Executive Office of the President 

Office of Management and Budget 

Executive Office of the President 

Office of Science and Technology Policy 

August 14, 2007 

M-07-22 

MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES 

FROM: JOHN H. MARBURGER, III 

 DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY 

 STEPHEN S. MCMILLIN 

 ACTING DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET 

SUBJECT: FY 2009 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities 

We have updated the Administration’s research and development (R&D) priorities, which reflect 

input from both the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) and 

the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). We also emphasize improving 

management and performance to maintain excellence and leadership in science and technology. 

The sections that follow: 

• highlight the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative; 

• provide general guidance for setting priorities for agency R&D programs; 

• identify interagency R&D efforts that should receive special focus in agency budget requests; 

• reiterate the R&D Investment Criteria that agencies should use to improve investment, and 

for decisions about and management of their R&D programs. 

Presidential Priority: American Competitiveness Initiative 

The President is committed to the success of the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) 

announced in his 2006 State of the Union address. The ACI doubles investment over 10 years in 

key Federal agencies supporting basic research in the physical sciences and engineering. This 

innovation-enabling research includes high-leverage areas that develop and advance knowledge 

and technologies used by scientists in nearly every other field. President Bush has successfully 

begun the doubling path for the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office 

of Science, and the Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology 

core activities with an aggregate 17 percent increase in the first two years of the Initiative. To 

continue the doubling, these agencies should propose increases in FY 2009 that meet scheduled, 

ongoing facilities needs and provide for unique, high-value research opportunities. These 

proposals should be consistent with published out-year budget plans. We will evaluate the three 

requests together to determine final individual agency allocations. In addition to the doubling 

effort at these three agencies, real increases (above inflation) in the high-leverage basic research 

of the Department of Defense should be a significant priority. 
2

General R&D Program Guidance 

Agencies are expected to conduct programs in accordance with the highest standards of ethical 

and scientific integrity and to have clear principles, guidelines and/or policies on issues such as 

scientific openness, scientific misconduct, conflict of interest, protection of privacy, and the 

appropriate treatment of human subjects.

Careful attention to funding priorities and wise choices are required due to the combination of 

finite resources, the commitment to the American Competitiveness Initiative, and a multitude of 

new research opportunities. Agencies must evaluate existing programs and, wherever possible, 

consider them for modification, redirection, reduction or termination, in keeping with national 

needs and priorities. New programs have to be justified with rigorous analysis demonstrating 

their merit, quality, importance and consistency with national priorities. Agencies may propose 

new, high-priority activities, but these requests should identify potential offsets by elimination or 

reductions in less effective or lower priority programs, or programs where Federal involvement 

is no longer needed or appropriate. 

In general, the Administration favors Federal agency R&D investments that: 

• advance fundamental scientific discovery to improve future quality of life; 

• support high-leverage basic research to spur technological innovation, economic 

competitiveness and new job growth; 

• strengthen science, mathematics and engineering education based on the recommendations of 

the Academic Competitiveness Council and the National Math Panel to ensure a 

scientifically literate population and a supply of qualified technical personnel commensurate 

with national need; 

• enable potentially high-payoff activities that require a Federal presence to attain long-term 

national goals, especially national security, energy independence, and a next-generation air 

transportation system; 

• sustain specifically authorized agency missions (e.g., scientific discovery in NASA) and user 

facilities that support the authorized missions of other agencies; 

• enhance the health of our Nation’s people to reduce the burden of illness and increase 

productivity while respecting the inherent dignity and value of every human life; 

• improve our ability to understand and respond to climate change and other global 

environmental issues and natural disasters through better observation, data, analysis, models, 

and basic and social science research; 

• maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the science and technology (S&T) enterprise 

through expansion of competitive, merit-based peer-review processes; 

• phase out programs that are only marginally productive or are not important to an agency’s 

mission; and 

• encourage interdisciplinary research efforts on complex scientific frontiers and strengthen 

international partnerships to accelerate the progress of science across borders.
3

