FCCSET Report Analyzes Trends in Federal Science Support

“Trends in the Structure of Federal Science Support” is a report released last December by a working group of the Federal Coordinating Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (FCCSET). The report, which runs over 100 pages, provides an in-depth examination of the federal government’s support for science during the decade of the 1980’s. It is free, but available only in limited supply. Readers interested in obtaining a copy should call the FCCSET office at 202-395-5101 for information on availability. Selected passages are highlighted below:

“Federal investment in research amounted to about $20 billion in FY 1989 or about 5% of the overall Federal Government purchases of goods and services... These expenditures flow through more than thirty Federal agencies, and support hundreds of public and private sector research performing organizations.”

“Overall, academic research funding by six civilian agencies [NASA, DOE, NSF, EPA, USDA, NIH] grew 36 percent (in FY 1989 dollars), or 3.4 percent annually, from 1980 to 1989.”

“At $3.7 billion in FY 1989, individual investigators continued to receive the largest share (51 percent) of research support from the six civilian Federal agencies participating in [the] study. Of the remaining $3.6 billion, more than half, $2.2 billion, went to research teams. Funding for major facilities was $0.4 billion.”

“Over the 1980-1989 period funding [by the six agencies], in constant 1989 dollars, grew for individual investigators by $0.7 billion, for research teams by $0.8 billion, for research centers by $0.2 billion, and for major facilities by $0.2 billion.”

“The share of research funds [from the six agencies] going to individual investigators has declined over the decade from 56 percent to 51 percent. In contrast, increases in shares were evident among research teams and major facilities. These modes received 31 percent and 6 percent, respectively, of academic research dollars in FY 1989, up from 27 percent and less than 4 percent ten years earlier.”

“Although funding for thematic research and disciplinary support are the primary areas financed by [the six] Federal agencies, their shares of total research funding have declined slightly as a result of increased funding for instrumentation (exclusive of facilities). Between FY 1980 and FY 1989, funding in instrumentation more than doubled from $65 million to almost $158 million. In FY 1989, instrumentation accounted for 2.8 percent of academic research support.”

“The decade of the eighties was difficult for the major federal government laboratories. Funding of basic and applied civilian research ended the decade at a total level just equal to the funding in 1980.”

“Federal laboratories performed approximately $5.1 billion of non-defense research supported by the Federal government in 1989, or about 20% of all federally supported non-defense research.”

“In 1989, nearly 75% of the large $1.6 billion for research in physical science [at federal labs] was in DOE laboratories. High energy physics, nuclear physics, and basic energy sciences are important elements of the DOE programs. Total physical science research was up by 15% from 1980 to 1989 (an average growth rate of 1.5% per year.)”

Agency Perspectives:

DOE: “The overall trend has been away from engineering, directed, and thematic research towards fundamental, disciplinary support. Physical sciences research became the largest science area, surpassing engineering research, and increasing by 21% in 1989 dollars.”

“DOE support for non-defense research has dropped in 1989 dollars from $3 billion in 1980 to about $2.2 billion in 1986, and has recovered partially to $2.47 billion in 1989. The percentage of total support going to universities and colleges has grown during the decade, rising from 17% in 1980 to 23% in 1989. Total academic funding, at $561 million in 1989, is 11% above the level in 1980 in terms of 1989 dollars.”

NASA: “NASA funding of university research increased faster than overall agency research funding during the 1980’s, with most of this growth occurring in the latter part of the decade. After adjusting for inflation, this category of funding increased by nearly 80 percent between FY 1981 and FY 1989. Overall agency funding of research increased by 50 percent during the same period. At the end of the period, universities/colleges received about 22 percent of research funding compared to 18 percent in FY 1981 and 16 percent in FY 1983.”

“In terms of distribution by discipline, the leading fields are engineering (41 percent), physical sciences (25 percent) and environmental sciences (17 percent) which together accounted for 83 percent of all NASA-sponsored research in FY 1989. Math and computer sciences (7 percent) and life sciences (4 percent) account for most of the balance. The percentage distributions among these disciplines is relatively stable across the four years examined in this study.”

NSF: “Support for individual investigators has always been a dominant factor in NSF activity. It became the dominant mode of support in the early 1970’s and has remained so ever since. Facilities have averaged about 15 percent of NSF research spending since 1957, contracting during times of tight budgets and expanding again when funding is eased. Group or team research has averaged about 10 percent of the research budget on average, but such research consumed a larger share of the budget during the 1970’s than today. Lastly, centers have been a very small and constant feature of the budget for two decades; they show large percentage but small dollar growth in the 1985 to 1989 period.”

“From 1980 to 1989, fundamental research support at NSF doubled in terms of current dollars and increased by 31 percent in constant 1989 dollars. All disciplinary areas received significant increases with the exception of social and behavioral sciences.”