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White House Issues Interagency R&D Priorities for FY 2005 August 12, 2003—The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have released a joint memorandum that outlines federal priorities for interagency research and development in FY 2005.  Directed to the heads of executive departments and agencies, this document provides guidance to help them prioritize R&D programs as they collaborate with the White House to prepare their FY 2005 budget requests.   The OSTP-OMB memorandum encourages federal agencies to give precedence to efforts that promote "the highest priorities of the administration," namely, combating terrorism, securing the homeland, and strengthening the economy.  According to the memorandum, "New programs must be justified with rigorous analysis demonstrating importance, consistency with national priorities, and likelihood of success.  Existing programs also need to be reevaluated, modified, redirected, or terminated, in keeping with national needs and priorities.  Agencies should fund new, high-priority activities by reallocating resources from lower-priority or recently completed activities."   Interagency R&D Priorities.  The recently released memorandum first outlines the general criteria that R&D expenditures should fulfill, and then specifies five interagency priority areas on which the Administration plans to focus.  Important issues that fall entirely within the scope of one agency are not included.  The memorandum recommends the following interagency R&D priorities for FY 2005: 1.       Combating Terrorism 2.       Nanotechnology 3.       Networking and Information Technology 4.       Molecular-Level Understanding of Life Processes 5.       Environment and Energy Environment and Energy Priorities.  According to the memorandum, "the Administration's environment and energy research initiatives are critical for achieving sustained economic growth while ensuring national energy security and a healthy environment."  In the area of environment and energy, priority will go to programs that address climate change, environmental observation, and hydrogen fuel.  The Administration will favor climate change projects that implement the Climate Change Science Program strategic plan, which was released in July.  On environmental observations, research projects are encouraged to seek ways of improving human ability to predict changes in the atmosphere, land, fresh water, ocean, and ecosystems.  In the area of developing hydrogen fuel, particular attention is given to lowering hydrogen fuel cost, creating efficient storage of hydrogen fuel, and producing affordable hydrogen fuel cells. Research relating to environmental science falls under other R&D priorities, including "combating terrorism" and "molecular-level understanding of life processes."   General R&D Program Guidance.  In general, the Administration will favor investments in federal R&D programs that:  Promote the science and technology enterprise through the pursuit of specific agency missions and pursue research in critical fields     Strengthen science, mathematics, and engineering education.     Focus on long-term, potentially high-payoff activities that require a federal presence to attain national goals, including homeland security, national security, environmental quality, economic prosperity, human health and well-being, and "fundamental discovery."       Maximize efficiency and effectiveness of federal R&D investments through such means as competitive, peer-reviewed processes and discontinuing programs that are neither productive nor important to an agency's mission.     Promote interagency and international collaboration.   R&D Investment Criteria.  The Administration will apply the following investment criteria to assess federal R&D programs: Relevance.  R&D investments must have clear plans, must be relevant to national priorities, agency missions, relevant fields, and "customer" needs, and must justify their claim on taxpayer resources.     Quality.  Programs should maximize the quality of the R&D they fund through the use of a clearly stated, defensible method for awarding a significant majority of their funding. A customary method for promoting R&D quality is the use of a competitive, merit-based process.     Performance.  R&D programs should maintain a set of high priority, multi-year R&D objectives with annual performance measures and milestones. Last year, the joint OSTP-OMB memo identified "science for sustainability" as one of the "areas that may emerge as priorities for FY 2004 over the next few months."  Although science for sustainability is not identified as one of the priority areas for FY 2005, the latest memo briefly mentions sustainable development and related concepts in the section on environment and energy. The full text of the OSTP-OMB FY 2005 Interagency Research and Development Priorities memorandum can be accessed at:  OSTP-OMB Memo on FY 2005 Interagency R&D Priorities. Amanda Brewster and Craig M. Schiffries National Council for Science and the Environment 1707 H Street, NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC 20006 Tel: 202-530-5810 E-mail: policy@NCSEonline.org www.NCSEonline.org

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