The 114 th Congress continues to take a strong interest in the health of the U.S. research and development (R&D) enterprise and in providing 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 are driving 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 the President'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 as for other purposes) in light of the current federal deficit and debt. As Congress acts to complete the FY2016 appropriations process, it faces two overarching issues: the extent to which federal R&D investments can grow in the face of increased pressure on discretionary spending and the prioritization and allocation of the available funding. Budget caps may limit overall R&D funding and may require movement of resources across disciplines, programs, or agencies to address priorities. Moving funding between programs/accounts/agencies can become more complex and difficult because the funding for different programs/accounts/agencies is often provided through different appropriations bills. Structurally, this report begins with a discussion of the overall level of the President's FY2016 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 more than 98% 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 2, 2015, President Obama released his proposed FY2016 budget. This report provides government-wide, multi-agency, and individual agency analyses of the President's FY2016 request as it relates to R&D and related activities. The President's budget proposes $145.694 billion for R&D in FY2016, an increase of $7.625 billion (5.5%) over the estimated FY2015 R&D funding level of $138.069 billion. Adjusted for anticipated inflation of approximately 1.6%, the President's FY2016 R&D request represents a real increase of 3.9% from the FY2015 estimated level. Increasing federal funding for physical science and engineering research was a primary science and technology policy effort pursued by Congress, President George W. Bush, and President Obama in his first four years in office. Referred to frequently as the "doubling effort," Congress and Presidents Obama and Bush sought to increase support for the physical sciences and engineering by doubling funding for accounts at three federal agencies with a strong R&D emphasis in these disciplines: the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Commerce (DOC) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) core laboratory research and construction of research facilities (collectively referred to as the "targeted accounts"). The doubling goal was expressed in President Bush's American Competitiveness Initiative, in budget requests from President Obama before FY2014, and implicitly in the America COMPETES Act ( P.L. 110-69 ) and the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 ( P.L. 111-358 ). The America COMPETES Act and the reauthorization act set appropriations authorization levels consistent with a doubling pace of 7 years and 11 years, respectively. In aggregate, appropriations provided to these accounts fell short of the levels authorized in P.L. 110-69 and P.L. 111-358 . In his FY2015 budget, the President requested a 1.2% increase in aggregate funding for the targeted accounts, a pace that would require more than 58 years to double. Though not explicitly mentioning the doubling goal or timeframe, in his FY2016 budget, the President is requesting a 5.7% increase in aggregate funding for the targeted accounts over the FY2015 level, a pace that would result in doubling in about 12 years. See " Efforts to Double Certain R&D Accounts " below for more details. More broadly, in a 2009 speech before members of the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama put forth a goal of increasing the national (public and private) investment in R&D to more than 3% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). President Obama did not provide details on how this goal might be achieved (e.g., through increases in direct federal R&D funding or through indirect mechanisms such as the research and experimentation (R&E) tax credit). When President Obama set forth the goal in 2009, total U.S. R&D expenditures were approximately 2.90% of GDP. In 2012, R&D as a percentage of GDP was 2.89%, with the federal government contributing 0.86% (down from 0.91% in 2009) and non-federal sources contributing 2.02% (up from 1.98% in 2009). Achieving the 3% goal would likely require a substantial increase in government and corporate R&D spending. In 2012, achieving the 3% goal would have required approximately $18 billion in additional R&D funding above the actual U.S. R&D funding level of $452.6 billion. 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 federal R&D funding through the authorization and appropriations process primarily from the perspective of individual agencies and programs. Table 1 provides data on R&D by agency for FY2014 (actual), FY2015 (estimate), and FY2016 (request). Under President Obama's FY2016 budget request, seven federal agencies would receive 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 the President's FY2016 request (as measured in dollars), compared with FY2015, are for DOD, $4.670 billion (6.9%); DOE, $861 million (7.3%); DOC, $601 million (39.4%); HHS, $565 million (1.9%); USDA, $438 million (17.9%); and NSF, $310 million (5.2%). DHS would see a decrease of $463 million (44.9%). 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 .)