Data’s Underlying Role in OMB's FY 2023 Federal R&D Priorities

Each year, OMB releases federal R&D priorities to help agencies formulate the following fiscal year’s budget submissions. The memo directs agency investment to advance U.S. science and technology discovery.

FY 2022 priorities included public health security and innovation, emerging technologies, national security, environmental and space leadership. While these past priorities do make an appearance in the FY 2023 memorandum, the latest guidance places a larger emphasis on pandemic readiness, tackling climate change, and innovation in emerging technologies, in line with the Biden Administration’s top focal areas.

Additional themes throughout the latest R&D priorities include transparency of scientific information, STEM education and engagement, economic and environmental justice, racial equity, and U.S. manufacturing and production.  

Public Health Readiness and Prevention

With the ongoing pandemic, public health R&D remains of utmost significance. Readiness in the current and future crises will require R&D to accelerate vaccine design, testing, production, distribution, and administration. Moreover, R7D of easy to use and affordable diagnostic technologies, antiviral therapeutics, neutralizing antibodies, and immune modulators are outlined in the memo. Technology investments will also be key to support predictive and real-time monitoring, variant tracking and environmental surveillance.

Climate Change

The memo urges agencies to prioritize R&D initiatives to expand understanding of climate change as well as develop mitigation and adaptation solutions. Innovation and commercialization of clean energy and climate technologies will be key to achieving the administration’s goals of reducing greenhouse gas pollution by 50% in 2020 and carbon pollution free electricity by 2035.

Emerging Technologies

Emerging technologies such as AI, quantum, advanced communications, microelectronics, high performance computing, biotechnology, robotics and space technology are vital to advancing American industries, and critical challenges in public health and disaster. Within AI, the memo specifies that agencies should prioritize both fundamental and translational AI research and within quantum, programs that address the hardest science and engineering challenges.

Data’s Role and Contractor Implications

While the memo touches on additional priorities, it is time to point out data’s critical role in achieving almost every aspect of the FY 2023 R&D priorities and themes. With regard to pandemic readiness, the memo calls on agencies to build the data infrastructure needed for information sharing and seamless interoperability of systems. In terms of climate change, the document states that agencies must facilitate public access to climate-related information to educate both general understanding of climate science as well as assisting with public sector government planning and resilience activities. Finally, agencies must ensure the utilization and sharing of large federal datasets to enable data analysis, and modeling and simulation to advance emerging technologies and address challenges.

Given the memo’s urging to prepare, share and process troves of data to achieve top R&D priorities, agencies will integrate needs for big data solutions and tools into upcoming R&D investments to achieve what OMB has called of them. These may include opportunities for visualization tools, analytics, making data discoverable and accessible, and strategies to improve the use of data.