Do you have expertise in technological issues? Are you interested in how legislation impacts tech issues? There’s a Congressional fellowship for you! Tech Congress, an organization that, “gives talented technologists the opportunity to gain first-hand experience in federal policymaking and shape the future of tech policy,” is accepting applications for its 2025 class of Congressional Innovation Fellows.
The Congressional Innovation Fellowship is a program to, “bridge the divide between Congress and the technology sector.” Tech Congress provides benefits and assistance in placement in a Congressional personal or committee office. The program is looking for both early and mid-career technologists to get hands on experience working in Congress and learn about the policymaking process. This program has been running for several years, having been founded in 2015, and has sent over 119 technologists to Congress.
Tech Congress’ website has more details on what they’re looking for in applicants. If you’re interested in the intersection of public policy and technology, this is a great opportunity to pursue. They have two information calls scheduled for July 16 and July 29. The deadline to submit applications is August 5.
In our continuing series looking at the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget, we turn to the House Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice, and Science bill. This piece of legislation is of great importance to the computing community, as it contains the budgets for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
First, let’s look at NSF. The agency has a mixed funding picture under the House’s plans. At the topline, NSF would receive a modest increase of 2.2 percent, going from $9.06 billion in FY24 to $9.26 billion for FY25, an increase of $200 million. This is over a billion dollars less than the Biden Administration request ($10.2 billion) in March.
Going a little deeper, the Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, home to NSF’s research portfolio, would receive a more generous $7.55 billion for FY24. That would represent a 5.2 percent increase, or $370 million, over FY24 enacted levels. However, much of that increase comes at the expense of the Directorate for STEM Education (EDU), which would receive $1.00 billion or a $170 million cut from FY24 levels (-14.5 percent). Keep in mind that NSF received a significant cut in FY24 and these increases don’t get the agency back to the funding levels they were at two years ago.
Looking at policy items in the Committee’s report, there are several topics of interest. The House appropriators put a great deal of emphasis on the EPSCoR Program, which is NSF’s regional funding diversity program. The committee recommends no less than $250 million for EPSCoR. They also recommended $205 million for the Regional Innovation Engines program within in the TIP Directorate. With regard to artificial intelligence, the House commends NSF for their efforts within the field and directs them to focus on, “workforce development for AI and other emerging technologies to widen the workforce pipeline of students graduating with AI and data literacy,” and, “to support research on AI’s implications on society.” The Committee also recommends $30 million for NAIRR and commends NSF for the launch of the pilot program. Finally, the House appropriators speak highly of NSF’s research security efforts and recommends full funding for the agency’s research security office.
FY24
FY25 PBR
FY25 House
$ Change
% Change
NSF Total
$9.06B
$10.20B
$9.26B
+$200M
+2.2%
R&RA
$7.18B
$8.05B
$7.55B
+$370M
+5.2%
EDU
$1.17B
$1.30B
$1.00B
-$170M
-14.5%
Turning to the National Institute of Standards & Technology’s (NIST), it doesn’t fair well under the House Appropriators’ plan. As we have mentioned before, Congress has used NIST as a vehicle for lots of Congressionally directed funding (meaning earmarks) for the last several years. That makes a year-to-year comparison of their budget difficult. Much of that continues with the House’s FY25 plan. We are doing a topline, FY24 vs FY25 comparison here; AIP FYI continues to do the hard work of accounting for the earmarking.
Under the House’s plan, at the topline NIST would receive a decrease, going from $1.46 billion in FY24 to $1.42 billion in FY25, a $40 million dollar cut (or -2.7 percent). While that is not ideal, the Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where most of the agency’s research is housed, would see a more significant cut of 7.6 percent, going from $1.08 billion in FY24 to $1.00 billion for FY25. While that $1.0 billion is above the Biden Administration request, when the amount of money set aside for earmarks is excluded ($246 million), the cut to STRS balloons to 11.7 percent.
In terms of policy direction for NIST in the CJS report, there are no real surprises. The Appropriators continue to emphasize NIST’s work on AI, robotics, QIS, and cybersecurity. In fact, there are several specific call outs for more detailed direction on AI, with “Artificial Intelligence Research,” “Artificial Intelligence and Biosecurity,” and “Artificial Intelligence Detection” receiving specific attention in the report. Finally, the committee specifically does not fund the agency’s efforts around climate change and the “NIST Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Initiative.”
FY24
FY25 PBR
FY25 House
$ Change
% Change
NIST Total
$1.46B
$1.50B
$1.42B
-$40M
-2.7%
STRS
$1.08B
$975M
$1.00B
-$80M
-7.6%
Finally, looking at NASA’s budget, the space agency would be mostly flat funded for FY25. The agency would receive a 1.2 percent increase under the House’s legislation; that would be $25.2 billion, an increase of $300 million from FY24. The agency’s Science account would receive $7.33 billion, exactly how much it received in FY24. That flat funding is not shared equally, with the Planetary Division receiving an increase, and Earth Science and Astrophysics receiving cuts.
FY24
FY25 PBR
FY25 House
$ Change
% Change
NASA Total
$24.9B
$25.4B
$25.2B
+$300M
+1.2%
Science
$7.33B
$7.57B
$7.33B
$0
0
The CJS bill was approved by the full Appropriations Committee on July 9th and is now waiting to be voted on by the full House of Representatives. After that, we must wait and see what happens in the Senate; it is unclear when they will act on their own CJS bill. Final resolution of all the FY25 appropriation bills is unlikely until after the November elections, and the results of those elections will likely dictate when the bills (or single omnibus bill, or some combination) will get a final vote. Please keep checking back for updates.
The House Appropriations Committee has taken the lead and begun its work to craft their spending plans and legislation for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25). As we have done in years past, CRA will examine the House and Senate’s budget plans for each federal research agency of note to the computing community and provide a summary and breakdown. The first agency to check is the Department of Defense (DOD) and the House’s defense appropriations bill.
To give a brief overview, DOD’s Science and Technology (DOD S&T) program is made up of three accounts: 6.1 (basic research), 6.2 (applied research), and 6.3 (advanced technology development). These accounts are themselves made up of individual accounts for each of the three services (Army, Navy, and Air Force), as well as a Defense Wide account. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a section under the Defense Wide account.
Regular readers will recall that the Administration’s requested budget for these accounts, released in March, was quite bad. In a redux of last year’s situation, the House appropriators’ funding plan is better than what the Administration proposed but not objectively good for the accounts.
Getting into the details of the House’s plan, Basic Research (6.1) would receive a cut of 4.2 percent compared to its FY24 levels. The account would decrease from $2.63 billion in FY24 to $2.52 billion for FY25, a reduction of $110 million. There is little good news when looking into the details of each service branch: the 6.1 programs at the Army, Navy, and Air Force would receive significant cuts of 7.4, 7.0, and 10.0 percents respectively, while the Space Force and Defense-Wide programs would increase by 4.6 and 4.1 percent. There is some good news going a little deeper into the details: the “University Research Initiative” subaccounts would see plus ups in the Army (+2.9 percent), Navy (+17.4 percent), and Space Force (+2.3 percent), but the Air Force’s program would receive a cut of 20 percent.
The Applied Research (6.2) account is in much worse shape. The full account would see a 13.0 percent cut compared to last year’s budget, decreasing from $7.60 billion in FY24 to $6.61 billion under the House’s plan (a loss of almost a billion dollars).
And much like the applied research account, the Advanced Technology Development (6.3) account would receive a cut under the House’s framework. It would go from $11.29 billion in FY24 to $9.86 billion in FY25, a cut of $1.43 billion (or -12.6 percent).
Lastly, the relatively good news: DARPA would escape budget cuts under the House’s plan, though it would be effectively flat funded. The agency’s budget would increase from $4.12 billion in FY24 to $4.21 billion in FY25, an increase of 2.0 percent (or +$90 million).
FY24
FY25 PBR
FY25 House
$ Change
% Change
DOD 6.1
$2.63B
$2.45B
$2.52B
-$110M
-4.2%
DOD 6.2
$7.60B
$5.80B
$6.61B
-$900M
-13.0%
DOD 6.3
$11.29B
$9.00B
$9.86B
-$1.43B
-12.6%
DARPA
$4.12B
$4.37B
$4.21B
+$90M
2.0%
These poor numbers can be traced to the difficult environment surrounding the Federal budget process. The Department of Defense acknowledged in March, when their request was released, that their budget plans come from a zero-growth outlook. Even with the defense spending friendly House appropriators, there is only so much room they have to work with. And it appears that defense research isn’t one of their priorities.
There is some policy direction of note in the appropriator’s bill report. Specifically, the appropriators have voiced their support for DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer and the efforts that office is undertaking. The office is fully funded under House’s budget. The committee further directs DOD to consider AI applications for reforming and improving the administrative functions of the department, not just for battlefield applications.
What happens next? The bill was approved by the full House Appropriations Committee on June 13th and now heads to the full House for consideration, where it is likely to be passed. Then we will have to wait for the Senate to release their plan for the Defense department; that committee’s leadership has recently announced that they plan to begin considering their funding bills in July.
However, the general view in Washington is that the appropriations process will not progress to the conference stage until after the November elections. There is still a long road ahead before we have any clarity on a final FY25 budget. Please keep checking back for more updates.
With regard to the TRUST framework, NSF has tried to craft a system that balances, “mitigating risks to the integrity and security of NSF-funded research,” while, “respecting the science,” and, “finding ways to get to ‘yes,’” with funding research proposals. To that end, the agency has developed a three-branch decision tree. The first branch is, “focused on assessing active appointments, positions, and research support,” while the second one focuses, “on identifying instances of nondisclosure.” Research projects moving through these first two branches will follow similar paths, with members of NSF’s research security office conducting analysis of proposal submissions and other data to flag potential concerns. The agency will then assess whether any proposals warrant engagement with a PI’s institution to, “gather additional information and consider whether risk mitigation and management may be required.”
The third branch of the risk management framework involves the convening of a “Research Security Review Team.” These review teams will be:
made up of 5-6 members…comprised of relevant NSF program office staff, OCRSSP staff, NSF subject matter experts, and (as needed) other U.S. Government national security experts who will serve as observers and provide guidance.
