The Nation's economic prosperity and military security depend heavily on development and commercialization of advanced materials. Materials are a key facet of many technologies, providing the key ingredient for entire industries and tens of millions of jobs. With foreign competition in many areas of technology growing, improvements in materials and associated processes are needed now more than ever, both to create the new products and jobs of the future and to ensure that U.S. industry and military forces can compete and win in the international arena. The Federal Government has invested in materials research and development (R & D) for nearly a century, helping to lay the foundation for many of the best commercial products and military components used today. But while the United States has led the world in the science and development of advanced materials, it often has lagged in commercializing them. This long-standing hurdle must be overcome now if the nation is to maintain its leadership in materials R & D and the many technologies that depend on it. The Administration therefore seeks to foster commercialization of state-of-the-art materials for both commercial and military use, as a means of promoting US industrial competitiveness as well as the procurement of advanced military and space systems and other products at affordable costs. The Federal R & D effort in Fiscal Year 1994 for materials science and technology is an estimated $2123.7 million. It includes the ongoing R & D base that support the missions of nine Federal departments and agencies, increased strategic investment to overcome obstacles to commercialization of advanced materials technologies, interagency cooperation in R & D areas of mutual benefit to leverage assets and eliminate duplicative work, cost-shared research with industrial and academic partners in critical precompetitive technology areas, and international cooperation on selected R & D topics with assured benefits for the United States. The materials R & D program also supports the Administration's specific technological objectives, emphasizing development of affordable, high-performance commercial and military aircraft; ultra-fuel-efficient, low-emissions automobiles that are also safe and comfortable; powerful yet inexpensive electronic systems; environmentally safe products and processes; and a durable building and transportation infrastructure.

The Board on Science, Technology and Economic Policy updated its 1999 analysis (Appendix A, Securing America's Industrial Strength, 1999) of changes since 1990 in the distribution of federal research funding by field of science and engineering) by incorporating FY 1998 and FY 1999 obligations from the NSF Federal Funds survey, with particular attention to the trends in basic research support, changes in research fields' relative dependence on research-sponsoring agencies, and the relationship between changes in research support and changes in enrollment in graduate training in selected fields of research. The Board did not recommend funding levels for any discipline but addressed procedural aspects of R&D budgeting.