In 2009, the United States transitioned between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is responsible for leading the formulation and implementation of science and technology policy (S&T) within the U.S. government and carrying out administration priorities through the application of science and technology policy.

The Obama Administration is committed to harnessing S&T to make progress on four key national challenges of economic recovery and renewed growth; dealing with the interrelated challenges of energy, the environment, and climate; a healthier American people; and a secure America within a global world. To accomplish these goals, OSTP is harnessing resources for federal research and development (R&D) investments, but also attempting to implement new science policy practices.

OSTP and the National Economic Council (NEC) recently released A Strategy for American Innovation that provides a framework for understanding past, current, and future Obama Administration policies in science, technology, entrepreneurship, education, workforce, and infrastructure. Part of the broad strategy is a policy framework to invest in the building blocks of American innovation. A key policy priority within the strategy is to restore American leadership in fundamental research. To do this, in February the Administration incorporated the largest increase in U.S. federal basic research in history (more than $18 billion (U.S.)) as part of the Recovery Act (commonly known as the U.S. economic stimulus bill).

In April, President Obama announced the President’s Plan for Science and Innovation to double the budgets of three key U.S. science agencies over a decade. In May, the U.S. Federal 2010 Budget proposed to make the Research & Experimentation Tax Credit to provide incentives for private-sector R&D investments, and also established a plan to triple the number of National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships in four years to encourage tomorrow’s leading scientists. And in April, President Obama proposed a goal that the U.S. should invest 3 per cent of its GDP in R&D as a nation, a goal he has reiterated on several occasions since then.

Within existing U.S. investments, OSTP and others have been working to increase the impacts of investments by providing more support for high-risk, high-return research, for multidisciplinary research, and for early-career scientists. All of these policy initiatives are organized to make progress toward the four key national challenges, and to measure the effectiveness of these policies OSTP is also supporting “science of science policy” evaluation tools and research to link research funding to outcomes.

Inspired by grand national challenges for the 21st century, and acting within a broad strategy for innovation, science and technology policy plays an important role in the policy agenda of the Obama Administration. In addition to basic research policies outlined above, there are other policies in technology development, commercialization, public sector innovation, entrepreneurship, immigration, and education, all of which introduce new policy practices to the U.S. Federal government.