{"id":1495,"date":"2021-09-28T11:21:08","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T15:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/capitalcurrents\/?p=1495"},"modified":"2021-09-23T11:33:55","modified_gmt":"2021-09-23T15:33:55","slug":"president-bidens-research-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ams.org\/capitalcurrents\/2021\/09\/28\/president-bidens-research-priorities\/","title":{"rendered":"President Biden\u2019s Research Priorities"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On August 27, the White House issued its research and development priorities memo (M-21-32)<\/a>. This is the Biden administration\u2019s first such memo.<\/p>\n

The memo is, as is usual, signed by the heads of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Office of Management and Budget\u2014Director Eric Lander and Acting Director Shalanda Young, respectively.<\/p>\n

These are put out annually\u2014at least have been by the past several administrations\u2014and are the first step in the annual budget process (actually, this would be \u201cstep 0\u201d if it appeared in my diagram in this budget primer<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This memo essentially tells agencies what they should include in their budget proposals for 2023. Agencies, including the NSF, will take this memo into (serious) consideration as they make their budget requests for 2023 and design future agency activities. Agency budget requests will, in turn, become part of the President\u2019s budget proposal which is due to be released in February 2022.<\/p>\n

The memo is 5 pages long. This compares to Trump\u2019s first such memo<\/a>, which was released on August 17, 2017 and ran 4 pages. Foci on emerging technologies and workforce remain; a Trump focus on military strength is gone.<\/p>\n

It lists 5 top line multi-agency priorities:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Pandemic readiness and prevention.<\/li>\n
  2. Tackling climate change\u2014this includes readiness for climate disasters, clean energy innovation, and general climate science research.<\/li>\n
  3. Catalyze research and innovation in critical and emerging technologies\u2014AI, quantum information science, advanced communications technologies, microelectronics, high-performance computing, biotechnology, robotics, and space technologies. This priority, in particular, has carried over from Trump\u2019s priorities.<\/li>\n
  4. Innovation for equity\u2014part of Biden\u2019s whole-of-Government equity agenda and suggests steps to improve diversity and equity in the research workforce.<\/li>\n
  5. National security and economic resilience\u2014prioritizes reduction of catastrophic biological, nuclear, and cyber risks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A few other observations:<\/p>\n