Highlights

View the most recent version.

1. Federal departments and agencies forecast spending of $9.9 billion in 2008/2009 on science and technology (S&T), a small decrease from the $10.2 billion in planned spending the year before and a slight increase, in current dollars, from the $9.6 billion spent in 2006/2007, where actual, or final, data are available (Table 1-1).
2. Of the $9.9 billion, $5.2 billion was forecast to be spent within the departments and agencies (Table 2-1) and $4.7 billion directed to other sectors such as higher education, the business sector, private non-profit organizations and foreign and other entities, to support their S&T activities (Table 3-1).
3. The majority, $6.2 billion or 63%, of federal S&T spending was forecast to be directed to R&D activities, while related scientific activities (RSA) accounts for the remainder, $3.6 billion (Table 1-5).
4. S&T expenditures are available for two science types, “natural science and engineering” and “social sciences and humanities”. About three-quarters of all federal government S&T spending has been directed to natural sciences and one quarter to social sciences throughout the period from 2004/2005 to 2008/2009 (Table 1-6).
5. In 2008/2009, the $5.2 billion in S&T activities to be performed by federal government departments and agencies was forecast to be split almost evenly between R&D and RSA; $2.5 billion, or 48%, was directed to R&D and remainder to RSA (Table 2-1).
6. In 2008/2009, the federal government was forecast to direct $4.7 billion to other sectors to perform S&T activities. Four in five extramural dollars were forecast to be directed to R&D activities (Table 3-1).
7. Over $3 billion in extramural payments were forecast to be directed to the higher education sector. Ninety percent of these funds were for R&D activities and the remaining ten percent for RSA. The vast majority of the funds for R&D activities came from the four granting councils (Table 3-3).
8. In 2008/2009, federal departments and agencies reported a total of 36,379 full-time equivalent employees engaged in S&T activities. Of these employees, 16,824 were classified as “scientific and professional”, 8,740 as “technical” and 10,815 as “other” engaged in support activities (Table 4-5).
9. Protection and improvement of human health was the objective receiving the highest level of federal government S&T funding at $1.7 billion in 2006/2007, the most recent year for which data are available (Table 6-1).