The Ever Increasing R&D Budget

August 10th, 2006

Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.

It is budget time, and with it comes the annual ritual of members of the science and technology community complaining about their fortunes in the budget process. The relative fortunes of different research communities does wax and wane. For instance, biomedical research saw an unprecedented doubling in its budget in the late-1990s/early 2000s, and a ever-so-slight downturn since then (see PDF). NASA, NSF, and DOE’s Office of Science are up dramatically this year, after years of small increases, declines, or static budgets.

But when viewed as a whole the R&D community has a track record of perhaps unprecedented success in arguing its case for federal funding. While it is true that aggregate R&D expenditures have tended to track overall trends in federal discretionary spending (see this essay), R&D has achieved a long-term growth in the portion of discretionary spending that it receives. This means that R&D is necessarily fairing better than some other parts of the federal budget.

Consider the following data (sources: here):

By President, the percentage of federal discretionary spending deveoted to R&D:

Reagan 12.5%
Bush I 13.3%
Clinton 13.6%
Bush II 13.7%

By Control of the House, the percentage of federal discretionary spending deveoted to R&D since 1982:

Democrats: 12.8%
Republicans: 13.7%

This data suggests to me first that the S&T lobby has been incredibly successful in increasing the portion of the federal deveoted to R&D. Second, there has been strong bipartisan support for R&D across presidents and congresses. the difference between Ds and Rs in the House I attrbute more to the long-term trend of increasing successes by the S&T lobby arguing for more funding, rather than any partisan signal. It just so happens that Rs have been in control more recently. Finally, for those wanting to discuss not simply the aggregate R&D budget, but what the R&D budget is meant for … well, that would require asking “So what?” rather than “How much?” (on this point see Sarewitz PDF). And this is a question that the field of science and technology policy is uniquely suited to address.

5 Responses to “The Ever Increasing R&D Budget”

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  1. Brian S. Says:

    Looks to me like your figures include military R&D. I don’t think the aggregate of military and non-military is a very interesting or useful figure to focus on, especially when looking at trends over time that are affected be world events, not support for science.

    Your Sarewitz link appears to touch on this issue, but it’s not the main point.

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  3. kevin v Says:

    Brian – the relative trends between defense/non-defense haven’t changed much, but where they have they favor non-defense. See the difference between NSF and DOD before and after about 1997 in this graph: http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/trres07s.pdf

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  5. elizabeth Says:

    Hi Roger,

    Don’t you mean to say, that, this is the field of science and technology policy -research-?

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  7. David Bruggeman Says:

    Elizabeth,

    You’re asking in response to Roger’s statement: “but what the R&D budget is meant for … well, that would require asking “So what?” rather than “How much?” (on this point see Sarewitz PDF). And this is a question that the field of science and technology policy is uniquely suited to address.”

    The entire field of science and technology policy – researchers, analysts and practitioners (as well as others that belong in this list) – is well suited to examine this question. But so are all citizens. “So what?” can lead to questions of what ought to be as well as questions of what is. We have no special standing on answering the former. Research is usually lacking or imprecise on answering the latter.

    But we can pick this up in Big Sky.

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  9. Roger Pielke, Jr. Says:

    Brian S.-

    Thanks for the comment, and sorry for the delayed response.

    I can understand why you might favor one tpye of R&D over another, but I don’t understand why some R&D shouldn’t count. After all, military R&D produced the weather radar, jet engine, GPS, and the internet. Can you explain why it shouldn’t count as R&D?

    Thanks!