National Science and Technology Council

Fast-Track Action Committee on Research and Development Reporting Standards National Science and Technology Council

Virtually every analysis of U. S. scientific and technical activity uses as its foundation the data on Federal research and development (R& D) spending collected through the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) surveys of Federal agencies. The data are used by government, academia, industry, and a host of nonprofit analytical and advocacy groups as the primary source of information about Federal spending on R& D. These data are also used by Federal agencies, the White House, and Congress as the basis for making budgetary and policy decisions about the Federal R& D enterprise. As a recent National Academies (2010) report states, the data are "used to reach conclusions about important and fundamental policy questions, such as whether a given field of research is being adequately funded, whether funding is balanced among fields, whether deficiencies in funding may be contributing to a loss of U. S. scientific competitiveness, and which agencies are most important for the health of a scientific discipline."