Interagency R&D Priorities 

While some priority R&D areas fall mainly within the purview of a single agency, such as the 

President’s space exploration vision at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and 

Advanced Energy Initiative at the Department of Energy, other areas require strong interagency 

coordination. The following interagency R&D priorities should receive special focus in agency 

budget requests as relevant and appropriate to an agency’s mission. If an agency receives 

funding for these activities, it should maximize planning and coordination through participation 

in applicable interagency coordination groups, especially the NSTC, to produce: 

1) a clear and concise definition of program activities and priorities within the overall priority 

area; 

2) an inventory of the programs in the baseline budget; 

3) agency trade-offs that will provide the resources to help produce a coordinated, cross-agency 

program with greater impact than that of the individual activities; and 

4) an interagency implementation plan. 

Homeland Security and National Defense 

The Nation’s science and technology enterprise is a key asset to protecting the homeland and 

enabling national defense. Emphasis should be placed on agency research efforts in the 

following two areas: 

Defense against the threat of a domestic nuclear event. Development of transformational 

capabilities for the stand-off detection of nuclear materials must proceed as rapidly as 

possible. Emphasis is needed on R&D to better understand and mitigate the social and 

economic effects of a domestic nuclear explosion, including better tools to treat the 

injured and means for rapidly assessing damage to critical infrastructure and developing 

recovery options. 

Biometrics. Rapid, reliable and accurate biometric-based recognition of individuals is 

necessary for successful homeland security, counterterrorism, border control, law 

enforcement, e-commerce and e-government, and identity theft prevention. As directed 

by the National Security Council’s Deputies Committee, agencies are to place emphasis 

on the priorities outlined in The National Biometrics Challenge and the resulting agenda 

developed by the NSTC Subcommittee on Biometrics and Identity Management. This 

will advance systems, methods and tools to achieve real-time, verifiable, interoperable, 

and privacy-protecting root identification. Each agency’s plans to fulfill their portion of 

the agenda, and planned coordination with other agencies, should be highlighted in their 

budget requests. 

Continue R&D efforts that support the development of: 

• capabilities to counter the domestic threat from improvised explosive devices as emphasized 

in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 19; 

• common decision support tools for response and coordination that integrate information from 

across domains and are applicable to various hazard scenarios including natural disasters, 

terrorist attack or disease outbreak; 

• sampling and decontamination methodologies and tools for remediation of chemical, 

biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents including development of scientifically derived 

protective action guidelines; 
4

• integrated predictive modeling capabilities for potential hazards and the basic science and 

data collection required to support these predictive capabilities; 

• standardized, rapid, reliable and cost-effective detection systems and broad spectrum 

treatments to counter the threat of engineered biological weapons and emerging infectious 

diseases; and 

• new methods to address the natural or intentional introduction of agricultural threats and the 

associated threats to human health, including new methods for detection, prevention, and 

characterization of high-consequence agents in the food and water supply. 

Energy and Climate Change Technology

Within the context of the R&D investment criteria, energy R&D should support progress in two 

interconnected areas: energy security and greenhouse gas emission reduction. Priority should be 

put on eliminating scientific and technical barriers that limit the advancement of renewable, zero 

emission, and alternative energy sources. Agencies should align their R&D portfolios to achieve 

the goals put forth by the President, specifically: 1) to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 20 

percent over the next ten years, compared to projections; and 2) to continue to advance the 

development of advanced energy technologies that cost-effectively reduce greenhouse gas 

emissions, especially basic research targeting scientific and technical breakthroughs in such areas 

as zero carbon emissions coal and carbon sequestration processes, nuclear energy, energy 

storage, solar energy, and hydrogen fuel cell technologies. Agencies should coordinate their 

R&D efforts through the Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) to cost-effectively 

maximize greenhouse gas reductions across the overall portfolio of energy technologies to avoid 

duplication and should work with CCTP to quantifiably estimate the greenhouse gas benefits of 

their efforts. Trade-offs should be made as necessary to ensure success in areas identified to 

have the most promise and should enhance the integration of basic and applied research efforts. 

