FACT SHEET: President Biden’s 2024 Budget Invests in American Science, Technology, and Innovation to Achieve Our Nation’s Greatest Aspirations
President Biden’s Budget is a smart, targeted blueprint for investing in America, our people, and our future. It includes $210 billion for federal research and development (R&D), the largest ever investment for federal R&D.
The Budget strengthens the nation’s R&D enterprise, including over $100 billion for the basic and applied research that has been a hallmark of the American innovation engine and the envy of the world. It also provides support for bold, new approaches and investments that we need to meet the challenges of our times, including at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
The President’s historic commitment to federal R&D investment is a recognition that American science, technology and innovation—and the people that fuel it—are key to achieving our nation’s great aspirations: ensuring robust health and plentiful economic opportunity for every person; tackling the climate crisis and transitioning to clean energy; investing in creating the industries of tomorrow; and advancing global security and stability.
Video of today’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) event on the President’s Budget is available here. OSTP Director Arati Prabhakar’s remarks as prepared for delivery are available here.
The President’s Budget:
- Supports new federal R&D entities to spur innovation. The Budget requests $1.2 billion for the CHIPS and Science Act-authorized Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships within NSF to help accelerate and translate scientific research into innovations, industries, and jobs. It also provides an increase of $1 billion for ARPA-H, for a total of $2.5 billion, to drive innovative health research and speed the implementation of breakthroughs that would transform the treatment, prevention, and early detection of cancer and other diseases. The Budget also includes $75 million for a new National Center for Advanced Development in Education at the Department of Education to develop and disseminate innovative, cutting-edge practices and educational tools; and $19 million to ramp up activities at the Department of Transportation’s nascent Advanced Research Projects Agency for Infrastructure (ARPA-I) to support advanced research and deployment, innovative partnerships, and technology transfer activities across all transportation sectors.
- Makes historic investments in American innovation and emerging technologies. The Budget provides $25 billion for CHIPS and Science Act-authorized activities, including $21 billion for the three primary CHIPS and Science Act agencies: NSF, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, and NIST within the Department of Commerce. The Budget includes $2 billion at NSF to help maintain America’s edge in the industries of tomorrow, including advanced manufacturing, advanced wireless, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, microelectronics and semiconductors, and quantum information science. Within DOE’s Office of Science, the Budget also supports $730 million in cutting-edge research in artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences, microelectronics, and isotope production at the national laboratories and universities. The Budget also restores American innovation in agriculture by providing more than $4 billion for agricultural research, education, and outreach.
- Makes historic investments in climate science and cutting-edge clean energy innovation. The Budget provides $16.5 billion to support climate science and clean energy innovation, proposing $5.1 billion to fund a broad portfolio of research to improve understanding of our changing climate and inform adaptation and resilience measures across multiple agencies. The Budget supports U.S. preeminence in developing innovative technologies that accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy by investing more than $11.3 billion to boost American innovation and reestablish American leadership in clean energy innovation. This includes over $4 billion in research, development, and demonstration activities across multiple agencies for game-changing technologies where transformative progress can help the U.S. reach its net-zero 2050 climate goal and support global decarbonization, including $1 billion to advance fusion energy.
- Invests in federal life sciences and biomedical research, and public health preparedness. The Budget includes a $48.6 billion investment in the National Institutes of Health, including $7.8 billion at the National Cancer Institute in support of the Cancer Moonshot and $2.5 billion at the National Institute on Mental Health to help address our mental health crisis. The Budget also includes $1 billion for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to develop innovative medical countermeasures, $400 million in new discretionary resources within the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response to prepare for pandemics and biological threats, as well as $20 billion in mandatory funding for HHS agencies to advance the Administration’s public health preparedness and biodefense priorities.
- Advances the President’s Cancer Moonshot goals. The Budget invests over $2.8 billion in direct support of the President and First Lady’s Cancer Moonshot. This total includes $1.7 billion for dedicated Moonshot activities across five agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and $1.1 billion across the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense, and Agriculture, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The Budget also includes many additional investments across the federal government that will help us make progress on the President’s goal to end cancer as we know it.
- Promotes regional technology innovation and job creation. The Budget provides $300 million for NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines program, bringing together State and local governments, institutions of higher education, labor unions, businesses, and community-based organizations across the Nation to galvanize use-inspired research, technology translation, and workforce development. The Budget also includes $50 million in discretionary funding and $4 billion in new mandatory funding for the Regional Technology and Innovation Hub Program at the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration to help foster the geographic diversity of innovation and create quality jobs in underserved and vulnerable communities across the Nation.
- Expands science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce and institutional capacity, and advances racial and gender equity in STEM. The Budget provides $1.4 billion at NSF to accelerate STEM education and workforce development, and to help ensure the U.S. science and technology workforce reflects the nation as a whole. In addition, the Budget includes $420 million at NSF to increase: the participation of historically underrepresented communities and women and girls in science and engineering fields; support for curriculum design; research on successful recruitment and retention methods; development of outreach or mentorship programs; fellowships; and science and engineering research and education capacity at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, and Minority-Serving Institutions. The Budget also includes $350 million at the Department of Education to expand research and development infrastructure at these institutions.
- Supports defense R&D and the defense technology industrial base. The Budget prioritizes defense R&D, testing, and evaluation funding to invest in breakthrough technologies that drive innovation, support capacity in the defense technology industrial base, ensure American technological leadership, and underpin the development of future defense capabilities. The Budget includes $4.4 billion for the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security.
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