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National Science Foundation FY 2003 Budget Request
February 2002
The National Science Foundation's budget request for
fiscal 2003 aims to keep the nation's science and
engineering enterprise healthy, dynamic and relevant.
A nation strong in science and technology can respond
rapidly and effectively to crises and changing national
circumstances.
FY 2003 BUDGET REQUEST. $5.04 billion,
an increase of $240 million (5%) over fiscal 2002.
(See budget summary
for more details.)
BY APPROPRIATION. Funding levels in the
fiscal 2003 request for NSF's five appropriation accounts
are as follows:
- Research and Related Activities:
$3.78 billion (5.1% over FY 02)
- Education and Human Resources: $908
million (3.8% over FY 02)
- Major Research Equipment: $126 million
(9% under FY 02)
- Salaries and Expenses: $210 million
(19.1% over FY 02)
- Office of Inspector General: $8 million
(14.5% over FY 02)
BY STRATEGIC GOALS. The budget request
is structured around the three goals of the NSF strategic
plan:
- People: to build a world-class science
and engineering workforce ($1.1 billion)
- Ideas: to generate new knowledge
across the frontiers of science and engineering
($2.6 billion)
- Tools: to get the job done efficiently
and effectively ($1.1 billion)
BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS. The request builds
on NSF's strength as the only federal agency devoted
to promoting basic research and education at all levels
and across all fields of science and engineering.
Highlights:
- Graduate Stipend Increase
- increase annual stipends in the Graduate Research
Fellows, Graduate Teaching Fellowships in K-12
Education, and Integrative Graduate Education
and Research Traineeship (IGERT) programs. Continuing
the plan for gradual increases initiated in fiscal
2002, stipends will rise from $21,500 to $25,000
for academic year 2003-2004. (Approx. $37 million)
- Math and Science Partnership (MSP)
- second year of a five-year investment to ensure
that all preK-12 students have the opportunity
to realize their full potential. ($200 million)
[See
separate fact sheet]
- Climate Change Research Initiative
- part of the Administration's new multi-agency
initiative, aims to advance understanding in highly
focused areas of climate science, to reduce uncertainty,
and to facilitate policy decisions. ($15 million)
PRIORITY RESEARCH AREAS. In addition
to a balanced portfolio of core investments, NSF identifies
and supports emerging opportunities that hold exceptional
promise to advance knowledge. These areas are:
- Mathematical Sciences - building
on fiscal 2002's seed funding, seeks to integrate
mathematics and statistics research and education
across the range of disciplines; aims to complement
the Math and Science Partnership program by improving
mathematical sciences education and training.
($60 million) [See
separate fact sheet]
- Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
(SBE) - seed funding to explore complex interactions
among society, its institutions, and technology,
supporting both individual grants and interdisciplinary
centers. ($10 million)
- Biocomplexity in the Environment
- in its fourth year, investigates interdependencies
of natural and human systems at all scales. ($79
million, 36% over FY02)
- Information Technology Research
- in its fourth year, exploits and deepens fundamental
research at the interface between fields and disciplines;
explores new applications to advance research
across all fields. ($286 million, 3% over FY 02)
- Nanoscale Science and Engineering
- in its third year, emphasizes long-term, fundamental
research to discover novel phenomena, processes
and tools. ($221 million, 11.3% over FY 02)
- Learning for the 21st Century Workforce
- in its fourth year, improves our understanding
of how people learn, and applies that understanding
to workforce development, through support to new
multidisciplinary, multi-institutional Science
of Learning Centers. ($185 million, 27.5% over
FY 02)
MAJOR RESEARCH EQUIPMENT AND FACILITIES CONSTRUCTION.
In fiscal 2003, this account will fund two
new projects:
- National Ecological Observatory Network
(NEON) - to establish two prototype sites
with the goal of creating a national platform
for conducting ecological research and detecting
environmental threats. ($12 million)
- EarthScope - a distributed geophysical
array to enable major advances in our understanding
of the structure and dynamics of the North American
continent, including earthquake processes and
seismic and volcanic hazards. ($35 million)
NSF will also fund five continuing projects: Network
for Earthquake Engineering Simulation ($14 million);
Large Hadron Collider ($10 million); South Pole Station
($6 million); Atacama Large Milimeter Array (ALMA),
Phase II ($30 million); and Terascale Computing Systems
($20 million).
INCREASING MANAGEMENT EFFICIENCY - NSF's
requests $268 million (increase of $41 million, or
18.3%, over FY 02) for administration and management,
reflecting:
- doubled budget but constant staffing
since 1990
- desire to maintain customer service
standards under increasing responsibilities and
growing workload complexity
- new requirements for both IT and
physical security.
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