Evaluate and consolidate the federal civilian research footprint

Not started

Printed page 686 21. Department of Commerce

“An incoming Administration should evaluate the federal government’s civilian research footprint and consolidate those functions while ensuring that any research conducted with taxpayer dollars serves the national interest in a concrete way in line with conservative principles.”

What has happened

Aug 31, 2026 Not started
Nothing found. No government-wide evaluation of the federal civilian research footprint was commissioned or published, and no consolidation of civilian research functions was ordered. Civilian research was cut rather than consolidated: the FY2027 Budget takes $993 million from NIST, $1.6 billion from NOAA operations, research and grants, and terminates named programs — reductions to a footprint, not a redesign of it.
- Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2027 — Department of Commerce
  Primary Executive branch Apr 1, 2026

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Negative search: presidential-actions.ndjson and fr-presdocu.ndjson for research + consolidat (EO 14303 Restoring Gold Standard Science, 2025-05-23, directs how agencies produce and use science but orders no consolidation; the AI orders 14179, 14277, 14355, 14365 and 14409 direct research priorities, not structure); Federal Register full text since 2025-01-20 for "federal laboratories" consolidation and "research footprint" (0); and the OMB memoranda index at whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/guidance/memoranda/ (M-25-10 through M-26-17), which carries no civilian-research consolidation memorandum.

§3b: progress is measured on this ask. Cutting research budgets is not evaluating and consolidating the research footprint, so the budget document sits on the not started event as context.

Action: eliminate
Object: federal civilian research footprint
ID: 1907