| Highlights -
Federal support for the mathematical sciences is slated to grow from an estimated
$477 million in FY 2008 to an estimated $528 million in FY 2009, an increase of
10.7 percent. -
The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS)
would increase by 16.0 percent to $245.70 million. -
The aggregate funding for the mathematical sciences in the Department of Defense
(DOD) agencies Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Army Research
Office (ARO), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Security
Agency (NSA), and Office of Naval Research (ONR) would increase by 9.5 percent.
-
Aggregate funding for the mathematical sciences in the Department of Energy (DOE)
would increase by 9.4 percent to $95.3 million. Introduction Research
in the mathematical sciences is funded primarily through the National Science
Foundation, the Department of Defense (including the National Security Agency),
the Department of Energy, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As in previous
years, the majority of federal support for the mathematical sciences in FY 2009
would come from NSF, contributing approximately 46.5 percent of the federal total.
DOD accounts for around 19.7 percent of the total, with NIH supplying 15.7 percent,
and DOE around 18.0 percent. NSF currently accounts for nearly 70 percent of the
federal support for academic research in the mathematical sciences and is the
only agency that supports mathematics research broadly across all fields. DOD,
DOE, and NIH support research in the mathematical sciences that contributes to
the missions of these agencies. The
DOD supports mathematical sciences research and related activities in several
programs: the Directorates of Mathematics, Information, and Life Sciences and
Physics and Electronics, within the AFOSR; the Mathematical and Information Sciences
Division within the ARO; the Mathematics, Computers, and Information Sciences
Research Division within the ONR; the Defense Sciences Program and the Microsystems
Technology Office within DARPA; and the Mathematical Sciences Program within the
NSA. The
DOE funds mathematics through its Applied Mathematics and Scientific Discovery
through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) programs within the DOE Office of Advanced
Scientific Computing Research. The National Institutes of Health funds mathematical
sciences research primarily through the National Institute of General Medical
Sciences (NIGMS) and through the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and
Bioengineering (NIBIB). Trends in Federal Support for the Mathematical Sciences The
FY 2009 estimated aggregate spending for mathematical sciences research and related
activities would be $528.10 million, a potential increase of 10.7 percent over
FY 2008 estimated spending (see Table 1). The NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences
budget would increase by 16.0 percent in FY 2009, while the DOD agencies would
increase by 9.5 percent for FY 2009. AFOSR would increase its mathematical sciences
spending by 24.2 percent while the ARO mathematics budget decreases by 2.5 percent.
The mathematical sciences budgets of the remaining DOD agencies would not grow
in FY 2009. The DOE mathematical sciences budget increases by 9.4 percent while
NIH funding is flat. The
mathematical sciences make major contributions to the country’s intellectual capacity
and are enabling technologies, which provide the tools, insight, and capability
needed for innovation and technological progress. Many disciplines depend on discoveries
in the mathematical sciences to open up new frontiers and advance discovery. Even
so, many mathematical scientists who are performing excellent research and who
submit grant proposals deemed of very high quality, are consistently either not
funded or are under funded. According to the Science and Engineering Indicators, 2008
Edition, in FY 2006 only 34.6 percent of full-time mathematics faculty having
doctoral degrees received federal research support. This is much lower than most
other fields of science. Table
1: Federal Funding for the Mathematical Sciences (millions
of dollars) #
FY 07 FY 08 FY 09 Change Change
Actual Estimate Request 08-09
08-09
Amount Percent
National
Science Foundation DMS
205.74 211.79 245.70 33.91
16.0% Department
of Defense AFOSR
34.9 38.4
47.7 9.3
24.2% ARO
14.0 12.0
11.7 -0.3
-2.5% DARPA*
18.0 27.0
27.0 0.0
0.0% NSA
4.0 4.0
4.0 0.0
0.0% ONR
*
13.6 13.6 13.6 0.0 0.0% Total
DOD
84.5 95.0
104.0 9.0
9.5% Department
of Energy Applied Mathematics 32.8 36.9 43.2 6.3
17.1% SciDAC **
41.7 50.2 52.1 1.9 3.8% Total
DOE
74.5 87.1
95.3 8.2
9.4% National
Institutes of Health NIGMS*
45.0 45.0
45.0 0.0
0.0% NIBIB*
38.1 38.1 38.4 0.0 0.0% Total
NIH
83.1 83.1
83.1 0.0
0.0%
____ ____
____ Total
All Agencies 447.84 476.99 528.10 51.11
10.7%
# Budget
information is derived from agency documents and conversations with agency program
managers and representatives.
