NITRD’s FY 2023 Funding for Cybersecurity Efforts

Since its inception in 1991, The National Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program has been the primary source of federally funded IT research and development (R&D), coordinating these efforts among federal departments and agencies.

In late November, NITRD released its Supplement to the President’s FY 2023 Budget Request, outlining its key R&D programs and coordination activities planned for the current fiscal year. Since the FY 2019 budget cycle NITRD has released its budget supplement in August or September before the coming fiscal year begins. The last two years these supplements have come late in the calendar year, after the beginning of the new fiscal year.

NITRD Cybersecurity-related Efforts

NITRD coordinates and supports R&D in computing, networking, and software to address multi-technology and multisector challenges, including cybersecurity. NITRD’s efforts and supporting budgets are organized into Program Component Areas (PCAs), categories of technical R&D focus supported by NITRD member agency investments. Under each PCA, NITRD and its member agencies coordinate their research activities through Interagency Working Groups (IWG).

Cybersecurity PCAs and their related IWGs include:

• Cyber Security and Privacy (CSP) - Conducts R&D to advance the security and privacy of computing, communication, and information technologies, including R&D on how human behavior and usability interact with technical aspects of cybersecurity and privacy.
  CSP IWGs:
  • Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA)
  • Privacy R&D (Privacy)
• Computing-Enabled Networked Physical Systems (CNPS) - Involves R&D for IT-enabled systems that integrate the cyber/information, physical, and human worlds, including R&D of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and Internet of Things (IoT).
  CNPS IWGs:
  • Computing-Enabled Networked Physical Systems (CNPS)  

NITRD Budgets for Cybersecurity-Related PCAs

The FY 2023 budget requests for the CSP and CNPS are $718M and $222M respectively, for a combined $940.5M. This represents a $67M increase over FY 2022 and a $51M bump from the FY 2021 level. (See chart below.)

This $940M for FY 2023 is spread across eleven departments and agencies. (See chart below.)

Key Cyber R&D Programs

The budget dollars highlighted above support broad R&D efforts across numerous programs and agencies among these two cyber-centric PCAs.

Key cyber programs (and participant agencies) under CSP include:

• Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA) – Developing effective capabilities and technologies to deter, protect, detect and respond to cyber threats.
  • Deter – Autonomous and agile cyber defense: ARL, DARPA, NSF, OSD
  • Protect – Resilient cyber, cyber-physical, and IoT systems: AFRL, ARL, C5ISR, DARPA, DHS, DOE/CESER, NIH, NIST, NSA, NSF, ONR
  • Detect – Machine learning for security: DARPA, DOE/CESER, NIST, NSA, NSF, OSD
  • Respond – Countering cyber-attacks: DARPA, DHS, NSF, OSD
• Priority areas for research under CSP also include Artificial Intelligence; Quantum Information Science (QIS); Trustworthy Distributed Digital Infrastructure; Privacy; and Secure Hardware and Software. Each area has numerous research programs underway.

Key cyber programs under CNPS include:

• Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) – Enable capability, adaptability, scalability, resiliency, safety, security, and usability that will expand horizons of critical systems: DHS, FHWA, NIH, NSF, USDA-NIFA
• Security and privacy interactions with Internet of Things: NSF
• Tools to quantify and ensure Agile software development: AFRL
• Future Manufacturing cyber track: NSF
• Self-healing ship systems: ONR

Ongoing Opportunities

The topical diversity of the cyber programs noted above indicate the breadth of interest and urgency in addressing the cybersecurity challenges agencies and industry continue to face. NITRD provides detailed program information in the FY 2023 Federal Cybersecurity R&D Strategic Plan Implementation Roadmap that accompanied the release of their budget information. Many of these initiatives have ongoing opportunities for solutions-minded researchers to participate in these federally funded programs.