The 115 th Congress continues to take an interest in U.S. research and development (R&D) and in evaluating support for federal R&D activities. The federal government has played an important role in supporting R&D efforts that have led to scientific breakthroughs and new technologies, from jet aircraft and the Internet to communications satellites, shale gas extraction, and defenses against disease. However, widespread concerns about the federal debt and recent and projected federal budget deficits drove difficult decisions about the prioritization of R&D, both in the context of the entire federal budget and among competing needs within the federal R&D portfolio. The U.S. government supports a broad range of scientific and engineering R&D. Its purposes include specific concerns such as addressing national defense, health, safety, the environment, and energy security; advancing knowledge generally; developing the scientific and engineering workforce; and strengthening U.S. innovation and competitiveness in the global economy. Most of the R&D funded by the federal government is performed in support of the unique missions of individual funding agencies. The federal R&D budget is an aggregation of the R&D components of each federal agency. There is no single, centralized source of funds that is allocated to individual agencies. Agency R&D budgets are developed internally as part of each agency's overall budget development process and may be included either in accounts that are entirely devoted to R&D or in accounts that include funding for non-R&D activities. These budgets are subjected to review, revision, and approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and become part of President Obama's annual budget submission to Congress. The federal R&D budget is then calculated by aggregating the R&D components of each federal agency. Congress plays a central role in defining the nation's R&D priorities as it makes decisions about the level and allocation of R&D funding—overall, within agencies, and for specific programs. Some Members of Congress have expressed concerns about the level of federal spending (for R&D and for other purposes) in light of the current federal deficit and debt. As Congress acted to complete the FY2017 appropriations process, it faced two overarching issues: the extent to which federal R&D investments could grow in the face of increased pressure on discretionary spending and the prioritization and allocation of the available funding. Budget caps may have limited overall R&D funding and may have required movement of resources across disciplines, programs, or agencies to address priorities. Moving funding between programs/accounts/agencies can be complex and difficult because the funding for different programs/accounts/agencies is often provided through different appropriations bills. This report begins with a discussion of the overall level of President Obama's FY2017 R&D request, followed by analyses of the R&D funding request from a variety of perspectives and for selected multiagency R&D initiatives. The report concludes with discussion and analysis of the R&D budget requests of selected federal departments and agencies that, collectively, account for nearly 99% of total federal R&D funding. Selected terms associated with federal R&D funding are defined in the text box on the next page. The Appendix provides a list of acronyms and abbreviations. On February 9, 2016, President Obama released his proposed FY2017 budget. This report provides government-wide, multiagency, and individual agency analyses of President Obama's FY2017 request as it relates to R&D and related activities, as well as House and Senate action on President Obama's budget request through appropriations bills that provide funding for R&D and related activities. For FY2017, President Obama's budget request included both discretionary and mandatory funding. As presented in the "Research and Development" chapter of the Analytical Perspectives volume of the Budget of the U.S. Government FY2017 , the discretionary and mandatory funding are combined into a single figure for each agency. In addition, a change in the Department of Energy's reporting of administrative expenses led to an increase in reporting of R&D investments "on the order of $2 to $3 billion a year." Factors such as these can complicate the analysis of year-to-year changes in R&D funding, both in aggregate and for selected agencies. For FY2017, President Obama proposed $152.333 billion for R&D, an increase of $6.195 billion (4.2%) over the estimated FY2016 enacted R&D funding level of $146.138 billion. Adjusted for anticipated inflation of approximately 1.8%, President Obama's FY2016 R&D request represented a constant dollar increase of 2.4% from the estimated FY2016 enacted level. President Obama's R&D request included continued funding of existing single-agency and multiagency programs and activities, as well as new initiatives. Single-agency initiatives are discussed in their respective sections of this report. Multiagency initiatives are discussed in the section " Multiagency R&D Initiatives ." Analysis of federal R&D funding is complicated by several factors, such as inconsistency among agencies in the reporting of R&D and the inclusion of R&D activities in accounts with non-R&D activities. As a result, figures reported by OMB and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), including those shown in Table 1 , may differ from the agency budget analyses that appear later in this report. Federal R&D funding can be analyzed from a variety of perspectives that provide different insights. The following sections examine the data by agency, by the character of the work supported, by a combination of these two perspectives, and by whether R&D is defense-related or not. Congress makes decisions about R&D funding through the authorization and appropriations processes primarily from the perspective of individual agencies and programs. Table 1 provides data on R&D by agency for FY2015 (actual), FY2016 (estimate), and FY2017 (request). Under President Obama's FY2017 budget request, seven federal agencies would have received more than 95% of total federal R&D funding: the Department of Defense (DOD), 49.5%; Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (primarily the National Institutes of Health [NIH]), 21.3%; Department of Energy (DOE), 8.6%; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 8.4%; National Science Foundation (NSF), 4.3%; Department of Agriculture (USDA), 2.0%; and Department of Commerce (DOC), 1.5%. This report provides an analysis of the R&D budget requests for these agencies, as well as for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of the Interior (DOI), Department of Transportation (DOT), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In total, these 12 agencies accounted for more than 98% of current and requested federal R&D funding. The largest agency R&D increases in President Obama's FY2017 request (as measured in dollars), compared with FY2016, were for DOE, up $2.755 billion (19.1%); DOD, up $1.953 billion (2.8%); HHS, up $772 million (2.4%); NSF, up $412 million (6.7%); and USDA, up $249 million (9.3%). NASA would see a decrease in R&D funding of $367 million (3.0%) and DOC funding would drop by $25 million (1.3%). Federal R&D funding can also be examined by the character of work it supports—basic research, applied research, or development—and by funding provided for construction of R&D facilities and acquisition of major R&D equipment. (See Table 2 .) President Obama's FY2017 request included $34.485 billion for basic research, up $975 million (2.9%) from FY2016; $38.361 billion for applied research, up $2.922 million (8.2%); $76.704 billion for development, up $2.238 million (3.0%); and $2.783 billion for facilities and equipment, up $60 million (2.2%). A primary policy justification for public investments in basic research and for incentives (e.g., tax credits) for the private sector to conduct research is the view, widely held by economists, that the private sector will, left on its own, underinvest in basic research from a societal perspective. The usual argument for this view is that the social returns (i.e., the benefits to society at large) exceed the private returns (i.e., the benefits accruing to the private investor, such as increased revenues or higher stock value). Other factors that may inhibit corporate investment in basic research include long time horizons for commercial applications (diminishing the potential returns due to the time value of money), high levels of technical risk/uncertainty, shareholder demands for shorter-term returns, and asymmetric and imperfect information. The federal government is the nation's largest supporter of basic research, funding 47.0% of U.S. basic research in 2013. Industry funded 26.4% of U.S. basic research in 2012, with state governments, universities, and other non-profit organizations funding the remaining 26.7%. In contrast to basic research, industry is the primary funder of applied research in the United States, accounting for an estimated 51.1% in 2013, while the federal government accounted for an estimated 36.8%. Industry also provides the vast majority of funding for development. Industry accounted for 80.6% of development in 2013, while the federal government provided 17.8%. Combining these perspectives, federal R&D funding can be viewed in terms of each agency's contribution to basic research, applied research, development, and facilities and equipment. (See Table 3 .)