The Review Team will review the analyses from the first two branches and assess potential national security concerns. If the Review Team determines that there is sufficient national security risk associated with the research project, or if they confirm a concern raised in the first two criteria, NSF staff and the awardee institution will work collaboratively to gather additional information. According to NSF, this is a significant new effort by the agency and fulfills several Congressional mandates passed into law.
Finally, NSF plans on a staged rollout of the risk framework over the next several fiscal years. The first stage of the rollout will start in Fiscal Year 2025 (which begins on October 1st, 2024) and will cover quantum-related proposals after they undergo merit review. The second stage will focus on, “implementing lessons learned from the quantum pilot,” and will, “explore the need for making policy updates, including to the Proposal Awards Policy and Procedures Guide (PAPPG).” The second stage will also expand the pilot to include other CHIPS and Science Act key technology areas (which technology areas are not specified in the memo). The third and final stage of the pilot will focus on, “scaling up and streamlining the review process,” and expanding the scope of projects to include all CHIPS and Science Act key technology areas. Stages two and three should be implemented in subsequent fiscal years.
NSF is continuing to work with its community of researchers to refine their research security plans and approaches. To that end they have set up Q&A webinars for members of the community to speak with NSF staff. They have also set up a dedicated email address to field questions from the NSF community: trust@nsf.gov.
This is likely not the last action that NSF, or other federal research agencies, will take with regard to research security. CRA is continuing to monitor this topic for new developments and announcements from throughout the Federal government and will report them to the community. We will also continue to make sure the needs of the researcher community for a fair, open, and transparent research system are balanced against any research security action by the Federal government.
Earlier this week, a bipartisan group of Senators, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), released a report outlining suggested funding priorities, legislative actions, and relevant topics that the chamber should take to begin the process of regulating artificial intelligence. The report is titled, “Driving U.S. Innovation in Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Policy in the United States Senate” and it is the culmination of a year of work engaging with communities and interest groups around artificial intelligence and what the federal government should do to regulate it.
The report covers a wide range of topics related to AI policy, but the subject that receives the most attention is research. In fact, the first recommendation is that the country should set a target of spending at least $32 billion in non-defense AI innovation, which is the level proposed by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence; it even suggests passing emergency appropriations in order to reach that target. The report then recommends fully funding the outstanding Chips and Science Act accounts. Regular readers of the Policy Blog will recall that most of the federal research agencies, particularly NSF, received significant cuts to their budgets.
The report then delves into a host of specific research areas and proposed research legislation that should receive particular funding attention: semiconductor design and manufacturing; authorizing the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) and funding it as part of the cross-government AI initiative; expanding programs such as the NAIRR and the National AI Research Institutes to establish national AI infrastructure; funding a series of “AI Grand Challenge” programs; and R&D activities at the intersection of AI and robotics, and AI and critical infrastructure. This is where the report recommends specific pieces of legislation that should be passed into law, such as the CREATE AI Act, which would authorize and fund the NAIRR program.
The report goes into several other areas that artificial intelligence is likely to impact the country, such as national security, workforce development, elections, privacy and liability, consumer protections, transparency, explainability, intellectual property, copyright, and safeguards against AI. Much of this are recommendations that Senate Committees should examine in their legislative activities on how to regulate AI.
While this sounds great, it’s worth keeping expectations in check. First, this is not proposed legislation; it’s a report of recommended actions that the Senate should take in their legislative work. It’s worth noting that a lot of the initial criticism of the report is that it is not more specific with its recommendations, leaving details to the Senate Committees to figure out. That will be a long process and open to the political vagaries of the chamber. Additionally, while this report is bipartisan, it is led by the leader of the Senate Democrats, which means a change in the balance of power in the Senate could make the report and its recommendations obsolete. Given that the Senate Republicans will have a change in their leadership next year, with the retirement of Senator McConnell, and that a successor is not yet identified, this could be a major hurdle for this report to have a long-lasting impact. Finally, there is the logistical issue that the House of Representatives has started its own effort around AI and could come to different conclusions.
Ultimately, for the computing research community, this is a good development. It is sending the right signals and saying the right things about the importance of research in handing the challenges and complexities of the impact of artificial intelligence on the country. But the report’s impact is debatable, at least in the immediate term. What is needed now is to follow up with legislative action. CRA will continue to monitor any developments in this space and will advocate for the important role that the research community plays in any regulations of artificial intelligence.
In our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget request, we close out with a roundup of an assortment of Federal research agencies. These include the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and NASA.
As with the previous agencies we have looked at, we are comparing the President’s FY25 request to the final budget numbers in Fiscal Year 2024, approved by Congress in March. The agencies did not have finalized budgets for FY24 when they created their justifications, and instead compared their requested budgets to FY23. Please be aware of this as you read the original budget documents.
First, let’s look at NIST. This agency’s budget has become quite difficult to assess because Congress has used it for a large number of Congressionally directed funding (ie: earmarks) over the last several budget cycles, making a year-to-year comparison hard. We are comparing top line budget numbers here, though we provide some contexts where we can.
The top line for NIST is $1.50 billion, an increase of $40 million over FY24, or 2.7 percent. The institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would see a decrease of 9.7 percent; going from $1.08 billion in FY24 to $975 million in FY25. STRS’s budget line is a good example the difficulties of making year-to-year comparison due to the earmark situation. When excluding earmarks, the program is actually increasing 13.7 percent (FY24 Final at $857 million vs FY25 PBR at $975 million).
In terms of what the agency is planning on doing with its funding, artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences, and laboratory maintenance figure heavily in the Administration’s plans. The agency is planning on increasing funding for AI research by $48 million and QIS by $14 million. With regard to AI, these funds will allow the agency to, “conduct…research; develop and conduct testing, evaluation, verification, and validation (TEVV) methods; develop technical guidance; facilitate development of standards; and implement best practices and frameworks.” With QIS, the extra funding will allow NIST to, “accelerating and expanding R&D efforts that underpin continued innovation and competitiveness for the rapidly growing U.S. quantum industry – including associated domestic supply chains –while meeting novel security threats posed by quantum technologies.”
While CRA has not historically tracked the “Construction of Research Facilities” (CRF) budget line, it is becoming an increasingly important part of NIST. This is due to the significant maintenance backlog that the agency is contending with. The Biden Administration is taking note and CRF received a significant infusion of funds, increasing the budget by 255 percent after earmarks are excluding. Since a maintenance backlog does not disappear in a year, we can expect CRF to continue to get attention from the agency for the next several years, assuming Congress provides funds to cut into the backlog. The research community needs to take note of this because it could have a long-term impact on the research accounts.
FY23
FY24 Final
FY25 PBR
$ Change
% Change
NIST Total
$1.63B
$1.46B
$1.50B
+$40M
+2.7%
STRS
$953M
$1.08B
$975M
-$105M
-9.7%
The next agency we look at is NASA. Under the President’s plan, the space agency would receive a 2.0 percent increase, going from $24.9 billion in FY24 to $25.4 billion in FY25. While that is an increase against FY24, it is flat funding when compared to Fiscal Year 2023. As for NASA Science, which handles the research funding at the agency, would see a better percentage increase: 3.3 percent, going from $7.33 billion in FY24 to $7.57 billion in FY25. However, that increase would only partially restore the cuts made in the final FY24 budget to the program.
Unfortunately, the details of the NASA Science program are not great. While it does get an increase at the top line, there is quite a bit of movement of money within the subaccounts. Earth Sciences, Astrophysics, and Biological & Physical Sciences are increased, while Planetary Science and Heliophysics are decreased, as compared to FY23 levels. Much of these changes are due to the agency reorganizing or cancelling major missions. For example, the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission is a major part of Planetary Science’s budget and has been mired in delays and cost overruns, and is being threatened with cancellation by Congress. The Administration is providing funding to the mission to enable, “internal assessment of mission architecture options to be completed to address mission cost overruns.”
FY23
FY24 Final
FY25 PBR
$ Change
% Change
NASA Total
$25.4B
$24.9B
$25.4B
+$500M
+2.0%
Science
$7.80B
$7.33B
$7.57B
+$240M
+3.3%
Finally, we come to the National Institutes of Health. Under the President’s plan, the agency would go from $48.68 billion in FY24 to $50.12 billion in FY25, an increase of $1.44 billion or 3.0 percent. Meanwhile, ARPA-H, or the Advanced Research Project Agency, Health, would be flat funded at $1.50 billion.
The flat funding of ARPA-H is surprising, given its popularity in Congress and that it has been an Administration priority in the previous fiscal years. Instead, the Administration is focusing on their Cancer Moonshot program and a new “White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research,” which proposes to, “better integrate women’s health within the Federal research portfolio and catalyze significant private and philanthropic commitments to increase funding for women’s health research.” The initiative will also, “double existing funding for the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH.”
ARPA-H is continuing to focus its research efforts within “Increasing Accessibility and Expanding Scale,” “Artificial Intelligence, and Health Ecosystem Cybersecurity,” and the afore mentioned Cancer Moonshot program.
FY23
FY24 Final
FY25 PBR
$ Change
% Change
NIH Total
$47.50B
$48.68B
$50.12B
+$1.44B
+3.0%
ARPA-H
$1.5B
$1.5B
$1.5B
$0
0%
As with the other research accounts we’ve profiled, it’s worth tempering any expectations, positive or negative. It is already expected that Congress will not finish FY25 by the time the current fiscal year ends, which is September 30th. In fact, the expectation here in Washington is the budget won’t be voted on until after the November Presidential election at the earliest, and likely not until the 2025 calendar year. And the outcome of that election will heavily influence how FY25 is finalized. Any final numbers for these agencies are guesswork at the moment.
Next steps in the FY25 budget process are for each chamber of Congress to come up with their individual funding plans. That process should begin soon. We’ll have updates as those bills become public; keep checking back for more information.
In our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget request, we turn to the Department of Defense (DOD). In what has become a grim ritual, the Biden Administration has submitted another terrible request for the defense research accounts, as it has for the lastthreeyears. This time there is at least some reasoning behind the actions.