* Estimates
**
Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) National Science Foundation (NSF): The Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) is
housed in the NSF Directorate of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS).
This directorate also contains the Divisions of Astronomical Sciences, Chemistry,
Materials Research, Physics, and Multidisciplinary Activities. The DMS supports
advances in the intellectual frontiers of the mathematical sciences and enables
the advance of knowledge in other scientific and engineering fields. The
DMS has essentially two modes of support: research and education grants, and institutes.
Grants include individual-investigator awards; awards for multidisciplinary groups
of researchers; and educational and training awards aimed at increasing the number
of U.S. students choosing careers in the mathematical sciences.
The DMS provides core support for five
mathematical sciences research institutes, as well as major support for three
other institutes. These institutes, funded on a competitive basis, serve to develop
new ideas and directions in the mathematical sciences, as well as to promote interaction
with other disciplines. In
FY 2009, approximately 61 percent of the DMS budget will be available for new
research awards, with the remainder going to continuing commitments from previous
years. The DMS FY 2009 priorities are fundamental
mathematical and statistical science, including activities that strengthen the
core of the discipline and enable effective partnering with other science and
engineering disciplines; and interdisciplinary research and education, including
key components of the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) where the mathematical
sciences play a critical role in discovery for competitiveness and innovation.
These ACI components are the NSF-wide initiatives of Cyber-enabled Discovery and
Innovation (CDI), Science Beyond Moore’s Law, and Adaptive Systems Technologies;
and MPS initiatives in Quantum Information Sciences, MPS-Life Sciences Interface,
and ACI Fellows. The
ACI Fellows program aims to improve the freshman and sophomore experience in mathematics
through involvement in interdisciplinary, discovery-based activities. The program
hopes to help increase the number of undergraduate mathematics, science, and engineering
majors. The goal of the MPS-Life Sciences Interface is to promote the emergence
of biology as a quantitative science and encourage bio-technological innovation.
Adaptive Systems Technologies will focus on innovation in areas such as robotics,
sensor systems, specialized materials, and assistive devices. Quantum Information
Sciences (QIS) involves research on quantum computing and communications, including
the understanding and implementation of algorithms for QIS. The
DMS is slated to receive a budget of $245.70 million in FY 2009, an increase of
$33.91 million or 16.0 percent over the FY 2008 budget estimate. The $33.91 million
is broken down as follows: $20.81 million increase for core programs; $5.20 million
increase for Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI); $1.75 million for Science
Beyond Moore’s Law; $2.0 million for Quantum Information Sciences; $1.0 million
for MPS-Life Sciences Interface; $0.50 million for Adaptive Systems Technologies;
$2.0 million for ACI Fellows; and a $2.0 million increase for early careers investigators.
Air Force Office of Scientific Research
(AFOSR): Funding for the mathematical sciences at AFOSR is found
in the Directorate of Mathematics, Information, and Life Sciences and the Directorate
of Physics and Electronics. The AFOSR mathematics program includes specific portfolios
in dynamics and control, physical mathematics and applied analysis, computational
mathematics, optimization and discrete mathematics, electromagnetics, and sensing,
surveillance, and navigation. The
AFOSR FY 2009 budget for the mathematical sciences would increase by 24.2 percent
over FY 2008. Army Research Office (ARO): The Mathematics Program, housed in the Mathematical and
Information Sciences Division, manages
the following programs: modeling of complex systems; computational mathematics;
discrete mathematics and computer science; probability and statistics and stochastic
analysis; and cooperative systems. The Mathematical Sciences Division plays an
essential role in the modeling, analysis, and control of complex phenomena and
large-scale systems which are of critical interest to the Army. The areas of application
include communication networks, image analysis, visualization and synthetic environments,
pattern recognition, test and evaluation of new systems, sensor networks, network
science, robotics, and autonomous systems. The division also works closely with
the Computer and Information Sciences Division of ARO to develop mathematical
theory for systems control, information processing, information assurance, network
design, and data fusion. The ARO budget for the mathematical sciences would decrease
by 2.5 percent from FY 2008.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA): The Defense Sciences Office
(DSO) and the Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) inside DARPA both have mathematics
programs cutting across mathematics and its applications. Current program areas
include: Analog-to-Information, Cognitively Augmented Design for Quantum Technology,
Discovery and Exploitation of Structure in Algorithms, Femtosecond Adaptive Spectroscopy
