	Introduction

The 115 th Congress continues its interest in U.S. research and development (R&D) and in evaluating support for federal R&D activities. The federal R&D budget is an aggregation of the R&D activities of each federal agency. Congress plays a central role in defining the nation's R&D priorities as it makes decisions about the level and allocation of R&D funding—overall, within agencies, and for specific programs. As Congress acts to complete the FY2018 appropriations process, it faces two overarching issues: the extent to which federal R&D investments can be made in the face of increased pressure on discretionary spending and the prioritization and allocation of the available funding. Budget caps may limit overall R&D funding and may require movement of resources across disciplines, programs, or agencies to address priorities. This report begins with a discussion of the overall level of President Trump's FY2018 R&D request, followed by analyses of the R&D funding request from a variety of perspectives and for selected multiagency R&D initiatives. For FY2018, the Trump Administration is using a new definition for development ("experimental development"), drawn up in 2016 by the Obama Administration (see box entitled "Caveats With Respect to Analysis of the FY2018 Budget Request" for a more detailed explanation) in its R&D calculations. Under the new definition, President Trump is proposing $117.697 billion for R&D. Adjusting this figure to include an additional $33.547 billion of development funding that is being requested for DOD and NASA but not counted in the President's budget under the experimental development definition, the President's request is $151.244 billion, an increase of $2.942 billion (2.0%) over the comparable FY2016 level. Adjusted for inflation, the President's FY2018 adjusted R&D request represents a constant dollar decrease of 1.9% from the FY2016 actual level. Under President Trump's FY2018 budget request, eight federal agencies would receive more than 96% of total federal R&D funding: the Department of Defense (DOD), 45.4%; Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) (primarily the National Institutes of Health [NIH]), 22.2%; Department of Energy (DOE), 11.4%; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 8.8%; National Science Foundation (NSF), 4.6%; Department of Agriculture (USDA), 1.7%; Department of Commerce (DOC), 1.3%; and Veterans Affairs (VA), 1.2%. Global Change Research Program. President Trump's FY2018 budget is largely silent on funding levels for these efforts and whether some or all of the non-statutory initiatives will continue. Some activities related to these initiatives are discussed in agency budget justifications and may be included in the agencies' analyses in this report. Other Initiatives

Presidential initiatives without statutory foundations in operation at the end of the Obama Administration, but not explicitly addressed in President Trump's FY2018 budget, include: the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (including the National Robotics Initiative [NRI] and the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation [NNMI]), the Cancer Moonshot, the BRAIN Initiative, the Precision Medicine Initiative, the Materials Genome Initiative, and an effort to doubling federal funding for clean energy R&D. Consequently, R&D data presented in the agency analyses in this report may differ from R&D data in the president's budget or otherwise provided by OMB. For FY2018, $5.370 billion is requested for R&D activities, a 10.8% decrease from FY2016 actual funding for R&D of $6.022 million. Research . The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program would receive $1.062 billion, a decrease of $157 million (12.9%). U.S. Geological Survey

The USGS accounts for more than two-thirds of all DOI R&D funding.
President Trump's budget request for FY2018 includes $117.697 billion for research and development (R&D). This represents a $30.605 billion (20.6%) decrease from the FY2016 actual level of $148.302 billion (FY2017 enacted levels were not available at the time of publication). Adjusted for inflation, the President's FY2018 R&D request represents a constant dollar decrease of 23.6% from the FY2016 actual level.
However, in 2016 the Office of Management and Budget changed the definition used for "development" to "experimental development." This new definition was used in calculating R&D in the FY2018 budget, but no adjustments were made to data reported for FY2016 or FY2017 data to reflect the new definition. OMB asserts that the definitional change results in the exclusion of $33.547 billion from FY2018 requested R&D funding (DOD and NASA) that would have been included in previous years. According to OMB, these funds are being requested in the FY2018 budget, but no longer classified as R&D. Thus, applying the prior definition for R&D, aggregate federal R&D in the Trump Administration's budget for FY2018 would represent a $2.942 billion (2.0%) increase over FY2016; in constant dollars, federal R&D would be down $2.837 billion, or 1.9%. The DOD and VA would receive increased R&D funding for FY2018. The other major federal R&D funding agencies would see their R&D budgets reduced under the President's budget.
The request represents the President's R&D priorities; Congress may opt to agree with none, part, or all of the request, and it may express different priorities through the appropriations process. In particular, Congress will play a central role in determining the allocation of the federal R&D investment in a period of intense pressure on discretionary spending. Budget caps may limit overall R&D funding and may require movement of resources across disciplines, programs, or agencies to address priorities.
Funding for R&D is concentrated in a few departments and agencies. Under President Trump's FY2018 budget request, eight federal agencies would receive 96.5% of total federal R&D funding, with the Department of Defense (45.4%) and the Department of Health and Human Services (22.2%) combined accounting for more than two-thirds of all federal R&D funding.
President's Trump's FY2018 budget is largely silent on funding levels for a number of multiagency R&D initiatives in President Obama's FY2017 request, including the National Nanotechnology Initiative, Networking and Information Technology Research and Development program, U.S. Global Change Research Program, Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) initiative, Precision Medicine Initiative, Cancer Moonshot, Materials Genome Initiative, National Robotics Initiative, and National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. However, some activities supporting these initiatives are discussed in agency budget justifications and reported in the agency analyses in this report.
In recent years, Congress has completed the annual appropriations process after the start of the fiscal year. Failure to complete the process by the start of the fiscal year and the accompanying use of continuing resolutions can affect agencies' execution of their R&D budgets, including the delay or cancellation of planned R&D activities and the acquisition of R&D-related equipment.