To accelerate development of more efficient biofuels conversion technologies, agencies should: 

• focus on fundamental research needs including optimized crops and cellulosic materials, 

material collection and pretreatment methods, and biorefinery processes, and 

• investigate technologies and methods to mitigate potential environmental impacts associated 

with the increased supply, distribution, acquisition and use of biofuels. 

Advanced Networking and Information Technology

The PCAST will be completing its comprehensive review of the interagency Networking and 

Information Technology R&D (NITRD) program by summer 2007. Agencies should consider 

the recommendations in the PCAST report when prioritizing investments in NITRD topics. 

Investments in advanced networking R&D should focus on research in the foundations, design, 

management, security, and usability of future computing and communications networks to help 

sustain the Nation’s military, scientific, economic, and technological preeminence. Specifically, 

agencies should continue their current active coordination and prioritization to complete the 

Federal Plan for Advanced Networking R&D to inform and guide their budget requests in this 

priority area.

Agencies should also prioritize implementation of the Federal Plan for Cyber Security and 

Information Assurance (CSIA) R&D. CSIA R&D should address any mission-relevant gaps 

identified in the Federal Plan; and should emphasize coordination, leveraging the efforts of all 

agencies and, where appropriate, use of coordinated multi-agency investments. 
5

Agencies should continue to advance and coordinate investments in high-end computing. Highend computing should be increasingly used to support research for transformational solutions to 

complex problems in energy, climate and weather, human health, new materials and national 

security. 

Agencies supporting R&D in these and other on-going components of the NITRD program are 

expected to participate in interagency planning through the NSTC to help prioritize future 

investments. 

National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI)

Robust Federal investment in the agency programs that make up the NNI will expedite 

realization of the potential of nanotechnology to address national priorities in areas such as 

energy, security, healthcare, and the environment and maintains U.S. scientific and technological 

leadership in this field. 

Agencies should strengthen interagency coordination of and support research on potential risks 

to human health and the environment, consistent with the NSTC's 2006 report, EHS Research 

Needs for Engineered Nanoscale Materials. 

More broadly, the NNI should support both basic and applied R&D in nanoscience, develop 

instrumentation and methods for nanoscale characterization and metrology, and disseminate new 

technical capabilities to help industry advance nanofabrication and nanomanufacturing. 

Nanoscale research offers a natural bridge to collaboration between the life and physical 

sciences; therefore, agencies are encouraged to use approaches that accelerate interdisciplinary 

and interagency collaboration. Agencies are encouraged to participate in activities such as joint 

programs utilizing shared resources or leveraging complementary assets, as well as support for 

interdisciplinary activities at centers and user facilities. 

Understanding Complex Biological Systems

Agencies should target research on a deeper understanding of complex biological systems 

through multi-disciplinary collaborations aimed at developing new and improved measurement 

and management tools to provide valid data that can be compared across laboratories and 

platforms. 

Access to new biotechnological tools and increasing amounts of genetic sequence data opens 

new avenues for research into the functional implications of gene expression. Agencies should 

continue to pursue the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic applications targeted 

toward specific diseases and conditions, including ultimately those that are personalized based 

on the needs and genetic make-up of individuals. 

At the same time, rapidly developing methods and capabilities within the behavioral and social 

sciences are enhancing our knowledge of organisms and larger systems and providing greater 

insight into the relationship between biological, physiological and cultural influences on human 

behavior and decision-making. 
6

Agencies should focus research at the: 

• cellular/sub-cellular and the organism/population/community levels; and 

• interface of the life, physical and computational sciences. 

In particular, this research is relevant to the prevention and treatment of infectious disease, and to 

inherently complex and wide-ranging issues such as obesity and emergency preparedness and 

response. 