Techniques for Remote Agent Detection, Focus Areas in Theoretical Mathematics,
Fundamental Laws of Biology, Mathematical Time Reversal, Multiple Optical Non-redundant
Aperture Generalized Sensors, Non-Linear Mathematics for Mixed Signal Microsystems,
Predicting Real Optimized Materials, Protein Design Processes, Robust Uncertainty
Management, Sensor Topology and Minimal Planning, Space-Time Adaptive Processing,
and Topological Data Analysis. DARPA has also announced an open BAA on 23 Mathematical
Challenges. Aggregate
funding for the mathematical sciences is unchanged from FY 2008. Department of Energy (DOE): Mathematics at DOE is funded through the Office of Advanced
Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), one
of six interdisciplinary research offices within DOE’s Office of Science. Research
supported by ASCR underpins computational science throughout DOE. ASCR funding
for the mathematical sciences is found primarily in the Applied Mathematics program
and the Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program. The
Applied Mathematics program supports research on the mathematical methods and
numerical algorithms that enable the effective description, understanding, and
prediction of complex physical, biological, and engineered systems. Subjects of
current interest include numerical methods for the parallel solution of systems
of partial differential equations, large-scale linear and nonlinear systems, and
large-scale parameter-estimation problems; analytical and numerical techniques
for modeling complex physical and biological phenomena, such as fluid turbulence
and microbial populations; analytical and numerical methods for bridging a broad
range of temporal and spatial scales; and optimization, control, and risk analysis
of complex systems such as computer networks and electrical power grids. The FY
2009 Applied Mathematics program budget will support a new joint Applied Mathematics-Computer
Science Institute to focus on the challenges of computing at extreme scales that
blur the boundaries between these disciplines; a new effort in the mathematics
of extremely large datasets to address the most fundamental issues in finding
the key features, understanding the relationships among those features, and extracting
scientific insights from them; and increases in key areas of long-term research
most relevant to meeting the challenges of computing at extreme scales and risk
assessment in complex systems. In FY 2009, the SciDAC program will support 17
Science Application Partnerships, nine Centers for Enabling Technologies, and
four SciDAC Institutes that were competitively selected in FY 2006. Applied mathematics
plays a fundamental role throughout the Science Application Partnerships and is
the principal focus of three Centers for Enabling Technology and one SciDAC Institute.
Aggregate funding for the mathematical sciences would increase by 9.4 percent
over FY 2008. National Institutes of Health (NIH): The NIH funds mathematical sciences research through
the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and the National Institute
of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). Mathematical sciences areas
of interest are those that support the missions of NIGMS and NIBIB. Currently,
NIGMS is supporting a biomathematics initiative at around $12 million per year
in cooperation with NSF, and NIBIB is participating in a joint initiative with
NSF and other NIH institutes, “Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience.”
The aggregate budget for the mathematical sciences in NIBIB and NIGMS is unchanged
from FY 2008. National Security Agency (NSA): The Mathematical Sciences
Program of the NSA administers a Grants Program that supports fundamental research
in the areas of algebra, number theory, discrete mathematics, probability, and
statistics. The Grants Program also accepts proposals for conferences and workshops
in these research areas. In addition to grants, the Mathematical Sciences Program
supports an in-house faculty Sabbatical Program. The program administrators are
especially interested in funding initiatives that encourage the participation
of underrepresented groups in mathematics (such as women, African-Americans, and
other minorities). NSA is the largest employer of mathematicians in the United States. As such, it has a vested
interest in maintaining a healthy academic mathematics community in the United States.
The NSA mathematics budget would remain unchanged from FY 2008. Office of Naval Research (ONR): The ONR Mathematics, Computers, and Information Research
Division’s scientific objective is to establish rigorous mathematical foundations
and analytical and computational methods that enhance understanding of
complex phenomena, and enable prediction and control for Naval applications in
the future. Basic research in the mathematical sciences is focused on analysis
and computation for multi-phase, multi-material, multi-physics problems; predictability
of models for nonlinear dynamics; electromagnetic and acoustic wave propagation;
signal and image analysis and understanding; modeling pathological behaviors of
large, dynamic complex networks and exploiting hybrid control to achieve reliability
and security; optimization; and formal methods for verifiably correct software
construction. The
Mathematical, Computer, and Information Sciences Division’s budget would remain unchanged from FY 2008. Note: Information gathered from agency
documents and from agency representatives. | 
