant.”) Basic and applied research
together make up “research”, while the two research categories plus development
make up “conduct of R&D.” Adding in R&D facilities construction and capital
equipment results in “total R&D” or “R&D.” The figures shown in Tables I-5
and II-1 represent agencies’ best attempts to classify
basic and applied research, development, and R&D facilities within their R&D
portfolios. The data reported here are imprecise and reflect the agencies’ judgments
as to how their R&D fits into the definitions for character of work. The
total federal investment in research (basic
and applied research) would fall 2.1 percent to $55.5 billion (see Table
II-1). Large proposed increases for the three ACI agencies of NSF, DOE Office
of Science, and NIST would be more than offset by steep cuts in other agencies’
research. Development would increase 2.9 percent to a record
$82.8 billion in FY 2008 because of continuing increases for DOD’s development
of weapons systems, including national missile defenses, new fighter planes, and
an array of other expensive future weapons systems (see Chapter
5 for more on DOD development). NASA development would surge $497 million
or 8 percent because of a continuing shift from research to the development of
new space vehicles. R&D facilities spending would surge 18.5 percent
to $4.8 billion. NASA accounts for the majority of the facilities investment,
primarily for just one facility: the orbiting International Space Station, funding
for which would climb dramatically in 2008. Here on Earth, the Department of Energy
(DOE) is the primary funding source for R&D facilities, mostly for the construction
and operation of large-scale scientific user facilities at the DOE national laboratories,
facilities that are open for use by the entire scientific community. DOE facilities
funding, a key part of DOE’s ACI investments, would increase 17 percent to $1.1 billion.
NSF’s investments in facilities, also benefiting from the ACI, would also increase
17 percent, to $498 million in FY 2008. 
Figure 4. The character of work is quite different in defense
and nondefense R&D, a point illustrated in Table
I-5 and Figure 4. Development would be by far the largest component of defense
R&D, accounting for 89 percent of the FY 2008 total, while applied research
would be 8 percent and basic research would be only 2 percent. In nondefense R&D, by contrast, basic research would be the
largest category at 45 percent, with development at only 14 percent and applied
research at 34 percent. A major reason for the difference between the character
of defense and nondefense R&D is that development
in DOD includes testing and evaluation of weapons systems. These activities are
extremely expensive compared to other types of R&D. R&D facilities construction
and capital equipment costs make up 7 percent of nondefense R&D and 1 percent of defense R&D. Priority-Setting
for Federal R&D Investments Priorities for R&D programs generally depend on
the priorities of the agencies in which they are located and the priority of the
missions of those agencies. From the standpoint of serving the nation’s interests,
at least in the short term, this makes good sense, since these R&D programs
are not ends in themselves but means to the ends (missions) that their sponsoring
agencies serve. From the standpoint of the long-term health of the research enterprise,
however, it can cause problems. The mission orientation of R&D programs
may make it difficult for policymakers to assess the overall health of the research
enterprise, to coordinate programs among different agencies, and to address issues
of balance among various scientific and engineering fields and disciplines. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which has
overall responsibility for preparation of the President’s budget, is able to provide
some coordination, although it is hampered by the fact that the agencies that
support R&D are treated individually by its different sections in the budget
review process. Some coordination also takes place under the National Science
and Technology Council (NSTC), an interagency body comprised of cabinet officers
and the President. NSTC has organized a number of interagency initiatives in areas
of R&D, including global change research, information technology, and nanotechnology.
