2. Executive Office of the President · Notable
Narrow the Industries of the Future R&D priorities
Printed page 59 2. Executive Office of the President
“Under President Biden, this list has been expanded to include advanced materials, robotics, battery technology, cybersecurity, green products and clean technology, plant genetics and agricultural technologies, nanotechnology, and semiconductor and microelectronics technologies. These priorities should be evaluated and narrowed to ensure consistency with the next Administration's priorities.”
What has happened
- Done
The FY2028 memorandum keeps the narrowed list and narrows the framing further, directing agencies to rebalance portfolios "toward foundational research and the physical sciences and engineering" and naming frontier artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and advanced nuclear fission and fusion as the technologies that matter. Climate again appears nowhere.
- Done
The priorities were evaluated and cut back to five. The FY2027 research and development priorities memorandum, signed jointly by the OMB and OSTP Directors, says the point outright: "following years of unfocused Federal investments weighed down by woke ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, we are realigning the Federal R&D portfolio to serve its core purposes", and directs federally funded R&D to "targeted, transformational investments in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum science, nuclear energy, biotechnology, national security technologies, and ambitious space exploration." The expanded list the Quote objects to is gone: the word climate does not appear in the memorandum at all, and green products and clean technology, battery technology, plant genetics and agricultural technologies are not among the priorities.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Both memoranda read in full. Neither uses the phrase “Industries of the Future”, which is itself part of the finding: the framing the Quote names has been replaced rather than edited.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- Industries of the Future R&D funding priorities
- ID
- 79