U.S. government spending on scientific research is to fall from $140 billion to $130.5 billion this year, a nearly 7% reduction, according to experts at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
WASHINGTON -- Automatic spending cuts have hit America's science and research sectors especially hard, according to experts, who warn of potentially dire implications for the nation's overall competitiveness.
As the "sequester," a package of spending cuts imposed last month, begins to pinch, many research projects will be slowed or scuttled, from cancer therapies to efforts to convert medical breakthroughs into marketable therapies.
U.S. government spending on scientific research is to fall from $140 billion to $130.5 billion this year, a nearly 7% reduction, according to experts at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
"The current budget situation for research and development in the U.S. does not portend well for the future of the American economy," said AAAS head Alan Leshner, whose group publishes the respected journal Science.
Leshner said the cuts, which were hard to notice when they went into effect last month, are beginning to put a squeeze on grant monies given out by U.S. agencies like the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
"National Science Foundation will fund between 800 and 1,000 fewer research grants," he said.
The sequester, Leshner added, "is beginning to deteriorate the quality of American science, and will unquestionably have a dramatic effect of innovation and the economy."
