National Science Foundation Funding Outlook: In a Word, Dim

Thomas Cooley, the CFO and Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Budget, Finance and Award Management, presented an overview of the NSF research funding outlook at Seton Hall University in early November. His talking points can be found on the NSF website or here in PDF format. While it's difficult to fill in all of the blanks between his bullet points, the main point is summarized on one slide: "The future is dimly lit and for R&D the future may be dim." Thanks to the war effort, Homeland Security costs, and the recent Hurricane Katrina disaster, funding for scientific research and NSF in particular is getting harder to come by. As you can see in Cooley's nifty little pie chart, nearly half of the $820 billion in discretionary funds went to defense. See that little tiny white sliver? (We circled it in red to make it easier to find.) That's the budget for the newly combined Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations, of which NSF is just one, yet smaller, $5.65 billion sliver. Are you worried yet? Scientists, don't despair, you just need to move to a better place in Nature's Harmonious Money Cycle.