On July 31, 2018, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) jointly issued a memorandum outlining the Trump Administration’s research and development (R&D) “priorities” for fiscal year (FY) 2020. The memorandum is intended to “provide[] guidance to [federal] agencies as they formulate their FY2020 budget submissions.”
The memorandum indicates that federal R&D funding should be “focused primarily on basic and early-stage applied research.” It identifies eight “R&D Priority Areas” as follows:
- security of the American people;
- American leadership in artificial intelligence, quantum information sciences, and strategic computing;
- American connectivity and autonomy;
- American manufacturing;
- American space exploration and commercialization;
- American energy dominance;
- American medical innovation; and
- American agriculture.
Notably absent from the memorandum is any discussion of climate change. This is a marked departure from previous versions, issued during the Obama Administration, which identified “global climate change” as a key R&D priority. Climate change was not, however, discussed in the Trump Administration’s budget priorities memorandum for FY2019.