This annual report contains information about federal funding of the research and development (R&D) and the R&D plant components of agency programs, as proposed by the administration for fiscal year (FY) 2006. R&D data in this report are classified into the same federal budget function categories used in the Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2006, prepared by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Proposed FY 2006 funding levels are for budget authority (defined below), which is the basis for initial congressional action. In future Budget Function annual reports, these data will be revised to reflect congressional appropriation and actual program-funding decisions.
Detailed data are included on preliminary estimates of federal funding of R&D for FY 2005. This report also includes detailed data (by subfunction) on actual budget authorizations of R&D by federal agencies in FY 2004 and aggregate data (by broad function) on actual R&D budget authorizations in FY 2003 and earlier years.
These notes introduce basic budget terms and concepts used in this report. The rest of the report is divided into three sections:
In this report, R&D refers to both basic and applied research and development activities in the sciences and engineering.
Research is systematic study directed toward fuller scientific knowledge or understanding of the subject studied. Research is classified as either basic or applied according to the objective of the sponsoring agency.
Development is defined as systematic application of knowledge or understanding, directed toward the production of useful materials, devices, and systems or methods, including design, development, and improvement of prototypes and new processes to meet specific requirements. It excludes quality control, routine product testing, and production.
Funds for conducting R&D include those for personnel, program supervision, and administrative support directly associated with R&D activities. Expendable or movable equipment needed to conduct R&D—for example, microscopes or spectrometers—is also included.
R&D plant includes R&D facilities such as reactors, wind tunnels, or particle accelerators or the construction, repair, or alteration of such facilities.
This report excludes all non-R&D activities performed within budget functions that conduct R&D and all functions in which no R&D is conducted.
The federal R&D funding data presented here, with a few noted exceptions, are provided in budget authority. Budget authority is used because it is the initial budget parameter for congressional action on the President's proposed budget. Budget authority imposes a ceiling on obligations and outlays; obligations and outlays flow from budget authority.
All activities covered by the federal budget, including R&D, are classified into 20 broad functional categories. The federal budget total comprises funding for these 20 functions. An agency's activities are not necessarily included in only one function. Instead, the programs of one agency typically are distributed across functions, and each function often includes programs from multiple agencies. No overlap occurs among functions or among the various agency programs within those functions. In a few cases, components of a major national effort are funded through multiple functions, such as the human genome activities, which are funded under the health and general science categories.
Notably, each specific R&D activity is assigned to only one function area, consistent with the official codes used in budget documents, even though the R&D activity may address several functional concerns. For example, except for those of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, all R&D activities sponsored by the Department of Defense (DOD) are classified as defense, even though some activities have secondary objectives such as space or health. Moreover, only R&D funded by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor is classified in the health function category. Yet some R&D funding, from at least three additional agencies—DOD and the Departments of Energy and Veterans Affairs—has a major health component.
The functional categories and definitions used in this report are the same as those used in the federal budget, with one exception. R&D activities categorized as general science, space, and technology (function 250) are reported separately here. Subfunction 251 contains R&D activities for general science and basic research, and subfunction 252 contains R&D activities for space research and technology. Not all federally sponsored basic research is categorized in function 251, however; some basic research is included in 12 of the remaining 19 functional categories.
Five federal budget functions—Medicare (function 570), Social Security (function 650), net interest (function 900), allowances (function 920), and undistributed offsetting receipts (function 950)—have no R&D components. Consequently, they are not discussed in this report, except where R&D is described as a proportion of total federal budget authority.
For FY 2004–06, no R&D was authorized for general government (function 800), as was the case in the last report. In previous years, small amounts of R&D were authorized for this budget function.
The agency/function crosswalk at the end of this section lists (by name and function code) the 15 individual R&D functions funded by agencies.
Within the overall federal budget, there is no separately identified R&D budget as such, nor are most appropriations for R&D so labeled except in the case of certain program areas such as defense, energy, health, and environment. Consequently, most funds for R&D are not line items in agency budget submissions but are included within general program funding. To determine funding for federal R&D, OMB requires agencies with annual R&D funding greater than $10 million to submit data on their R&D programs as part of their annual budget submissions. Specifically, the agencies provide data—reported, in accordance with OMB Circular A-11, MAX Schedule C, "Research and Development Activities"—on funding levels for basic research, applied research, development, R&D facilities, and capital equipment for R&D.
The data in this report represent agencies' best estimates of actual and proposed federal funding for R&D collected during the period between February and April 2004. These data are based primarily on information provided to OMB by 24 agencies and account for an estimated 99 percent of all federally sponsored R&D activities. Also included in this report is R&D information that became available from the individual agencies after the administration's budget was prepared and reported in the Budget of the United States Government. This information consists of agency budget justification documents submitted to Congress and supplemental, program-specific information obtained from agency budget and program staff through mid-March 2005. Therefore, budget numbers for individual activities, programs, or agencies may differ slightly from those published in the President's budget or agency budget documents.
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