US science funding since 1963

One way to get some great data on US science funding is to sign up for the National Science Foundation’s email notifications.  In addition to announcements on funding opportunities you get notifications on the publication of a wide range of funding reports.  I received one this morning titled “Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions: FY2013“.  It caught my eye because it ties in with this recent post on the balance between public and private R&D funding.

The best thing about this report is not that it provides R&D spending (as allocated to entities that are not federal agencies) for 2013, but that it provides a breakdown for all years since 1963.  It’s a great opportunity to get a little historical perspective on federal science spending.  Here’s a plot of federal R&D dollars since 1963.  Federal science spending seems to increase since 1963, reaching a maximum in 2009 (the “stimulus” year).

Of course the dollar has been decreasing in value since 1963 due to inflation. What does the curve look like if this is taken into account?  To say that I’m no economist is a profound understatement, but I found a handy calculator for estimating the buying power of the dollar for a given year on the website of the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.  In 1963, for example, the dollar was worth $7.61 in 2013 dollars.  A third degree polynomial fits to the values for 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003, and 2013 pretty well (yes it would have been entirely realistic to look up the values for each year, but why do that when you can fit a curve?):

It looks like inflation was pretty steep in the 1960s and 70s and has really slowed since 2000.  I listen to Marketplace more days than not, so I feel like I should have a better understanding of why that is…

Taking the purchasing power of the dollar into account we get a slightly different view of federal R&D spending since 1963.

This surprised me a bit.  It suggests that in 1963, at the start of the space race, the federal government was investing roughly 10 billion (2013) dollars per year in R&D.  There were some downs, but overall that amount increased dramatically to just over 40 billion dollars in 2009, followed by a precipitous decrease to somewhere in the neighborhood of 34 billion dollars.  What this plot doesn’t show, however, is the breakdown by agency.  I didn’t make a plot showing this, but let’s consider allocations by Health and Human Services (almost all through NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).  In 1963 NSF allocated 256.3 million dollars to colleges, universities, institutes, etc.  That’s 1.95 billion in 2013 dollars.  In 2013 it allocated 4.91 billion, a 2.51 fold increase.  Health and Human Services (i.e. NIH), by contrast, allocated 4.42 billion in 2013 dollars in 1963.  In 2013 it allocated 16.00 billion dollars, a 3.61 fold increase.

Depending on who you are, that may or may not have any emotional impact.  First, it would seem that science funding is more or less increasing, except for the last few years.  Second, the increase in basic research (NSF allocations) might be lagging behind the increase in medical research (Health and Human Services), but it’s still increasing.

Considering the first point first.  I wanted to consider the increases and decreases in the context of GDP which, despite turbulent times in every decade since the 60’s (the oil crisis, the stock market crash, the dot-com bubble, 9/11, the great recession – is that a thing yet?, to name a few), has increased in every year except 2009.  There was a minor hiccup in 2009 but things recovered rapidly.  Considering federal R&D spending as a percent of GDP reveals a pretty surprising trend…

…there really is no trend!  Things have wobbled around a mean value of 0.20 %.  We’re actually down quite a bit since 1963, somewhere around 0.17 or 0.18 % of GDP.  What’s the take away?  From personal experience I know what 2009 felt like, when the nation invested 0.25 % of GDP on public sector R&D, and what 0.17 % felt like (read; feels like).  That 0.08 % makes a really big difference in scientific advancement, jobs, education and quality of life.  I think 0.25 % is a good goal to strive for.

To return very briefly to point #2 raised earlier, with respect to the 3.61 fold increase in allocations by Health and Human Services.  In no way do I disparage that increase in funding for my colleagues underneath the NIH funding umbrella.  They work extremely hard for limited funds, and are making huge strides in solving tough and essential medical problems.  I think it’s a mistake, however, to assume that we can achieve a strong and healthy society primarily through investment in the kind of research that NIH is focused on.  From a societal perspective NIH is focused on treating the symptoms of society’s ills; groundwater contamination or UV exposure gives you cancer, NIH funded research provides you a medical solution (hopefully).  The other federal agencies allocate funds to research that addresses the core causes, somewhere far upstream of NIH.  This is much less sexy, and much less appealing to congress, but arguably more important.  With the ozone layer recovered, hydrology better understood, and better alternatives to some nasty chemicals, for example, perhaps fewer people would need what NIH can provide.  Again, that’s no argument against medical research, just a request that we acknowledge that it isn’t the whole solution.  Maybe we can achieve that 3.61 fold increase for all R&D spending.