2021 Budget Request Slashes Research Funding

The president’s 2021 budget request to Congress was released on Monday and like in previous years, it calls for severe cuts to many federal agencies which fund research. But the request does call for increases in funding for certain research areas – those which have been labelled “industries of the future” –like artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum information science (QIS).

Congress has largely rejected the administration’s past attempts to make drastic cuts to the R&D budgets at the nation’s funding agencies and in some cases has provided significant budget boosts. This year, however, Congress will face spending restrictions from the Budget Control Act of 2011 that will force them to make difficult decisions regarding where they place any additional funding.

Here is a summary of the request’s cuts for R&D budgets:

• Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: $2.8B (-75%)
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research: $0.6B (-40%)
• Environmental Protection Agency Science and Technology: $0.7B (-32%)
• National Institute of Standards and Technology: $1.0B (-29%)
• Department of Energy Office of Science: $7.0B (-17%)
• NASA Science: $7.1B (-12%)
• National Institutes of Health: $41.7B (-7%)
• National Science Foundation: $8.3B (-6%)

For a detailed account of the budget request, we suggest reading this article from the American Institute of Physics.