Presidential science adviser John Holdren had lots to tout in

highlighting Obama's 2011 budget request.

Below is a lightly edited version of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's analysis of US President Barack Obama's R&D budget request for 2011, all figures are in US dollars.

President Obama released his proposed budget for FY 2011 on February 1. In his State of the Union address on January 27, the President announced a three-year freeze on non-security discretionary spending, and indeed such spending in the FY 2011 budget request was held below FY 2010 levels at $441 billion, $5 billion less (1.1%) than last year.

The proposed budget includes a deficit of $1.3 trillion, down from $1.6 trillion in FY 2010. The deficit is projected to decrease to $706 billion in FY 2014 before starting to climb again due primarily to mandatory spending increases, mainly for Medicare and Social Security.

The proposed budget's overall support for R&D totals $147.7 billion, essentially flat (up 0.2%) compared to FY 2010.

In terms of constant FY 2010 dollars, support for R&D would continue the slide (a 1.7% decrease) from a small peak in FY 2009, and would represent essentially flat funding (a 0.4% increase) since FY 2004 -- not including, of course, the over $18 billion in one-time R&D funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), money which was appropriated in FY 2009 and can be spent through FY 2010.

Despite the flat funding, there were significant shifts of funds within the federal R&D portfolio. Defense R&D would face a cut of $3.3 billion (3.9%) to $81.7 billion, while non-defense R&D would rise by $3.7 billion (5.9%) to $66.0 billion.
 

Many of the funding shifts echoed priorities announced by the President in his State of the Union Address, including the "need to encourage American innovation" through investments in basic research.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) laboratories all received proposed budget increases to keep these basic research agencies on their doubling tracks through 2017.

Support for NSF's R&D in FY 2011 would grow to $5.6 billion (a 9.4% increase) within a total agency budget of $7.4 billion (an 8.0% increase). Among NSF's top priorities are workforce development, next-generation information and communications technology, and innovation-based entrepreneurship.

R&D in DOE's Office of Science (OS) would increase to $4.6 billion (up 3.8%) in FY 2011 within a total OS budget of $5.1 billion (4.6% increase); and

NIST labs would receive $706 million (a 21.7% increase) for R&D in a total NIST budget of $919 million (a 7.3% increase).
 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) would continue a trend of modest but steady increases to its annual budgets (apart from the one-time $10 billion stimulus allocation), with a $1.0 billion increase (3.2%) to $32.1 billion overall.

NIH's R&D support would increase by $956 million (3.1%) to $31.4 billion.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) total budget would receive a slight increase of 1.5% to $19.0 billion, but the agency would undergo some significant shifts in emphasis.

The Constellation program, which is developing updated technology for manned space flight to the moon by 2020, would be cancelled. Its funding would be redirected to new programs including technology demonstration ($652 million), heavy lift and propulsion R&D ($559 million), and robotic precursor missions ($125 million).

The budget for the International Space Station would increase by $463 million to $2.8 billion (20.0%). These shifts in funding result in a proposed R&D investment of $11.0 billion for FY 2011, an 18.3% increase. They are expected to elicit intense scrutiny and no small amount of opposition from some members of Congress.