The era of constrained federal science budgets is over. With Congress poised to boost public spending on research and development (R&D), the long-standing assumption that federal science agencies must aspire to incremental growth now appears unjustified. Indeed, depending on the outcome of current legislative debates, science agencies may be preparing for an infusion of federal dollars on a grand scale — and in a compressed timeframe — that has the potential to transform the institutions of science and technology. Such an increase of federal R&D has not been seen at least since the doubling of the budget of the National Institutes of Health some 20 years ago.
As a matter of fact, U.S. R&D spending has been on the rise in recent years. In 2021, overall spending surpassed 3% of GDP for the first time in history. Yet, such growth is almost entirely attributable to the private sector. By contrast, federal R&D spending as a share of GDP (what is known as “R&D intensity”) has waxed and waned from year to year. But it has never again come anywhere near its high point during the mid 1960s, when federal R&D intensity reached nearly 2%. Today, it is not the government but private industry that is by far and away the biggest funder of R&D — a fact that has long been lamented by advocates pushing for increased public investments.
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