The Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy have issued a memorandum directing federal agencies to focus on five research-and-development priorities as they draft their proposed budgets for fiscal year 2021.
According to the White House memo released Friday, the five R&D priorities are security, U.S. leadership in industries of the future, energy and environmental leadership, health and bioeconomic innovation, and space exploration and commercialization.
To achieve leadership in industries of the future, the Trump administration calls on departments and agencies to boost investments in artificial intelligence, quantum information science, advanced communications networks and autonomy as well as advanced manufacturing.
The document also describes five crosscutting actions federal agencies should implement to maintain the country’s leadership in science and technology and one is to develop and leverage a diverse, highly skilled U.S. workforce.
The other four actions are creating and supporting research environments that reflect American values, backing transformative research of high risk and potentially high reward, leveraging the power of data; and building, strengthening and expanding strategic multisector partnerships.