As we have pointed out with NSF’s and DOE’s budget request, the Administration is heavily constrained by the requirements of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, agreed to by President Biden and then House Speaker McCarthy in May of 2023. That law splits all federal spending into two pots of money for Fiscal Year 2025, one for Defense and the other for NonDefense. It then limits the increase of each pot to 1 percent for FY25. This has impacts for entire Defense Department budget; in fact, the Defense Secretary has said the entire Defense Department request for this year constitutes a zero-growth budget. As with the just passed FY24 budget, this creates a harsh budgetary environment.
Before we get into the budget numbers, a little refresher about the DOD research accounts: the DOD’s Science and Technology (DOD S&T) program is made up of three accounts: 6.1 (basic research), 6.2 (applied research), and 6.3 (advanced technology development). These accounts are themselves made up of individual accounts for each of the three services (Army, Navy, and Air Force), as well as a Defense Wide account. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a section under the Defense Wide account.
All three of DOD S&T’s accounts do badly under the President’s budget plan. Basic Research (6.1), which is the main Defense Department supporter of fundamental research at US universities, gets the smallest cut of 6.8 percent; going from $2.63 billion in FY24 to $2.45 billon under the Administration’s plan (a cut of $180 million). The details within the 6.1 accounts do not improve the situation: the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s “University Research Initiative” subaccounts are cut at 8.8, 11.4, and 22.7 percent compared to their FY24 levels, respectively.
The Applied Research (6.2) account is hit even harder, receiving a 23.6 percent cut; going from $7.59 billion in FY24 to $5.80 billion under the Administration’s FY25 framework, a loss of $1.80 billion. Finally, Advanced Technology Development (6.3) would also receive a significant cut, going from $11.29 billion in FY24 to $9.00 billion in FY25, a cut of $2.29 billion, or 20.3 percent.
DARPA is the only bright spot among the defense accounts, escaping any proposed cuts. The agency would see a good increase of 6.1 percent, going from $4.12 billion in FY24 to $4.37 billion in FY25, an increase of $250 million.
FY23
FY24
FY25 PBR
$ Change
% Change
DOD 6.1
$2.92B
$2.63B
$2.45B
-$180M
-6.8%
DOD 6.2
$7.80B
$7.59B
$5.80B
-$1.80B
-23.6%
DOD 6.3
$11.71B
$11.29B
$9.00B
-$2.29B
-20.3%
DARPA
$4.06B
$4.12B
$4.37B
+$250M
+6.1%
What’s going on here? There are two ways of looking at these budgets. Unfortunately, neither view is good news by itself and they are quite terrible when viewed together. The first way to look at them is the way the Pentagon leadership plans their budgets, which is from budget request to budget request. Put simply, no country can plan a workable national defense strategy around the vagueness of a legislative budget cycle. When we look at the FY24 budget request and compare it to the FY25 budget request, as the Pentagon’s planners do, it shows that even this year’s request is a reduction:
6.1 – reduced by 1.1 percent
6.2 – reduced by 3.7 percent
6.3 – reduced by 4.0 percent
DARPA – reduced by 0.4 percent.
This shows that the defense research accounts don’t appear to be a priority for the Defense Department leadership.
The other way to look at them is one we talk about almost every year: budget gamesmanship. Namely that money is pulled by DOD leaders from what is seen as a Congressional priority (i.e. research funding) to put toward something else that does not have the same support. If the scheme works, Congress puts money back into R&D and the moved money “sticks” elsewhere in the DOD budget. It’s not a new strategy, as the last couple of presidential administrations have done it.
The obvious problem with this plan is, what if Congress doesn’t put the money back? You get what happened in the final FY24 budget, namely hard budgetary cuts. It only goes to show that to start at a bad budget request is a good way to end with a bad budget for the year.
As CRA has done for the past several years, we will continue to make the case, in concert with our friends and allies in the other scientific fields and higher education institutions, for the importance of these Federal investments in defense research for our national security.
With the difficult political year ahead, and the zero-sum budget environment we are in, this will be a long process. As with the other research agencies we’ve highlighted, the partisan fight over the budget is shaping up to be particularly bad this year, especially with the Presidential election in November. We’ll have to let the budget process play out more before we know what will happen; please check back for more updates.
In our continuing series analyzing the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request to Congress, we turn to the Department of Energy. Specifically, we are looking at the two key parts of DOE that are of concern to the computing community: the Office of Science (SC), home to most of the agency’s basic research support, and ARPA-E, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
Readers should note that when the Department of Energy prepared their budget request for this year, they did not have a completed FY24 budget to compare their request against. That means their budget documents will compare this year’s request against the FY23 budget, which was the last approved budget they had. Since Congress has now completed Fiscal Year 2024, CRA is able to do a FY24 Final to FY25 Request comparison.
The President’s FY25 request for DOE SC is $8.60 billion, which is an increase of $360 million, or 4.4 percent, compared to the approved FY24 level of $8.24 billion. The requested budget goes to, “implement the Administration’s objectives to advance bold, transformational leaps in U.S. Science and Technology (S&T), build a diverse and inclusive workforce of the future, and ensure America remains the global S&T leader for generations to come.” Additionally, the request, “increases investments in…basic research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), climate change and clean energy, including additional funding for the SC Energy Earthshots, and efforts to support underserved communities through the Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) and Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR) initiatives.”
Within the Office of Science account, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program – home to most of SCs computing research efforts – would fare well. The program would be funded at $1.15 billion, which is an increase of $130 million, or 12.7 percent, over FY24 levels. Unlike the last several years of budget requests for ASCR, the Exascale Computing Project line-item has completed its work and is no longer a line item within the program’s budget. The $77 million that was in the Exascale line item is now transferred over to the ASCR research budget line, along with an additional $69 million. There is also the High Performance Data Facility construction line item, which receives $16 million for the year. All three of those account for the all of the budgetary line items within ASCR’s budget. In terms of research areas, ASCR’s request focuses heavily on AI, exascale computing, and quantum as topics of importance to the program.
As for ARPA-E, the agency would see a slight cut for FY25. Under the President’s plan ARPA-E would receive $450 million, a decrease of $10 million over last year, or 2.2 percent. The request has, “an emphasis on maintaining a healthy portfolio of projects,” which include, “a growing focus on additional scale-up of the most promising projects that have demonstrated success in technical development, project management, and definition of commercial pathways.”
ARPA-E’s poor budget request is likely an outcome of two things. First, ARPA-E escaped the last budgetary year with a relatively small cut; DOE may have expected a worse budget for FY24 and expected a FY25 to be an improvement.
But it’s more likely because of the budgetary constraints that the Administration is working under from the May 2023 budget agreement with Congress, known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act. As a reminder, that law splits all federal spending into two pots, Defense and NonDefense, and limits the increase of those pots of spending to 1 percent for FY25. As with the just passed FY24 budget, this creates a harsh, zero-sum budgetary environment. The Administration is likely prioritizing the fundamental sciences in the Office of Science accounts and that comes with a relatively flat funding for the applied research at APRA-E. In short, tough budget decisions.
FY23
FY24
FY25 PBR
$ Change
% Change
DOE SC Total
$8.10B
$8.24B
$8.60B
+$360M
+4.4%
ASCR
$1.07B
$1.02B
$1.15B
+$130M
+12.7%
ARPA-E
$470M
$460M
$450M
-$10M
-2.2%
What are the next steps for the budget? Technically the process goes to Congress in order for both chambers to work out their own funding plans. However, it is important to keep our expectations in check for this year. It is already expected that Congress will not finish FY25 on time (by October 1st). In fact, the expectation here in Washington is the budget won’t be voted on until after the November Presidential election at the earliest, and likely not until the 2025 calendar year. And the outcome of that election will heavily influence how FY25 is finalized. But even without the timeline issues, the constraints on the budget by the aforementioned Fiscal Responsibility Act will create significant problems for the science policy community and the nation’s researchers this year.
There is still a lot of time between now and the end of the fiscal year; we will have to let events play out before we know for certain what will happen. Please keep checking the CRA Policy Boog for more updates.
At the end of last week, Congress passed into law the remaining appropriation bills for the second half of the Fiscal Year 2024 federal budget. As regular readers will recall, earlier this month Congress passed the initial batch of funding legislation, which contained the budgets for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy Office of Science, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and NASA. Those agencies received flat funding or significant cuts to their budgets. And, unfortunately, that trend continues with this second batch of funding legislation.
In terms of covered research agencies, this current set of bills includes the budgets for the Department of Defense (DOD) research accounts and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Let’s get into the details:
Department of Defense S&T
FY23
FY24 PBR
FY24 House
FY24 Senate
FY24 Final
$ Change
% Change
DOD 6.1
$2.92B
$2.48B
$2.53B
$3.22B
$2.63B
-$290M
-10%
DOD 6.2
$7.80B
$6.01B
$6.73B
$7.14B
$7.60B
-$200M
-2.6%
DOD 6.3
$11.71B
$9.33B
$10.14B
$10.00B
$11.29B
-$420M
-3.6%
DARPA
$4.06B
$4.39B
$4.12B
$4.09B
$4.12B
+$60M
+1.5%
As with NSF’s final FY24 budget, there is no sugarcoating the news with the Defense research accounts: these are bad budgets. However, from a paradoxical viewpoint, they are generally better than what the Administration requested in March of last year. Before going into that, let’s get into the specific budget numbers.
All three of DOD S&T’s accounts do badly relative to their previous year’s budgets. Basic Research (6.1), which is the main Defense Department supporter of fundamental research at US universities, received a big cut of 10 percent; going from $2.92 billion in the FY23 to $2.63 billon in FY24, a cut of $290 million. The details within the 6.1 accounts paint a pretty grime picture: the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s “University Research Initiative” subaccounts are cut at 20, 27, and 10 percent, respectively.
The Applied Research (6.2) account is hit with a cut too, though not as significant. The 6.2 account received a 2.6 percent cut, going from $7.80 billion in FY23 to $7.60 billion in FY24, a loss of $200 million. Finally, Advanced Technology Development (6.3) would also receive a cut, going from $11.71 billion in FY23 to $11.29 billion in FY24, a cut of $420 million, or 3.6 percent.
DARPA is the only bright spot among the defense accounts, escaping any proposed cuts but getting flat funded. The agency would see a 1.5 percent, going from $4.06 billion in FY23 to $4.12 billion in FY24, an increase of $60 million.