Budgets for three of these initiatives are shown in Table
I-9, and are discussed in Chapters 15 (CCSP), 22
(NITRD), and 23 (NNI). Even the modest level of coordination in R&D in
the executive branch is not matched by Congress. Congressional treatment of R&D,
like most other aspects of congressional budget and policymaking, is characterized
by fragmentation and diffusion of power. R&D programs are considered at two
main levels in Congress, that of authorizations and that of appropriations. Authorizing
committees (such as the House Science and Technology Committee and the Senate
Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions) develop special expertise
in the programs they oversee and review the substance of these programs. However,
the legislation they prepare does not directly result in spending but only provides
guidance and sets appropriations ceilings. For discretionary programs, including R&D, the
power to write the legislation that provides actual spending authority resides
in the Appropriations Committees of the House and Senate. These committees are
divided into 11 subcommittees, each of which is responsible for a bill that controls
one portion of the budget. Table I-8 shows the distribution
of R&D funds among the newly reorganized appropriations subcommittees; each
subcommittee produces its appropriations bill separately from the others, and
each bill is usually signed into law separately, although in recent years several
bills have had to be bundled into a single omnibus appropriations bill at the
end of the congressional session. The FY 2005 omnibus appropriations bill, for
example, contained final versions of 9 regular appropriations bills, but in FY
2006 all the appropriations bills were enacted separately. In FY 2007, two of
the bills were enacted individually, but 9 bills were rolled into a new type of
bill, a joint funding resolution that resembles an omnibus bill but funded most
programs by formula instead of by specific appropriations. In the congressional appropriations process,
the federal R&D investment is contained in 10 of the 11 appropriations bills (see Table I-8). The large proposed increases
for NSF, NASA, and NIST will have to find room in the new Commerce, Justice, and
Science appropriations bill, while DOD development increases would be funded in
the Defense bill. The declining NIH budget would be funded in the always-contentious
Labor/HHS/Education bill, which contains many health and education programs that
are proposed for steep cuts or even elimination in the FY 2008 request. The division of the budget into 11 appropriations bills
limits the extent to which it is possible to coordinate or trade off increases
and decreases in agency R&D budgets in the congressional process. For example,
three R&D agencies—NSF, NASA, and the Department of Commerce—are under the
jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science. NIH appropriations
reside in the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education subcommittee. This
means, for example, that money used for the increase in the NASA budget in FY
2005 did not come from the same pot of money as NIH, although NASA’s budget increase
was offset with a cut in NSF’s budget. But this system does mean that R&D
programs compete with non-R&D programs in the same appropriations bill for
limited funds. The “Federal Science and Technology (FS&T)” Budget Six years ago, the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) introduced a “Federal Science and Technology” (FS&T) budget in the FY
2002 budget, and continues to advance this concept in the FY 2008 budget (see
Table I-7). The FS&T
budget is successor to the Clinton Administration’s “21st Century
Research Fund” (see previous editions of this report) and contains most of the
same programs. FS&T is a collection of selected R&D and non-R&D programs
that emphasize basic and applied research and the creation of new knowledge or
technologies. It also includes some S&T education and training activities
but excludes most development, and is designed to be an alternative measure for
the federal investment in science and technology and an alternative way to track
federal S&T investments in the budget process. (This FS&T budget has a
similar emphasis but different definitions from the FS&T concept proposed
in 1995 by the National Academies as a subset of federal R&D; thus, the data
in Table I-7 differ from NAS discussions of its version of FS&T in previous
editions of this report.) Because of the tight situation for domestic discretionary
programs in the FY 2008 budget, FS&T would fall 0.7 percent to $61.3 billion. U.S. Investments in an
International Context In absolute terms, the $312 billion spent on R&D
from all sources in the U.S. in 2004, the latest year for
which full international data are available, was larger than the total R&D
expenditures of the entire European Union combined. The U.S. spent 35 percent of world
R&D, a share that has declined only slightly over the past decade even as
emerging R&D powers such as South Korea and China have dramatically increased
spending (see Figure 5). From tiny amounts in the last decade, China has emerged as a major R&D
investor this decade. Adjusting for the much lower costs for R&D talent and
equipment there, China is now the third largest R&D
performer in the world, behind only the U.S. and Japan. 
Figure 5.
When one looks at the national R&D expenditures
of various countries in relation to the size of their economies, however, the
picture is somewhat different. R&D represented 2.66 percent of gross domestic
product (GDP) in the United States in 2004. This places the U.S. below Japan (3.1 percent) but above most
other major industrialized countries—including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Although the EU recently
set a goal of attaining an EU-wide R&D investment ratio of 3 percent of the
EU economy by 2010, currently the combined EU nations have a R&D/GDP ratio
of just 1.8 percent, down significantly from previous figures because of the induction
of 10 less research-intensive nations three years ago. On the other hand, a significant
share of the U.S. R&D investment is on the military side, where it has relatively
little impact on the civilian economy and U.S.industrial
competitiveness. This is very different from the situation in Germany and Japan,
which devote only a small portion of their R&D resources to defense.
1/ AAAS separates the general science, space, and technology
function (function 250) into its subfunctions of General Science (251) and Space
(252). AAAS also counts Department of Veterans Affairs R&D programs in the
health (550) function instead of veterans affairs (700). |