Environment

Climate science investments are critical to improving our understanding of global climate 

variability and change, providing the basis for sound decision-making, and enabling the 

development of new, cleaner technologies. So as to better inform policy, agencies should 

continue to make investments to improve our ability to observe, model, assess, and adapt to 

impacts of climate change, particularly on a regional scale, and to assure the availability of 

critical long-term climate data. Agencies should continue supporting the goals of the 2003 

Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program; and align climate science 

investments with the specific priorities articulated in the Climate Change Science Program FY 

2009 Interagency Implementation Priorities memo. 

The NSTC Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology released its strategic plan, 

Charting the Course for Ocean Science in the United States: An Ocean Research Priorities Plan 

and Implementation Strategy in 2007. Agencies should address the priorities in the Strategy to 

better inform and, therefore, improve our interactions with and stewardship of our valued ocean 

resources. In particular, agencies should give high priority to these four near term opportunities: 

• forecasting the response of coastal ecosystems to persistent forcing and extreme events 

• comparative analysis of marine ecosystem organization 

• sensors for marine ecosystems 

• assessing Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation variability, which has implications for 

rapid climate change 

Agencies are also encouraged to align programs with A Strategy for Federal Science and 

Technology to Support U.S. Water Availability and Quality because of the importance of fresh 

water supplies to human health, environmental quality, and economic prosperity. 

Global Earth observations play an important role in supporting research in a wide range of 

sciences important for society, and especially for the environmental priorities listed above. 

Agencies should refer to the U.S. Strategic Plan for an Integrated Earth Observations System 

and Development of the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System: Progress and 

Recommendations for the Way Forward for guidance in contributing to these efforts. Agencies 

need to place a greater emphasis on coordinating their Earth observation activities. To ensure 

coordinated, long-term collection of critical land imaging data, agencies should respond to the 

recommendations of the Future of Land Imaging report in their budget requests. 

Next Generation Air Transportation System

If conducting R&D related to the Nation’s air transportation system, agencies should align their 

R&D efforts with the Next Generation Air Transportation System objectives to the maximum 

extent possible. 
7

Federal Scientific Collections

 

Federal scientific collections play an important role in public health and safety, homeland 

security, trade and economic development, medical research, and environmental monitoring. 

Agencies are developing a coordinated strategic plan to identify, maintain and use Federal 

collections of physical objects and to further collections research. Agencies should participate in 

the finalization of this plan and in its subsequent implementation. 

Science of Science Policy

Agencies should continue to participate in the interagency process to promote and coordinate 

individual and collaborative actions needed to develop the “science of science policy” for better 

assessing the impact of R&D investments, defining appropriate metrics for measuring this 

impact, understanding the effect of the globalization of science and technology, and improving 

the basis and capacity of Federal science policy decisions to achieve national goals. 

Research and Development Investment Criteria 

The President’s Management Agenda directs agencies to use the R&D investment criteria 

(relevance, quality, and performance) to improve investment decisions for and management of 

their R&D programs. Industry-relevant applied R&D must meet additional criteria. The specific 

activities programs should undertake to demonstrate fulfillment of the R&D investment criteria 

are described in a previous year’s memorandum, which is available at: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda/m03-15.pdf

Many of these specific activities have been incorporated into the Program Assessment Rating 

Tool (PART). Agencies should use the criteria as broad guidelines that apply at all levels of 

Federally funded R&D efforts and the PART as the instrument to periodically evaluate 

fulfillment of the criteria at the program level. 

The R&D investment criteria continue to: 

• provide tools for programs, agencies, and policy makers to select, plan, and manage R&D 

programs effectively, to increase the productivity of the Federal R&D portfolio and the return 

on taxpayer investment; 

• help convey the Administration’s expectations for proper program management; 

• set standards for information to be monitored and provided in program plans and budget 

justifications; and 

• ultimately improve public understanding of the potential benefits and effectiveness of the 

federal investment in R&D.