Defense Research Cut in Final FY25 Budget

The funding legislation enacted last week cuts R&D and testing programs at the Department of Defense by almost 5% to $141 billion for fiscal year 2025, setting the stage for reductions to basic and applied research funding at the department.

Although the legislation maintains most science agencies’ budgets at or near the levels from the previous fiscal year, it does not carry over congressionally directed spending, or “adds,” which have tacked on billions of dollars for DOD research over the past decade.

Funding for science and technology programs at DOD grew from about $13 billion in 2017 to $22 billion in 2023 before falling slightly to $21.5 billion in 2024. Congressional adds have been the principal source of those increases, as DOD routinely requested cuts to the S&T budget during that same period, in some cases by double digit percentages. The S&T portfolio is a subset of DOD’s Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) budget and consists of basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development programs.

“Congress appears to have provided the Pentagon pretty significant latitude on how they’re going to spend the roughly $141 billion in RDT&E,” said John Latini, co-chair of the Coalition for National Security Research, which advocates for S&T programs at DOD. The legislation specifies total amounts for RDT&E across the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Space Force but does not specify any amounts for RDT&E sub-categories.

Latini said he finds it “hard to believe” that the current funding situation will result in DOD prioritizing its S&T programs, given its history of requesting cuts. For FY25, the department proposed to cut basic research by 6.7% to $2.5 billion and applied research by 23.7% to $5.8 billion.

Furthermore, the appropriated funding levels for RDT&E still fall short of DOD’s FY25 budget request by almost $2 billion dollars. “They’ll have to make cuts relative to what they had asked for in the first place. So I don’t know how they’ll come up with that,” Latini said. “But given that there does not seem to be a lot of support for basic research or applied research in the Pentagon, I would not be surprised if early-stage research takes a disproportionate hit,” he added.

Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the department would redirect 8%, roughly $50 billion, of its current budget from “nonlethal programs” to other priority areas. Earlier this month, DOD eliminated its social science research program, and Hegseth announced yesterday that the department would cut $360 million in grants for research and other efforts “not aligned with DOD priorities,” including “in areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion and related social programs; climate change; social science; COVID-19 pandemic response; and other areas.”

The Republican chairs of the defense appropriations subcommittees have sent detailed funding tables to Hegseth that describe how they believe the appropriated funding should be spent. However, these tables were not attached to the final legislation that Congress passed, so they may not be legally binding. For DOD basic resesarch, the tables only include $2.4 billion, which would represent a rollback to pre-2019 levels.