Here is the paradoxical part: when compared against the President’s requested budgets (PBR), these accounts received increases (except DARPA which would receive a cut relative to the PBR). Here are the percent differences when comparing FY24 Final vs FY24 PBR:
DOD 6.1: +26 percent
DOD 6.2: +21 percent
DOD 6.3: +21 percent
DARPA: -6.1 percent
In many ways this is a reflection of two things. First, the President’s requested budget for the DOD research accounts was quite bad. And second, Congress upped the accounts from those requested budgets. So, from Congress’ perspective, they did these accounts a favor. This only demonstrates the importance of the Administration submitting a good request to start the process; otherwise, it’s easy to be in a budgetary hole that one never gets out of.
National Institutes of Health
FY23
FY24 PBR
FY24 House
FY24 Senate
FY24 Final
$ Change
% Change
NIH Total
$47.50B
$48.60B
$44.78B
$49.22B
$48.68B
+$1.18B
+2.5%
ARPA-H
$1.50B
$2.50B
$500M
$1.50B
$1.50B
$0
0
Finally, we come to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The agency would be a relative winner in FY24, escaping cuts but effectively flat funded. At the topline budget, the agency would go from $47.50 billion in FY23 to $48.68 billion in FY24, an increase of $1.18 billion or 2.5 percent. Additionally, ARPA-H (or Advanced Research Project Agency, Health) would be flat funded, receiving the same amount in FY24 that it received in FY23: $1.50 billion.
Conclusion
These budgets have already passed Congress and been signed into law by President Biden. For better or worse, Fiscal Year 2024 is finally complete.
As with the previous set of FY24 research budgets, this is not an ideal outcome to this budgetary year. In fact, FY24 has been a particularly zero-sum environment and that is reflected in the research accounts. Given the push to cut overall federal spending by certain factions within Congress, this outcome is not entirely unexpected. Keep in mind, House Republicans had adopted the position, at the beginning of 2023, to cut overall Federal spending to FY22 levels. A grim final budget for this year is not unexpected, but this is much worse than what either the House or Senate Appropriations Committees had been telegraphing during the year.
CRA has publicly voiced its concerns and frustrations with these budgets on behalf of the computing and information technology research community. We have pointed out the likely negative impacts these budgets will have on the country’s research enterprise, with the reduced quantity of research, the number of researchers, and the number of students educated in key fundamental areas of computing and other fields of discovery. It will also have negative impacts in areas of significant national interest like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, high-performance computing, and cyber security. All while our international competitors are doubling down on their investments in R&D. CRA will continue to make the case that the next fiscal year, Fiscal Year 2025, which the process is already underway, can’t follow down the road of cuts as far as research is concerned.
The Biden Administration released their Fiscal Year 2025 requested budget on March 11th. As we have done in years past, the CRA Policy Blog will write a series of posts analyzing the assorted agency requested budgets that are important to the computing research community. First up is the agency that supports 78 percent of all Federally-supported basic research in computer science at academic institutions: the National Science Foundation. The Biden Administration proposes another strong budget for NSF. However, this year is a bit different. With a particularly bitter funding cut in Fiscal Year 2024, combined with the Fiscal Responsibility Act requirements on the overall Federal budget, the Administration is heavily constrained in their request. A perfect example of that is the fact that this year’s request for the agency is over a billion dollars less than what was submitted to Congress in NSF’s FY24 request.
A general note: NSF’s budget request was prepared before Congress finished its work on the agency’s FY24 budget. With that in mind, in the agency’s budget documents, you will see they compared the President’s request to FY23 (ie: the last year they had approved funding). Since CRA now has some, but not all, of the numbers for FY24, we will compare the President’s request against that. There are exceptions, most notably the assorted RRA directorates. Congress does not typically fund at that level, leaving it to NSF to decide how funding is exactly distributed. Since the agency has only had a finalized budget for a few weeks, we can only do a FY23 to FY25 request comparison for those parts of the agency.
Under the Administration’s FY25 plan, NSF would see a 12.1 percent increase compared to their FY24 budget approved by Congress earlier this month. NSF would go from $9.06 billion in FY24 to $10.2 billion in FY25, an increase of $1.14 billion. Research and Related Activities (R&RA), the subaccount that contains the funding for research grants, would see a sizable part of that increase, going from $7.18 billion in FY24 to $8.05 billion in FY25, a plus up of $870 million (or 12.1 percent). The STEM Education Directorate (EDU), which contains the agency’s education programs, would also see a sizable increase of $130 million, going from $1.17 billion in FY24 to $1.30 billion under the President’s FY25 plan; that’s an increase of 11.1 percent.
The requested budget would allow NSF to fund an estimated 36,200 research grants in FY25 (37,000 were funded in FY23), allowing for a 27 percent funding rate. The agency estimates that its activities will support a total of 357,100 people in FY25; that number includes senior researchers, other professionals, postdos, graduate students, and undergrads.
FY23
FY24
FY25 PBR
$ Change
% Change
NSF Total
$9.90B
$9.06B
$10.20B
+$1.14B
+12.6%
R&RA
$7.80B
$7.18B
$8.05B
+$870M
+12.1%
EDU
$1.37B
$1.17B
$1.30B
+$130M
+11.1%
CISE
$1.04B
TBD
$1.07B
—
—
TIP
$664M
TBD
$900M
—
—
CISE Directorate:
The Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE), located within R&RA, and the home for most of the computing research support at NSF, will receive a significant increase. It would go from an estimate of $1.04 billion in FY23 to $1.07 billion for FY25, an increase of $30 million or 2.9 percent. We do not yet have a budgetary number for CISE for FY24.
The CISE Directorate continues to, “play a leadership role,” in many NSF-wide initiatives, such as, “seminal investments in AI, advanced computing systems and services, quantum information science (QIS), advanced communications technologies, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors and microelectronics, biotechnology, and cybersecurity.”
As should surprise no one, artificial intelligence holds a prominent spot in the directorate’s request. CISE will continue to support the pilot NAIRR program with an initial budget of $30 million. The program is to, “amplify efforts across the federal government to cultivate AI innovation and advance trustworthy AI.” Additionally, the directorate will, “continued support for the National AI Research Institutes.” Tasked with establishing two additional AI institutes in the Biden Administration’s October executive order on AI, the directorate will also, “significantly broaden participation in AI research, education, and workforce development through capacity development projects such as ExpandAI, through CISE core investments, and through partnerships within the National AI Research Institutes ecosystem.”
In terms of the broadening participation and workforce development space, CISE, “in alignment with an agency-wide emphasis on Creating Opportunities Everywhere…will continue to invest in a broad suite of activities to support broadening participation in research and education.” For example, “the Broadening Participation in Computing Alliances (BPC-A) will serve as broad coalitions of institutions of higher education, K-12 schools, government, industry, professional societies, and other not-for-profit organizations that design and carry out comprehensive programs addressing underrepresentation in the computing and information science disciplines.” Additionally, the directorate will broaden participation in computing by, “increasing engagement in…research projects from MSIs through the CISE-MSI program and will emphasize education and training of more U.S. based students from diverse backgrounds through CISE Graduate Fellowships (CSGrad4US).” CSGrad4US is a CRA managed program that aims to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields: computer science, computer engineering, or information science.
Other major investments in the CISE request are Advance Wireless Research and Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC). With regard to the wireless research, the directorate will, “continue to invest in research in advanced wireless networks, building on its track record of enabling early-stage successes in 5G through ground- breaking millimeter-wave research,” and, “will accelerate research in areas with potential significant impact on emerging Next-Generation (NextG) wireless and mobile communications, networking, sensing, and computing systems, with a focus on greatly improving the resiliency and intelligence of such networked systems” With regard to SaTC, CISE will invest in, “current and emerging areas of importance for security and privacy,” including, “the application of AI to security, security and resilience of AI systems, security implications of quantum computation and communication, information integrity, and critical infrastructure security.” The directorate will also, “fund programs that strengthen the national cybersecurity workforce pipeline through education, K-12 programs, and funding to universities and colleges.”
TIP Directorate:
The Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships, or TIP Directorate, enjoys continued priority in the President’s budget plans with a requested budget of $900 million for FY25, a 36 percent increase over its budget estimate for Fiscal Year 2023. We do not yet have a budgetary number for TIP for FY24.
TIP continues to receive special attention in the President’s budget roll out, as it figures heavily in the Administration’s priorities. In the president’s fuller budget plans, TIP is called out to as key to, “increase(ing) investments to translate the results of basic research into practical applications and processes that can benefit the Nation.” Within NSF’s justification document, TIP, “aims to usher in a new era for American innovation, accelerating research to impact and enhancing job and economic growth and national security for decades to come.” With that in mind, the directorate aligns its programs with three pillars: “nurtures new and diverse innovation ecosystems throughout” the nation; advance, “technology development across the range of key technology focus areas specified in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022;” and create, “opportunities for everyone to engage in the nation’s R&D enterprise.”
With regard to the first pillar, nurturing new and diverse innovation ecosystems, the NSF Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) features heavily. Tasked with, “catalyzing place-based innovation to spur economic and job growth,” particularly in places in the country that have, “not benefited from the technology and innovation booms of the last several decades.” The Engines program awarded the initial 10 awards spanning 18 states in January. Additionally, of the initial awards, “two are based in EPSCoR jurisdictions and nine include partners in an EPSCoR jurisdiction; nine include minority-serving institutions and all ten include community colleges; and four are led by industry and nonprofits.”
TIP also, “accelerates the translation of fundamental science and engineering discoveries into innovative new technologies and solutions.” Within this space, the directorate, “optimizes the historic NSF Lab-to-Market Platform, allowing researchers to pursue additional prototyping, demonstration, and scale-up work.” It also introduces, “new translation pathways…facilitating the adoption of NSF-funded research results as secure open-source ecosystems.” The TIP Directorate also, “supports the establishment and operation of testbeds to advance development, integration, deployment, and demonstration of breakthroughs in the key technology focus areas. TIP will also make major investments in artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences, advanced manufacturing, advanced wireless research, clean energy technology, and biotechnology; all these areas will receive significant increases in support, compared to their FY23 budgets.
Finally, the TIP Directorate, “creates opportunities for everyone to engage in the nation’s R&D enterprise.” It does this by working with, “academia, state, local, and tribal governments, industry, and other educational partners to provide practical experiences to diverse learners at every stage of education, from first-time job seekers to experienced workers.”
