While reducing government investment in scientific research and development may seem like a quick fix to help close the budget deficit, it poses long-term risks to national progress, public welfare, and global leadership. It is not an act of fiscal prudence, but rather a disinvestment in our future. As ITIF has previously written, a 20 percent cut in federal R&D spending would cost the American economy nearly $1.5 trillion. Scientific breakthroughs require sustained funding and long-term orientation. Unlike the private sector, governments have the capacity, scale, and obligation to invest in knowledge, even if it takes years or decades to yield benefits. According to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, the federal government has long been the primary source of funding for basic research in the United States. With that in mind, the U.S. government should increase funds allocated to such efforts so as not to cede global leadership in this area.
In the development of novel technologies, publicly funded science frequently catalyzes subsequent innovation in the private sector. According to the European Research Council, over 40 percent of government-backed projects were cited in patents, illustrating this pipeline. The public sector serves to mitigate financial risk in early work so that companies can subsequently improve, scale, and commercialize it—creating jobs and improving lives.
For example, the Internet did not originate in Silicon Valley, but rather in the U.S. Department of Defense. In the 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA) developed a pioneering network called ARPANET, designed to maintain communication during a nuclear event. At the time, no company saw the potential in networking mainframe computers, but because of government research efforts, what evolved is the Internet we know today. GPS technology, which now underpins entire industries—shipping, agriculture, transportation apps like Uber, delivery apps like DoorDash, satellite weather forecasting, global communication systems, and many others—also traces back to federally funded science programs.
Perhaps no example in recent times is more powerful than the development of mRNA vaccine technology. The rapid deployment of COVID-19 vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna was the culmination of decades of foundational research by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH scientists were working on RNA-based therapeutics and lipid nanoparticle delivery systems in the early 2000s. When the pandemic struck, researchers at private companies were able to quickly build upon that groundwork, producing the vaccines that saved millions of lives and reopened the global economy. According to the 2022 State of Science Index, nearly 60 percent of adult Americans became more appreciative of science as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic….
Full story: Government Funding: The Unsung Hero of Innovation and Progress | ITIF
