Spending cuts forced by the Budget Control Act, also known as sequestration, drove federal R&D spending for Fiscal Year 2013 down to 0.8 percent of GDP—the lowest level seen in 40 years. If sequestration continues, "it's quite likely that federal R&D as a share of GDP would drop below 0.8 percent for the first time in a very long time," said Matt Hourihan, director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program.
Hourihan spoke about President Obama's R&D budget request for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 on April 26 at a public luncheon briefing on Capitol Hill. The briefing was held in conjunction with the House R&D Caucus, which is co-chaired by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va. and Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J.
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President Obama's FY 2014 budget request would shift federal R&D spending from defense to non-defense programs and prioritize applied research over basic research and development. However, the president's budget request is based on repealing sequestration, an unlikely prospect.
Federal funding for R&D is mostly classified as discretionary spending, and while the president requested $1.057 trillion for discretionary spending in his FY 2014 budget, sequestration capped it at $966 billion—a difference of about $90 billion.
Based on AAAS analysis of appropriations and agency budget documents, total federal R&D spending in FY 2013 will drop by 6.5
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