Conclusions:
For another year, President Biden has shown confidence in NSF and proposed a good budget for the agency. But the optimism of this year’s request should be tempered by the bad budget that precedes it. And it is important to keep expectations in check, as the political situation this year makes it highly unlikely that Congress will finish a budget on time, or even in this calendar year. The going view in Washington right now is that any final FY25 budget will arrive well after the election, with an endgame heavily influenced by the outcome of that election. It’s likely to be another long, difficult year. Please keep checking back for more updates.
Please use the Category and Archive Filters below, to find older posts. Or you may also use the search bar.
Congressional Innovation Fellowships Accepting Applications for 2025 Class; Deadline to Apply August 5
/In: General, Misc., People /by Brian MosleyDo you have expertise in technological issues? Are you interested in how legislation impacts tech issues? There’s a Congressional fellowship for you! Tech Congress, an organization that, “gives talented technologists the opportunity to gain first-hand experience in federal policymaking and shape the future of tech policy,” is accepting applications for its 2025 class of Congressional Innovation Fellows.
The Congressional Innovation Fellowship is a program to, “bridge the divide between Congress and the technology sector.” Tech Congress provides benefits and assistance in placement in a Congressional personal or committee office. The program is looking for both early and mid-career technologists to get hands on experience working in Congress and learn about the policymaking process. This program has been running for several years, having been founded in 2015, and has sent over 119 technologists to Congress.
Tech Congress’ website has more details on what they’re looking for in applicants. If you’re interested in the intersection of public policy and technology, this is a great opportunity to pursue. They have two information calls scheduled for July 16 and July 29. The deadline to submit applications is August 5.
FY25 Appropriations Update: House Appropriators Provide Modest Increases for Research at NSF, NIST, and NASA; Other Areas Receive Significant Cuts
/In: Funding, FY25 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyIn our continuing series looking at the Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget, we turn to the House Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice, and Science bill. This piece of legislation is of great importance to the computing community, as it contains the budgets for the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
First, let’s look at NSF. The agency has a mixed funding picture under the House’s plans. At the topline, NSF would receive a modest increase of 2.2 percent, going from $9.06 billion in FY24 to $9.26 billion for FY25, an increase of $200 million. This is over a billion dollars less than the Biden Administration request ($10.2 billion) in March.
Going a little deeper, the Research and Related Activities (R&RA) account, home to NSF’s research portfolio, would receive a more generous $7.55 billion for FY24. That would represent a 5.2 percent increase, or $370 million, over FY24 enacted levels. However, much of that increase comes at the expense of the Directorate for STEM Education (EDU), which would receive $1.00 billion or a $170 million cut from FY24 levels (-14.5 percent). Keep in mind that NSF received a significant cut in FY24 and these increases don’t get the agency back to the funding levels they were at two years ago.
Looking at policy items in the Committee’s report, there are several topics of interest. The House appropriators put a great deal of emphasis on the EPSCoR Program, which is NSF’s regional funding diversity program. The committee recommends no less than $250 million for EPSCoR. They also recommended $205 million for the Regional Innovation Engines program within in the TIP Directorate. With regard to artificial intelligence, the House commends NSF for their efforts within the field and directs them to focus on, “workforce development for AI and other emerging technologies to widen the workforce pipeline of students graduating with AI and data literacy,” and, “to support research on AI’s implications on society.” The Committee also recommends $30 million for NAIRR and commends NSF for the launch of the pilot program. Finally, the House appropriators speak highly of NSF’s research security efforts and recommends full funding for the agency’s research security office.
Turning to the National Institute of Standards & Technology’s (NIST), it doesn’t fair well under the House Appropriators’ plan. As we have mentioned before, Congress has used NIST as a vehicle for lots of Congressionally directed funding (meaning earmarks) for the last several years. That makes a year-to-year comparison of their budget difficult. Much of that continues with the House’s FY25 plan. We are doing a topline, FY24 vs FY25 comparison here; AIP FYI continues to do the hard work of accounting for the earmarking.
Under the House’s plan, at the topline NIST would receive a decrease, going from $1.46 billion in FY24 to $1.42 billion in FY25, a $40 million dollar cut (or -2.7 percent). While that is not ideal, the Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where most of the agency’s research is housed, would see a more significant cut of 7.6 percent, going from $1.08 billion in FY24 to $1.00 billion for FY25. While that $1.0 billion is above the Biden Administration request, when the amount of money set aside for earmarks is excluded ($246 million), the cut to STRS balloons to 11.7 percent.
In terms of policy direction for NIST in the CJS report, there are no real surprises. The Appropriators continue to emphasize NIST’s work on AI, robotics, QIS, and cybersecurity. In fact, there are several specific call outs for more detailed direction on AI, with “Artificial Intelligence Research,” “Artificial Intelligence and Biosecurity,” and “Artificial Intelligence Detection” receiving specific attention in the report. Finally, the committee specifically does not fund the agency’s efforts around climate change and the “NIST Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Initiative.”
Finally, looking at NASA’s budget, the space agency would be mostly flat funded for FY25. The agency would receive a 1.2 percent increase under the House’s legislation; that would be $25.2 billion, an increase of $300 million from FY24. The agency’s Science account would receive $7.33 billion, exactly how much it received in FY24. That flat funding is not shared equally, with the Planetary Division receiving an increase, and Earth Science and Astrophysics receiving cuts.
The CJS bill was approved by the full Appropriations Committee on July 9th and is now waiting to be voted on by the full House of Representatives. After that, we must wait and see what happens in the Senate; it is unclear when they will act on their own CJS bill. Final resolution of all the FY25 appropriation bills is unlikely until after the November elections, and the results of those elections will likely dictate when the bills (or single omnibus bill, or some combination) will get a final vote. Please keep checking back for updates.
FY25 Appropriations Update: The House Proposes Another Set of Difficult Funding Cuts for the Defense Research Accounts
/In: Defense R&D Highlights, Funding, FY25 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyThe House Appropriations Committee has taken the lead and begun its work to craft their spending plans and legislation for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25). As we have done in years past, CRA will examine the House and Senate’s budget plans for each federal research agency of note to the computing community and provide a summary and breakdown. The first agency to check is the Department of Defense (DOD) and the House’s defense appropriations bill.
To give a brief overview, DOD’s Science and Technology (DOD S&T) program is made up of three accounts: 6.1 (basic research), 6.2 (applied research), and 6.3 (advanced technology development). These accounts are themselves made up of individual accounts for each of the three services (Army, Navy, and Air Force), as well as a Defense Wide account. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a section under the Defense Wide account.
Regular readers will recall that the Administration’s requested budget for these accounts, released in March, was quite bad. In a redux of last year’s situation, the House appropriators’ funding plan is better than what the Administration proposed but not objectively good for the accounts.
Getting into the details of the House’s plan, Basic Research (6.1) would receive a cut of 4.2 percent compared to its FY24 levels. The account would decrease from $2.63 billion in FY24 to $2.52 billion for FY25, a reduction of $110 million. There is little good news when looking into the details of each service branch: the 6.1 programs at the Army, Navy, and Air Force would receive significant cuts of 7.4, 7.0, and 10.0 percents respectively, while the Space Force and Defense-Wide programs would increase by 4.6 and 4.1 percent. There is some good news going a little deeper into the details: the “University Research Initiative” subaccounts would see plus ups in the Army (+2.9 percent), Navy (+17.4 percent), and Space Force (+2.3 percent), but the Air Force’s program would receive a cut of 20 percent.
The Applied Research (6.2) account is in much worse shape. The full account would see a 13.0 percent cut compared to last year’s budget, decreasing from $7.60 billion in FY24 to $6.61 billion under the House’s plan (a loss of almost a billion dollars).
And much like the applied research account, the Advanced Technology Development (6.3) account would receive a cut under the House’s framework. It would go from $11.29 billion in FY24 to $9.86 billion in FY25, a cut of $1.43 billion (or -12.6 percent).
Lastly, the relatively good news: DARPA would escape budget cuts under the House’s plan, though it would be effectively flat funded. The agency’s budget would increase from $4.12 billion in FY24 to $4.21 billion in FY25, an increase of 2.0 percent (or +$90 million).
These poor numbers can be traced to the difficult environment surrounding the Federal budget process. The Department of Defense acknowledged in March, when their request was released, that their budget plans come from a zero-growth outlook. Even with the defense spending friendly House appropriators, there is only so much room they have to work with. And it appears that defense research isn’t one of their priorities.
There is some policy direction of note in the appropriator’s bill report. Specifically, the appropriators have voiced their support for DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer and the efforts that office is undertaking. The office is fully funded under House’s budget. The committee further directs DOD to consider AI applications for reforming and improving the administrative functions of the department, not just for battlefield applications.
What happens next? The bill was approved by the full House Appropriations Committee on June 13th and now heads to the full House for consideration, where it is likely to be passed. Then we will have to wait for the Senate to release their plan for the Defense department; that committee’s leadership has recently announced that they plan to begin considering their funding bills in July.
However, the general view in Washington is that the appropriations process will not progress to the conference stage until after the November elections. There is still a long road ahead before we have any clarity on a final FY25 budget. Please keep checking back for more updates.
NSF Announces New TRUST Research Security Risk Management Framework
/In: Impediments to Research Highlights, Policy, Research, Security /by Brian MosleyLast week, the National Science Foundation announced the Trusted Research Using Safeguards and Transparency (TRUST) research security risk management framework. This is the latest step the agency has taken in safeguarding NSF-funded research projects and to identify, “potential undue foreign influence in NSF-funded projects.” The agency has also launched several research security training modules earlier this year, and last year released their research security data analytics processes.
Research security – the safeguarding of the US’s research enterprise against the misappropriation of research, related violations of research integrity, and foreign government interference – has been a topic of concern to lawmakers in Washington for the past several years. Long time readers of the Policy Blog will recall National Security Presidential Memorandum – 33 (NSPM-33), which was released in the final days of the Trump Administration, and the subsequent guidance from OSTP on implementation of that memorandum. The topic also featured prominently in the House China Committee’s recent report on resetting the US-China relationship and was a major policy focus in the Chips and Science Act of 2022, the last major piece of science legislation that Congress passed into law.
