Government

This month, President Obama unveiled his fiscal 2016 budget, requesting $146 billion in federal funding for R&D. This represents a nominal 6%, or $8 billion, increase over 2015 enacted levels, with inflation expected to rise 1.6%. Most agencies performing R&D would experience budget increases. Of the total, $76.9 billion and $68.8 billion would be for defense and nondefense R&D, respectively. Funds for the Precision Medicine Initiative, the National Strategy to Combat Antibiotic Resistance and the Climate Action Plan—$215 million (see IBO 12/31/15), $1.2 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively—would each be distributed across multiple agencies. The combined funding for the NIST, NSF and DOE would be $13.8 billion, rising 29% and about 5% and 5%, respectively. With an increase of 3.3%, the NIH would receive $31.3 billion, with focuses on Alzheimer’s and cancer research, and the BRAIN initiative in addition to the precision-medicine and antibiotic-resistance programs.

Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science

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