amount for R&D in the federal budget is actual- 

 ly the result of a large number of separate 

 budgetary decisions in which the focus is pri- 

 marily on the objectives of individual R&D 

 programs and the missions to be served by 

 them, not on their relationships to other R&D. 

 Thus the budget for military R&D needs to be 

 properly related to the overall defense budget, 

 but does not have a meaningful relation to, for 

 example, the budget for agricultural R&D. 



The question of whether there should be an 

 "R&D Budget" in a stronger sense is frequent- 

 ly raised. Discussions of general R&D policy 

 sometimes seem to assume that this is desir- 

 able, a view that is strongly disputed by many 

 other observers and participants. The basic 

 questions relate to the organization and control 

 of R&D; that is, the relative merits of (i) sepa- 

 rate central control over R&D activities, and 

 (ii) integration of R&D with the mission activi- 

 ties it supports. The first approach has been fol- 

 lowed in the centralization of control over all 

 R&D within the Department of Defense and the 

 creation of specialized R&D agencies like 

 OSRD, NASA, NSF, ERDA. and others. The 

 other approach has been followed in most other 

 agencies, where R&D is handled as a part of 

 the broader mission activities it supports. Es- 

 tablishment of a separate "R&D Budget" 

 would be a step toward central control of all 

 federal R&D and could create difficult problems 

 of divided responsibility. As a matter of sound 

 administrative management, agency heads and 

 their line managers must be responsible for 

 their budgets. This means that all budgets, in- 

 cluding R&D budgets, have to be determined 

 primarily on an organizational basis; carving 

 out a separate R&D budget under central con- 

 trol would divide responsibility and would un- 

 dermine the position of the responsible agen- 

 cies. Proposals for an "R&D Budget" that go 

 beyond the 0MB "crosscut" should be viewed 

 with caution and full recognition of the broader 

 needs of organization and management in the 

 Executive Branch. 



Agency Views on Coordination 



Federal research agencies and the individuals 

 responsible for their research programs view co- 

 ordination in many ways. As a rough approxima- 

 tion, the mechanisms for coordination of research 

 activities can be divided into two broad catego- 

 ries; formal and informal. The following tabula- 

 tions in each category represent typical responses 



to questions concerning interagency consultation 

 and coordination of effort on research projects. 

 Although most of the responses referred primarily 

 to "research," there was essentially unanimous 

 agreement that the problem and the solutions 

 were the same for both basic and applied re- 

 search. 



Formal Mechanisms 



• FCST and FCCSET committees 



• Memorandums of understanding 



• Cooperative agreements 



• Interagency groups, panels, committees, and 

 boards 



• NAS and NAE committees 



• International treaties and international agree- 

 ments 



• Executive orders 



• Legislative mandates 



• Transfer of funds in support of programs of 

 joint interest to two or more agencies 



• Cross-agency representation on boards or 

 councils of some agencies, e.g.. Director of 

 NSF on NCER. 



Informal Mechanisms 



• Ad hoc advisory committees 



• Semiformal interagency coordinating groups 



• Exchange of lists of research proposal re- 

 ceipts, status, and actions 



• Requests to another agency to review re- 

 search proposals 



• Liaison membership on review committees or 

 study sections 



• Joint funding of research projects 



• Ad hoc agreements 



• Meetings, workshops, seminars, symposia, 

 conferences 



• Participation in meetings of professional sci- 

 entific societies 



• Informal scientist-to-scientist contacts 



• Publication of papers in scientific journals 



• Reading the scientific literature 



The wide diversity of mechanisms used in a 

 single agency for interagency consultation and 

 coordination is illustrated by NOAA's response to 

 the Board: 



The following list is intended to show the broad 

 interagency involvement of NOAA programs. 

 While most of these mechanisms relate to ap- 

 plied research, some relate to basic research as 

 well: 



1. Federal Coordinating Council for Science, 

 Engineering, and Technology 



INTERAGENCY COORDINATION OF BASIC RESEARCH 299 