With regard to the TRUST framework, NSF has tried to craft a system that balances, “mitigating risks to the integrity and security of NSF-funded research,” while, “respecting the science,” and, “finding ways to get to ‘yes,’” with funding research proposals. To that end, the agency has developed a three-branch decision tree. The first branch is, “focused on assessing active appointments, positions, and research support,” while the second one focuses, “on identifying instances of nondisclosure.” Research projects moving through these first two branches will follow similar paths, with members of NSF’s research security office conducting analysis of proposal submissions and other data to flag potential concerns. The agency will then assess whether any proposals warrant engagement with a PI’s institution to, “gather additional information and consider whether risk mitigation and management may be required.”
The third branch of the risk management framework involves the convening of a “Research Security Review Team.” These review teams will be:
The Review Team will review the analyses from the first two branches and assess potential national security concerns. If the Review Team determines that there is sufficient national security risk associated with the research project, or if they confirm a concern raised in the first two criteria, NSF staff and the awardee institution will work collaboratively to gather additional information. According to NSF, this is a significant new effort by the agency and fulfills several Congressional mandates passed into law.
Finally, NSF plans on a staged rollout of the risk framework over the next several fiscal years. The first stage of the rollout will start in Fiscal Year 2025 (which begins on October 1st, 2024) and will cover quantum-related proposals after they undergo merit review. The second stage will focus on, “implementing lessons learned from the quantum pilot,” and will, “explore the need for making policy updates, including to the Proposal Awards Policy and Procedures Guide (PAPPG).” The second stage will also expand the pilot to include other CHIPS and Science Act key technology areas (which technology areas are not specified in the memo). The third and final stage of the pilot will focus on, “scaling up and streamlining the review process,” and expanding the scope of projects to include all CHIPS and Science Act key technology areas. Stages two and three should be implemented in subsequent fiscal years.
NSF is continuing to work with its community of researchers to refine their research security plans and approaches. To that end they have set up Q&A webinars for members of the community to speak with NSF staff. They have also set up a dedicated email address to field questions from the NSF community: trust@nsf.gov.
This is likely not the last action that NSF, or other federal research agencies, will take with regard to research security. CRA is continuing to monitor this topic for new developments and announcements from throughout the Federal government and will report them to the community. We will also continue to make sure the needs of the researcher community for a fair, open, and transparent research system are balanced against any research security action by the Federal government.
Bipartisan Group of Senators Release Legislative Roadmap Report on Artificial Intelligence Policy
/In: Artificial Intelligence, Policy, Research /by Brian MosleyEarlier this week, a bipartisan group of Senators, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD), Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), released a report outlining suggested funding priorities, legislative actions, and relevant topics that the chamber should take to begin the process of regulating artificial intelligence. The report is titled, “Driving U.S. Innovation in Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Policy in the United States Senate” and it is the culmination of a year of work engaging with communities and interest groups around artificial intelligence and what the federal government should do to regulate it.
The report covers a wide range of topics related to AI policy, but the subject that receives the most attention is research. In fact, the first recommendation is that the country should set a target of spending at least $32 billion in non-defense AI innovation, which is the level proposed by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence; it even suggests passing emergency appropriations in order to reach that target. The report then recommends fully funding the outstanding Chips and Science Act accounts. Regular readers of the Policy Blog will recall that most of the federal research agencies, particularly NSF, received significant cuts to their budgets.
The report then delves into a host of specific research areas and proposed research legislation that should receive particular funding attention: semiconductor design and manufacturing; authorizing the National AI Research Resource (NAIRR) and funding it as part of the cross-government AI initiative; expanding programs such as the NAIRR and the National AI Research Institutes to establish national AI infrastructure; funding a series of “AI Grand Challenge” programs; and R&D activities at the intersection of AI and robotics, and AI and critical infrastructure. This is where the report recommends specific pieces of legislation that should be passed into law, such as the CREATE AI Act, which would authorize and fund the NAIRR program.
The report goes into several other areas that artificial intelligence is likely to impact the country, such as national security, workforce development, elections, privacy and liability, consumer protections, transparency, explainability, intellectual property, copyright, and safeguards against AI. Much of this are recommendations that Senate Committees should examine in their legislative activities on how to regulate AI.
While this sounds great, it’s worth keeping expectations in check. First, this is not proposed legislation; it’s a report of recommended actions that the Senate should take in their legislative work. It’s worth noting that a lot of the initial criticism of the report is that it is not more specific with its recommendations, leaving details to the Senate Committees to figure out. That will be a long process and open to the political vagaries of the chamber. Additionally, while this report is bipartisan, it is led by the leader of the Senate Democrats, which means a change in the balance of power in the Senate could make the report and its recommendations obsolete. Given that the Senate Republicans will have a change in their leadership next year, with the retirement of Senator McConnell, and that a successor is not yet identified, this could be a major hurdle for this report to have a long-lasting impact. Finally, there is the logistical issue that the House of Representatives has started its own effort around AI and could come to different conclusions.
Ultimately, for the computing research community, this is a good development. It is sending the right signals and saying the right things about the importance of research in handing the challenges and complexities of the impact of artificial intelligence on the country. But the report’s impact is debatable, at least in the immediate term. What is needed now is to follow up with legislative action. CRA will continue to monitor any developments in this space and will advocate for the important role that the research community plays in any regulations of artificial intelligence.
Roundup of FY2025 Research Agency Requests: Complicated Situations Abound for the Requested Budgets of NIST, NASA, and NIH
/In: Funding, FY25 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyIn our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget request, we close out with a roundup of an assortment of Federal research agencies. These include the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and NASA.
As with the previous agencies we have looked at, we are comparing the President’s FY25 request to the final budget numbers in Fiscal Year 2024, approved by Congress in March. The agencies did not have finalized budgets for FY24 when they created their justifications, and instead compared their requested budgets to FY23. Please be aware of this as you read the original budget documents.
First, let’s look at NIST. This agency’s budget has become quite difficult to assess because Congress has used it for a large number of Congressionally directed funding (ie: earmarks) over the last several budget cycles, making a year-to-year comparison hard. We are comparing top line budget numbers here, though we provide some contexts where we can.
The top line for NIST is $1.50 billion, an increase of $40 million over FY24, or 2.7 percent. The institutes’ Science and Technical Research and Services (STRS) account, where the majority of the agency’s research is housed, would see a decrease of 9.7 percent; going from $1.08 billion in FY24 to $975 million in FY25. STRS’s budget line is a good example the difficulties of making year-to-year comparison due to the earmark situation. When excluding earmarks, the program is actually increasing 13.7 percent (FY24 Final at $857 million vs FY25 PBR at $975 million).
In terms of what the agency is planning on doing with its funding, artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences, and laboratory maintenance figure heavily in the Administration’s plans. The agency is planning on increasing funding for AI research by $48 million and QIS by $14 million. With regard to AI, these funds will allow the agency to, “conduct…research; develop and conduct testing, evaluation, verification, and validation (TEVV) methods; develop technical guidance; facilitate development of standards; and implement best practices and frameworks.” With QIS, the extra funding will allow NIST to, “accelerating and expanding R&D efforts that underpin continued innovation and competitiveness for the rapidly growing U.S. quantum industry – including associated domestic supply chains –while meeting novel security threats posed by quantum technologies.”
While CRA has not historically tracked the “Construction of Research Facilities” (CRF) budget line, it is becoming an increasingly important part of NIST. This is due to the significant maintenance backlog that the agency is contending with. The Biden Administration is taking note and CRF received a significant infusion of funds, increasing the budget by 255 percent after earmarks are excluding. Since a maintenance backlog does not disappear in a year, we can expect CRF to continue to get attention from the agency for the next several years, assuming Congress provides funds to cut into the backlog. The research community needs to take note of this because it could have a long-term impact on the research accounts.
The next agency we look at is NASA. Under the President’s plan, the space agency would receive a 2.0 percent increase, going from $24.9 billion in FY24 to $25.4 billion in FY25. While that is an increase against FY24, it is flat funding when compared to Fiscal Year 2023. As for NASA Science, which handles the research funding at the agency, would see a better percentage increase: 3.3 percent, going from $7.33 billion in FY24 to $7.57 billion in FY25. However, that increase would only partially restore the cuts made in the final FY24 budget to the program.
Unfortunately, the details of the NASA Science program are not great. While it does get an increase at the top line, there is quite a bit of movement of money within the subaccounts. Earth Sciences, Astrophysics, and Biological & Physical Sciences are increased, while Planetary Science and Heliophysics are decreased, as compared to FY23 levels. Much of these changes are due to the agency reorganizing or cancelling major missions. For example, the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission is a major part of Planetary Science’s budget and has been mired in delays and cost overruns, and is being threatened with cancellation by Congress. The Administration is providing funding to the mission to enable, “internal assessment of mission architecture options to be completed to address mission cost overruns.”
Finally, we come to the National Institutes of Health. Under the President’s plan, the agency would go from $48.68 billion in FY24 to $50.12 billion in FY25, an increase of $1.44 billion or 3.0 percent. Meanwhile, ARPA-H, or the Advanced Research Project Agency, Health, would be flat funded at $1.50 billion.
The flat funding of ARPA-H is surprising, given its popularity in Congress and that it has been an Administration priority in the previous fiscal years. Instead, the Administration is focusing on their Cancer Moonshot program and a new “White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research,” which proposes to, “better integrate women’s health within the Federal research portfolio and catalyze significant private and philanthropic commitments to increase funding for women’s health research.” The initiative will also, “double existing funding for the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH.”
ARPA-H is continuing to focus its research efforts within “Increasing Accessibility and Expanding Scale,” “Artificial Intelligence, and Health Ecosystem Cybersecurity,” and the afore mentioned Cancer Moonshot program.
As with the other research accounts we’ve profiled, it’s worth tempering any expectations, positive or negative. It is already expected that Congress will not finish FY25 by the time the current fiscal year ends, which is September 30th. In fact, the expectation here in Washington is the budget won’t be voted on until after the November Presidential election at the earliest, and likely not until the 2025 calendar year. And the outcome of that election will heavily influence how FY25 is finalized. Any final numbers for these agencies are guesswork at the moment.
