Science Employment
Benefits from 2003 Federal Budget
Corinne A. Marasco
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On February 4, President Bush sent Congress a
$2.13 trillion budget for Fiscal Year 2003 (FY03)
which brings good news for the nation's scientists:
Uncle Sam wants YOU.
The FY03 budget is 431 pages long (not including
the appendices) and for the first time, it has
a slick new cover and is printed on glossy paper
with color and photographs. Making sense of the
graphs, tables, and columns of numbers prose is
a challenge. But one important fact emerges: a
massive influx of government dollars will be coming
to science and, presumably, to science employment
within the next year. A closer look at these new
levels of funding and the institutions and initiatives
they will support provides provocative clues to
which types of employment opportunities
may soon be available where.
In this year's State of the Union address, the
President outlined the Administration's three
primary goals:
- Winning the war on terrorism;
- Homeland security; and
- Restoring economic growth.
Clearly, the Administration believes that science
and technology will be the engine that drives
each of these goals-the total federal investment
in R&D requested for FY03 is a record $111.8
billion, up 8.3% over FY02. Here are some highlights
of what the new budget means for science and scientific
employment.
Research & Development
Nearly the entire FY03 budget increase would
go just to the Department of Defense (DOD) and
the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The proposed
increase for DOD is $5.4 billion and $3.9 billion
for NIH. Nondefense R&D would increase nearly
8%, or $3.8 billion, to $53.2 billion. NIH makes
up almost half of the entire nondefense R&D
budget; other agencies receiving smaller increases
are the Veterans Administration (VA), Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), NASA, and National Science
Foundation (NSF).
Basic research in FY03 would grow 8.5% or $2.0
billion to $25.5 billion. Basic research at NIH
would go up nearly 10% because of a new emphasis
on applied research on cancer and bioterrorism.
The total FY03 budget submitted for NIH is up
16% to $25.7 billion. This increase for NIH is
responsible for most of the increase in the total
federal investment in basic and applied research
($51.8 billion). Excluding NIH, total federal
research would be $26.1 billion in FY03.
Multi-Agency Initiatives
There are three major national initiatives that
would receive increases in FY03.
Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology
Initiative - This started out under the Clinton
Administration as the National
Nanotechnology Initiative. The goals include
facilitating interagency collaboration for nanoscale
R&D and providing a framework for establishing
federal R&D priorities and budget. The participating
departments and independent agencies are the Department
of Agriculture (USDA), Department of Commerce
(DOC), National Institute for Science and Technology
(NIST), DOD, Department of Energy (DOE), Department
of Justice (DOJ), CIA, Department of Transportation
(DOT), Department of Treasury (DOTreas), Department
of State (DOS), EPA, NASA, NIH, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC), and NSF. The requested budget
increase for this initiative in FY03 is $100 million,
17.3%, to $679 million.
Networking and Information Technology R&D
Initiative - Formerly known as the Information
Technology for the Twenty-First Century (IT2)
initiative, this initiative has three components:
(1) fundamental information technology research;
(2) advanced computing for science, engineering
and the nation as a whole; and (3) research on
the economic and social impact of the information
revolution. As NSF has strong programs in all
three areas, it is the lead agency and will continue
its lead role. The budget for this initiative
would increase 2.5% to $1.9 billion. NSF's contribution
in this area is primarily through the Computer
and Information Science and Engineering (CISE)
directorate.
US Global Change
Research Program - This program works with
research institutions in the US and abroad to
improve scientific knowledge of global climate
changes and to understand how those changes affect
humans and the environment. The program's budget
would increase 5% to $1.8 billion, with NASA's
Earth Science program providing most of the funding.
The proposed budget also includes $40 million
in new funds for the Climate Change Research Initiative
(CCRI), which funds fundamental research in climate
science.
NIH and DOD Funding Highlights
NIH. As NIH's lead institute for bioterrorism
R&D and a key part of the Administration's
homeland security request, the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
is the biggest beneficiary and would receive $4.0
billion under the FY03 budget. NIAID is also the
lead institute in AIDS research, which would increase
to $2.8 billion. Other funding priorities highlighted
in the budget are:
- Cancer - Cancer research would receive $5.5
billion; $4.7 billion would go to the National
Cancer Institute (NCI).
- Buildings and Facilities - This budget would
nearly double to $633 million; the funds would
go to improving NIH laboratory security, building
new facilities for bioterrorism research, and
finishing construction of NIH's new Neuroscience
Research Center.
DOD. After a record increase of $7 billion
in FY02, DOD would receive a $5 billion increase
in FY03 to a $54.6 billion R&D budget. Most
of the increase would not go to research, rather,
but to developing weapons systems. Despite the
record budgetary increases, basic and applied
research in DOD remains flat and in fact, DOD
S&T would drop 2% to $9.7 billion. The Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
would gain a 19.2% increase to $2.7 billion. DARPA
is a central research and development organization
for DOD. According to its Web site, DARPA manages
and directs selected basic and applied research
and development projects for DOD, and pursues
research and technology where risk and payoff
are both very high and where success may provide
dramatic advances for traditional military roles
and missions. The increase for DARPA includes
a 23% increase for Defense Research Sciences,
which includes DARPA's basic research portfolio.
OTHER FUNDING HIGHLIGHTS IN BRIEF
The NSF
budget would increase 5% to $5 billion and
NSF R&D would be $3.7 billion, up 3.6%. In
the Mathematics and Physical Sciences directorate,
chemistry, physics, and astronomy budgets would
decline while the mathematics budget would increase
20%.