Next steps in the FY25 budget process are for each chamber of Congress to come up with their individual funding plans. That process should begin soon. We’ll have updates as those bills become public; keep checking back for more information.
Department of Defense FY 2025 Request: Another Brutal Budget Request for the Defense Research Accounts
/In: Funding, FY25 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyIn our continuing series following the Biden Administration’s Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) budget request, we turn to the Department of Defense (DOD). In what has become a grim ritual, the Biden Administration has submitted another terrible request for the defense research accounts, as it has for the last three years. This time there is at least some reasoning behind the actions.
As we have pointed out with NSF’s and DOE’s budget request, the Administration is heavily constrained by the requirements of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, agreed to by President Biden and then House Speaker McCarthy in May of 2023. That law splits all federal spending into two pots of money for Fiscal Year 2025, one for Defense and the other for NonDefense. It then limits the increase of each pot to 1 percent for FY25. This has impacts for entire Defense Department budget; in fact, the Defense Secretary has said the entire Defense Department request for this year constitutes a zero-growth budget. As with the just passed FY24 budget, this creates a harsh budgetary environment.
Before we get into the budget numbers, a little refresher about the DOD research accounts: the DOD’s Science and Technology (DOD S&T) program is made up of three accounts: 6.1 (basic research), 6.2 (applied research), and 6.3 (advanced technology development). These accounts are themselves made up of individual accounts for each of the three services (Army, Navy, and Air Force), as well as a Defense Wide account. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a section under the Defense Wide account.
All three of DOD S&T’s accounts do badly under the President’s budget plan. Basic Research (6.1), which is the main Defense Department supporter of fundamental research at US universities, gets the smallest cut of 6.8 percent; going from $2.63 billion in FY24 to $2.45 billon under the Administration’s plan (a cut of $180 million). The details within the 6.1 accounts do not improve the situation: the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s “University Research Initiative” subaccounts are cut at 8.8, 11.4, and 22.7 percent compared to their FY24 levels, respectively.
The Applied Research (6.2) account is hit even harder, receiving a 23.6 percent cut; going from $7.59 billion in FY24 to $5.80 billion under the Administration’s FY25 framework, a loss of $1.80 billion. Finally, Advanced Technology Development (6.3) would also receive a significant cut, going from $11.29 billion in FY24 to $9.00 billion in FY25, a cut of $2.29 billion, or 20.3 percent.
DARPA is the only bright spot among the defense accounts, escaping any proposed cuts. The agency would see a good increase of 6.1 percent, going from $4.12 billion in FY24 to $4.37 billion in FY25, an increase of $250 million.
What’s going on here? There are two ways of looking at these budgets. Unfortunately, neither view is good news by itself and they are quite terrible when viewed together. The first way to look at them is the way the Pentagon leadership plans their budgets, which is from budget request to budget request. Put simply, no country can plan a workable national defense strategy around the vagueness of a legislative budget cycle. When we look at the FY24 budget request and compare it to the FY25 budget request, as the Pentagon’s planners do, it shows that even this year’s request is a reduction:
6.1 – reduced by 1.1 percent
6.2 – reduced by 3.7 percent
6.3 – reduced by 4.0 percent
DARPA – reduced by 0.4 percent.
This shows that the defense research accounts don’t appear to be a priority for the Defense Department leadership.
The other way to look at them is one we talk about almost every year: budget gamesmanship. Namely that money is pulled by DOD leaders from what is seen as a Congressional priority (i.e. research funding) to put toward something else that does not have the same support. If the scheme works, Congress puts money back into R&D and the moved money “sticks” elsewhere in the DOD budget. It’s not a new strategy, as the last couple of presidential administrations have done it.
The obvious problem with this plan is, what if Congress doesn’t put the money back? You get what happened in the final FY24 budget, namely hard budgetary cuts. It only goes to show that to start at a bad budget request is a good way to end with a bad budget for the year.
As CRA has done for the past several years, we will continue to make the case, in concert with our friends and allies in the other scientific fields and higher education institutions, for the importance of these Federal investments in defense research for our national security.
With the difficult political year ahead, and the zero-sum budget environment we are in, this will be a long process. As with the other research agencies we’ve highlighted, the partisan fight over the budget is shaping up to be particularly bad this year, especially with the Presidential election in November. We’ll have to let the budget process play out more before we know what will happen; please check back for more updates.
Department of Energy FY 2025 Request: Office of Science Would Receive a Good Budget Under the President’s Plan; ASCR Fares Well
/In: Funding, FY25 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyIn our continuing series analyzing the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request to Congress, we turn to the Department of Energy. Specifically, we are looking at the two key parts of DOE that are of concern to the computing community: the Office of Science (SC), home to most of the agency’s basic research support, and ARPA-E, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
Readers should note that when the Department of Energy prepared their budget request for this year, they did not have a completed FY24 budget to compare their request against. That means their budget documents will compare this year’s request against the FY23 budget, which was the last approved budget they had. Since Congress has now completed Fiscal Year 2024, CRA is able to do a FY24 Final to FY25 Request comparison.
The President’s FY25 request for DOE SC is $8.60 billion, which is an increase of $360 million, or 4.4 percent, compared to the approved FY24 level of $8.24 billion. The requested budget goes to, “implement the Administration’s objectives to advance bold, transformational leaps in U.S. Science and Technology (S&T), build a diverse and inclusive workforce of the future, and ensure America remains the global S&T leader for generations to come.” Additionally, the request, “increases investments in…basic research on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), climate change and clean energy, including additional funding for the SC Energy Earthshots, and efforts to support underserved communities through the Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (RENEW) and Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR) initiatives.”
Within the Office of Science account, the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program – home to most of SCs computing research efforts – would fare well. The program would be funded at $1.15 billion, which is an increase of $130 million, or 12.7 percent, over FY24 levels. Unlike the last several years of budget requests for ASCR, the Exascale Computing Project line-item has completed its work and is no longer a line item within the program’s budget. The $77 million that was in the Exascale line item is now transferred over to the ASCR research budget line, along with an additional $69 million. There is also the High Performance Data Facility construction line item, which receives $16 million for the year. All three of those account for the all of the budgetary line items within ASCR’s budget. In terms of research areas, ASCR’s request focuses heavily on AI, exascale computing, and quantum as topics of importance to the program.
As for ARPA-E, the agency would see a slight cut for FY25. Under the President’s plan ARPA-E would receive $450 million, a decrease of $10 million over last year, or 2.2 percent. The request has, “an emphasis on maintaining a healthy portfolio of projects,” which include, “a growing focus on additional scale-up of the most promising projects that have demonstrated success in technical development, project management, and definition of commercial pathways.”
ARPA-E’s poor budget request is likely an outcome of two things. First, ARPA-E escaped the last budgetary year with a relatively small cut; DOE may have expected a worse budget for FY24 and expected a FY25 to be an improvement.
But it’s more likely because of the budgetary constraints that the Administration is working under from the May 2023 budget agreement with Congress, known as the Fiscal Responsibility Act. As a reminder, that law splits all federal spending into two pots, Defense and NonDefense, and limits the increase of those pots of spending to 1 percent for FY25. As with the just passed FY24 budget, this creates a harsh, zero-sum budgetary environment. The Administration is likely prioritizing the fundamental sciences in the Office of Science accounts and that comes with a relatively flat funding for the applied research at APRA-E. In short, tough budget decisions.
What are the next steps for the budget? Technically the process goes to Congress in order for both chambers to work out their own funding plans. However, it is important to keep our expectations in check for this year. It is already expected that Congress will not finish FY25 on time (by October 1st). In fact, the expectation here in Washington is the budget won’t be voted on until after the November Presidential election at the earliest, and likely not until the 2025 calendar year. And the outcome of that election will heavily influence how FY25 is finalized. But even without the timeline issues, the constraints on the budget by the aforementioned Fiscal Responsibility Act will create significant problems for the science policy community and the nation’s researchers this year.
There is still a lot of time between now and the end of the fiscal year; we will have to let events play out before we know for certain what will happen. Please keep checking the CRA Policy Boog for more updates.
FY24 Budget Update: Second Part of Federal Budget Passed into Law; Defense Basic Research Hit with Significant Cut
/In: Funding, FY24 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyAt the end of last week, Congress passed into law the remaining appropriation bills for the second half of the Fiscal Year 2024 federal budget. As regular readers will recall, earlier this month Congress passed the initial batch of funding legislation, which contained the budgets for the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy Office of Science, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and NASA. Those agencies received flat funding or significant cuts to their budgets. And, unfortunately, that trend continues with this second batch of funding legislation.
In terms of covered research agencies, this current set of bills includes the budgets for the Department of Defense (DOD) research accounts and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Let’s get into the details:
Department of Defense S&T
As with NSF’s final FY24 budget, there is no sugarcoating the news with the Defense research accounts: these are bad budgets. However, from a paradoxical viewpoint, they are generally better than what the Administration requested in March of last year. Before going into that, let’s get into the specific budget numbers.
All three of DOD S&T’s accounts do badly relative to their previous year’s budgets. Basic Research (6.1), which is the main Defense Department supporter of fundamental research at US universities, received a big cut of 10 percent; going from $2.92 billion in the FY23 to $2.63 billon in FY24, a cut of $290 million. The details within the 6.1 accounts paint a pretty grime picture: the Army, Navy, and Air Force’s “University Research Initiative” subaccounts are cut at 20, 27, and 10 percent, respectively.
The Applied Research (6.2) account is hit with a cut too, though not as significant. The 6.2 account received a 2.6 percent cut, going from $7.80 billion in FY23 to $7.60 billion in FY24, a loss of $200 million. Finally, Advanced Technology Development (6.3) would also receive a cut, going from $11.71 billion in FY23 to $11.29 billion in FY24, a cut of $420 million, or 3.6 percent.
DARPA is the only bright spot among the defense accounts, escaping any proposed cuts but getting flat funded. The agency would see a 1.5 percent, going from $4.06 billion in FY23 to $4.12 billion in FY24, an increase of $60 million.
Here is the paradoxical part: when compared against the President’s requested budgets (PBR), these accounts received increases (except DARPA which would receive a cut relative to the PBR). Here are the percent differences when comparing FY24 Final vs FY24 PBR:
DOD 6.1: +26 percent
DOD 6.2: +21 percent
DOD 6.3: +21 percent
DARPA: -6.1 percent
In many ways this is a reflection of two things. First, the President’s requested budget for the DOD research accounts was quite bad. And second, Congress upped the accounts from those requested budgets. So, from Congress’ perspective, they did these accounts a favor. This only demonstrates the importance of the Administration submitting a good request to start the process; otherwise, it’s easy to be in a budgetary hole that one never gets out of.
National Institutes of Health
Finally, we come to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The agency would be a relative winner in FY24, escaping cuts but effectively flat funded. At the topline budget, the agency would go from $47.50 billion in FY23 to $48.68 billion in FY24, an increase of $1.18 billion or 2.5 percent. Additionally, ARPA-H (or Advanced Research Project Agency, Health) would be flat funded, receiving the same amount in FY24 that it received in FY23: $1.50 billion.
Conclusion
These budgets have already passed Congress and been signed into law by President Biden. For better or worse, Fiscal Year 2024 is finally complete.
As with the previous set of FY24 research budgets, this is not an ideal outcome to this budgetary year. In fact, FY24 has been a particularly zero-sum environment and that is reflected in the research accounts. Given the push to cut overall federal spending by certain factions within Congress, this outcome is not entirely unexpected. Keep in mind, House Republicans had adopted the position, at the beginning of 2023, to cut overall Federal spending to FY22 levels. A grim final budget for this year is not unexpected, but this is much worse than what either the House or Senate Appropriations Committees had been telegraphing during the year.
CRA has publicly voiced its concerns and frustrations with these budgets on behalf of the computing and information technology research community. We have pointed out the likely negative impacts these budgets will have on the country’s research enterprise, with the reduced quantity of research, the number of researchers, and the number of students educated in key fundamental areas of computing and other fields of discovery. It will also have negative impacts in areas of significant national interest like artificial intelligence, quantum computing, high-performance computing, and cyber security. All while our international competitors are doubling down on their investments in R&D. CRA will continue to make the case that the next fiscal year, Fiscal Year 2025, which the process is already underway, can’t follow down the road of cuts as far as research is concerned.
NSF FY2025 Request: NSF Gets Another Good Budget Request but With Some Qualifications and Unknowns
/In: Artificial Intelligence, Funding, FY25 Appropriations, Research /by Brian MosleyThe Biden Administration released their Fiscal Year 2025 requested budget on March 11th. As we have done in years past, the CRA Policy Blog will write a series of posts analyzing the assorted agency requested budgets that are important to the computing research community. First up is the agency that supports 78 percent of all Federally-supported basic research in computer science at academic institutions: the National Science Foundation. The Biden Administration proposes another strong budget for NSF. However, this year is a bit different. With a particularly bitter funding cut in Fiscal Year 2024, combined with the Fiscal Responsibility Act requirements on the overall Federal budget, the Administration is heavily constrained in their request. A perfect example of that is the fact that this year’s request for the agency is over a billion dollars less than what was submitted to Congress in NSF’s FY24 request.
A general note: NSF’s budget request was prepared before Congress finished its work on the agency’s FY24 budget. With that in mind, in the agency’s budget documents, you will see they compared the President’s request to FY23 (ie: the last year they had approved funding). Since CRA now has some, but not all, of the numbers for FY24, we will compare the President’s request against that. There are exceptions, most notably the assorted RRA directorates. Congress does not typically fund at that level, leaving it to NSF to decide how funding is exactly distributed. Since the agency has only had a finalized budget for a few weeks, we can only do a FY23 to FY25 request comparison for those parts of the agency.
Under the Administration’s FY25 plan, NSF would see a 12.1 percent increase compared to their FY24 budget approved by Congress earlier this month. NSF would go from $9.06 billion in FY24 to $10.2 billion in FY25, an increase of $1.14 billion. Research and Related Activities (R&RA), the subaccount that contains the funding for research grants, would see a sizable part of that increase, going from $7.18 billion in FY24 to $8.05 billion in FY25, a plus up of $870 million (or 12.1 percent). The STEM Education Directorate (EDU), which contains the agency’s education programs, would also see a sizable increase of $130 million, going from $1.17 billion in FY24 to $1.30 billion under the President’s FY25 plan; that’s an increase of 11.1 percent.
The requested budget would allow NSF to fund an estimated 36,200 research grants in FY25 (37,000 were funded in FY23), allowing for a 27 percent funding rate. The agency estimates that its activities will support a total of 357,100 people in FY25; that number includes senior researchers, other professionals, postdos, graduate students, and undergrads.
CISE Directorate:
The Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE), located within R&RA, and the home for most of the computing research support at NSF, will receive a significant increase. It would go from an estimate of $1.04 billion in FY23 to $1.07 billion for FY25, an increase of $30 million or 2.9 percent. We do not yet have a budgetary number for CISE for FY24.
The CISE Directorate continues to, “play a leadership role,” in many NSF-wide initiatives, such as, “seminal investments in AI, advanced computing systems and services, quantum information science (QIS), advanced communications technologies, advanced manufacturing, semiconductors and microelectronics, biotechnology, and cybersecurity.”
As should surprise no one, artificial intelligence holds a prominent spot in the directorate’s request. CISE will continue to support the pilot NAIRR program with an initial budget of $30 million. The program is to, “amplify efforts across the federal government to cultivate AI innovation and advance trustworthy AI.” Additionally, the directorate will, “continued support for the National AI Research Institutes.” Tasked with establishing two additional AI institutes in the Biden Administration’s October executive order on AI, the directorate will also, “significantly broaden participation in AI research, education, and workforce development through capacity development projects such as ExpandAI, through CISE core investments, and through partnerships within the National AI Research Institutes ecosystem.”
In terms of the broadening participation and workforce development space, CISE, “in alignment with an agency-wide emphasis on Creating Opportunities Everywhere…will continue to invest in a broad suite of activities to support broadening participation in research and education.” For example, “the Broadening Participation in Computing Alliances (BPC-A) will serve as broad coalitions of institutions of higher education, K-12 schools, government, industry, professional societies, and other not-for-profit organizations that design and carry out comprehensive programs addressing underrepresentation in the computing and information science disciplines.” Additionally, the directorate will broaden participation in computing by, “increasing engagement in…research projects from MSIs through the CISE-MSI program and will emphasize education and training of more U.S. based students from diverse backgrounds through CISE Graduate Fellowships (CSGrad4US).” CSGrad4US is a CRA managed program that aims to increase the number of diverse, domestic graduate students pursuing research and innovation careers in the CISE fields: computer science, computer engineering, or information science.
Other major investments in the CISE request are Advance Wireless Research and Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC). With regard to the wireless research, the directorate will, “continue to invest in research in advanced wireless networks, building on its track record of enabling early-stage successes in 5G through ground- breaking millimeter-wave research,” and, “will accelerate research in areas with potential significant impact on emerging Next-Generation (NextG) wireless and mobile communications, networking, sensing, and computing systems, with a focus on greatly improving the resiliency and intelligence of such networked systems” With regard to SaTC, CISE will invest in, “current and emerging areas of importance for security and privacy,” including, “the application of AI to security, security and resilience of AI systems, security implications of quantum computation and communication, information integrity, and critical infrastructure security.” The directorate will also, “fund programs that strengthen the national cybersecurity workforce pipeline through education, K-12 programs, and funding to universities and colleges.”
TIP Directorate:
The Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships, or TIP Directorate, enjoys continued priority in the President’s budget plans with a requested budget of $900 million for FY25, a 36 percent increase over its budget estimate for Fiscal Year 2023. We do not yet have a budgetary number for TIP for FY24.
TIP continues to receive special attention in the President’s budget roll out, as it figures heavily in the Administration’s priorities. In the president’s fuller budget plans, TIP is called out to as key to, “increase(ing) investments to translate the results of basic research into practical applications and processes that can benefit the Nation.” Within NSF’s justification document, TIP, “aims to usher in a new era for American innovation, accelerating research to impact and enhancing job and economic growth and national security for decades to come.” With that in mind, the directorate aligns its programs with three pillars: “nurtures new and diverse innovation ecosystems throughout” the nation; advance, “technology development across the range of key technology focus areas specified in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022;” and create, “opportunities for everyone to engage in the nation’s R&D enterprise.”
With regard to the first pillar, nurturing new and diverse innovation ecosystems, the NSF Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) features heavily. Tasked with, “catalyzing place-based innovation to spur economic and job growth,” particularly in places in the country that have, “not benefited from the technology and innovation booms of the last several decades.” The Engines program awarded the initial 10 awards spanning 18 states in January. Additionally, of the initial awards, “two are based in EPSCoR jurisdictions and nine include partners in an EPSCoR jurisdiction; nine include minority-serving institutions and all ten include community colleges; and four are led by industry and nonprofits.”
TIP also, “accelerates the translation of fundamental science and engineering discoveries into innovative new technologies and solutions.” Within this space, the directorate, “optimizes the historic NSF Lab-to-Market Platform, allowing researchers to pursue additional prototyping, demonstration, and scale-up work.” It also introduces, “new translation pathways…facilitating the adoption of NSF-funded research results as secure open-source ecosystems.” The TIP Directorate also, “supports the establishment and operation of testbeds to advance development, integration, deployment, and demonstration of breakthroughs in the key technology focus areas. TIP will also make major investments in artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences, advanced manufacturing, advanced wireless research, clean energy technology, and biotechnology; all these areas will receive significant increases in support, compared to their FY23 budgets.
Finally, the TIP Directorate, “creates opportunities for everyone to engage in the nation’s R&D enterprise.” It does this by working with, “academia, state, local, and tribal governments, industry, and other educational partners to provide practical experiences to diverse learners at every stage of education, from first-time job seekers to experienced workers.”
Conclusions:
For another year, President Biden has shown confidence in NSF and proposed a good budget for the agency. But the optimism of this year’s request should be tempered by the bad budget that precedes it. And it is important to keep expectations in check, as the political situation this year makes it highly unlikely that Congress will finish a budget on time, or even in this calendar year. The going view in Washington right now is that any final FY25 budget will arrive well after the election, with an endgame heavily influenced by the outcome of that election. It’s likely to be another long, difficult year. Please keep checking back for more updates.