NASA's
total budget would increase 1.4% to $15.1
billion. NASA's R&D gets the lion's share
of that budget, $10.1 billion, up 5.3%. While
spending on Human Space Flight would decline,
R&D in Science, Aeronautics and Technology
would go up to about $9 billion. Space Science
funding would also go up to $3.4 billion.
The Department
of Energy (DOE) R&D budget would fall
8% to $8.5 billion. Funding for the Office of
Science stays the same at $3.3 billion but most
programs would receive increases.
The total budget request for NIST
was $577.5 million and is directed toward three
areas: $402.2 million for Scientific and Technical
Research and Services (STRS), including funding
for the NIST laboratories and the Baldrige National
Quality Program; $120.8 million for technology
development and industrial outreach under Industrial
Technology Services (ITS); and $54.5 million under
the Construction of Research Facilities (CRF),
which includes construction at NIST's Boulder,
CO laboratories and the final lab-by-lab design
of, the installation/extension of mechanical and
electrical services for, and the relocation into
the Advanced Measurement Laboratory.
Total R&D at the Department
of Interior would decline nearly 5% to $628
million but the US Geological Survey (USGS) R&D
drops 7% to $542 million. Affected programs would
be in Water Resources, which provide data and
information to state and federal regulatory agencies
such as EPA.
Most of the 6.2% increase in EPA's
R&D budget to $650 million comes from
the nearly $78 million allocated for research
in homeland security that includes chemical and
biological incidents.
Next Steps
The next steps in the budget process are for
Congress to review the President's budget, develop
its own budget, and approve spending and revenue
bills. Congress will pass a budget resolution,
which is the framework in which it will make decisions
about spending and taxes. Ideally, the budget
for 13 separate appropriations bills will be finalized
before the start of the 2003 fiscal year, which
begins October 1, 2002. In reality, that usually
doesn't happen given the scores of committee and
subcommittee hearings that take place, negotiations
with the White House, and other events that delay
the final budget. A Continuing Resolution is usually
passed to provide funding to avoid a government
shutdown in the interim until the appropriation
bills are enacted into law.
Hiring Needs
So what does the new budget mean for scientists
and federal employment? Well, the greatest opportunities
are to be found in health-related jobs and in
nanotechnology to improve our competitiveness
in science and technology. Health-related opportunities
generally require an academic background in chemistry
or a health or pertinent science (e.g. biochemistry,
molecular biology, microbiology, virology, etc.)
allied to health or health-related research, depending
on the position description. Nanotechnology crosses
many fields and will require the talents of biochemists,
bioengineers, chemists, chemical engineers, electrical
engineers, materials scientists and engineers,
molecular biotechnologists, physicists, and physiologists
and biophysicists.
Many of the new opportunities arising from the
budget increases would support related employment
in academia and at government-sponsored laboratories,
through research grants. Additional opportunities
would be generated in the private sector, as government
contractors win contracts to conduct specific
R&D projects. There will also be a number
of new opportunities working directly for the
government in agencies and laboratories. According
to Government
Executive magazine, the federal government
is expected to increase its non-defense workforce
overall by 8%, or 85,000 workers, over the next
two years, as a result of September 11th.
The cloud in the silver lining is the federal
hiring process, which can be slow. Like private
industry, the federal government allows applicants
to apply directly for federal jobs but it can
take as long as six months to hire someone in
the government. The voluminous SF-171 form that
all federal applicants used to have to complete
has been replaced by the OF-612. All job applicants
are evaluated based on their work experience and
education. Those applicants who are rated eligible
are then ranked against all applicants; the best-qualified
applications are then forwarded to the hiring
official who decides which applicants will be
interviewed. It is critical that applicants include
all the information required in the vacancy announcement;
otherwise the personnel specialist will rate them
ineligible for the position. There are plans to
improve recruitment and hiring practices in the
government but movement on this front is slow
because both Congress and the President must come
to an agreement.
Government pay tends to be less than in the private
sector. Could you earn more working for Lucent
or Procter & Gamble than the government? Sure.
However, government jobs offer good benefits,
pensions, decent health benefits, and, best of
all, security. Federal jobs are stable and not
as susceptible to economic swings as private sector
jobs are so you can always count on a paycheck.
Given the new emphasis on homeland security and
countering terrorism, the opportunity to do important
work that has an impact can outweigh the salary
differential.
Where can you find these jobs? If you're interested
in searching for jobs across all agencies, you
can visit Fedworld's
search page or go right to the Office of Personnel
Management's service, USAJobs.
If you're interested in working for a particular
agency, many agencies maintain their own job Web
sites so you can target a specific agency that
interests you.
The federal government is the nation's largest
employer and is projected grow even larger under
the proposed budget. The unknown in the equation
is whether this budget will actually be passed
as is and chances are, Congress will insist on
changes before the budget is finalized. Stay tuned.
Corinne Marasco is JobSpectrum's Content Manager.
Related Resources
The American Association for the Advancement
of Science has issued a
preliminary analysis of R&D in the proposed
FY03 budget.
US News & World Report's Career Guide 2002
issue (February 18, 2002) features a cover story
on Uncle
Sam as the employer of choice for many.
The Washington Post's Federal
Page keeps tabs on issues affecting the federal
workforce and news for federal workers.
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