Science a New Golden Age

Eighty-one years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote a letter to Vannevar Bush, tasking him with reorganizing America’s scientific enterprise after World War II. Bush’s response was a report, titled Science: The Endless Frontier . It established the Federal Government’s role in supporting basic science, led to the creation of the National Science Foundation, and shaped our nation’s science and technology strategy for decades afterward. That report was foundational to the American Century and to the technological world in which we live today.

Now, as we celebrate the United States’ 250th anniversary, we have the responsibility to renew our foundations once more. Never have science and technology been more central to our nation’s security and prosperity, and, although America continues to set the pace of scientific progress, global competitors are racing to challenge our leadership. This historical moment demands that we modernize our institutions to match the achievements of our past and the ambitions of our future.

In your letter of March 26, 2025, on the occasion of my Senate confirmation as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, you challenged me to reexamine America’s research and development ecosystem in light of changes brought on by the 21st century.

The report I present here diagnoses the obstacles American researchers face today, and the ways our scientific enterprise has fundamentally transformed since its basic organization was established in 1945. Though our investments in research have grown, scientific productivity has slowed. We have become dependent on a narrow set of legacy institutions. Our incentive structures reward conformity over bold inquiry. And the capacity that once turned American discoveries into American strength has eroded, undermined by decades of industrial offshoring.

To address these and related challenges, this report puts forward recommendations for the entire scientific and technological ecosystem, across government, academia, philanthropy, and industry. Underlying all of these recommendations is a simple measure of success. A decade from now, American researchers should look back at our work and say: “The vital questions I could not pursue then, I am free to pursue now.” That purpose will be achieved if we make progress toward four overarching goals.

First, the U.S. research system should prioritize the individual scientist over legacy institutions. If we are serious about expanding what our scientists can do, we must invest directly in American researchers and the bold ideas that drive them. Too much of our research enterprise has come to serve itself rather than the scientists within it. Federal funding agencies should support a broader range of performers, including a new generation of mission-driven research organizations, to expand our scientific horizons. And these agencies should organize themselves around the interdisciplinary frontiers of science today, rather than the academic silos of the last century.

Second, the Federal Government should fundamentally change how research dollars are allocated, distributed, and assessed. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, the government should fund more flexible types of grants, including fast-track grants, long-horizon grants, and new mechanisms that allow reviewers to champion radically unconventional proposals. Federal research agencies should evaluate their own performance as capital allocators, test new ways of making grants, and construct portfolios with the intentionality of a serious investor.

Third, the Federal Government should set clear scientific goals and build the industrial muscle to translate scientific discovery into technological strength. The greatest technical achievements of the last century came about because leaders in government identified national priorities and marshaled the resources to accomplish them. As our competitors race us to capture the value chain of strategic technologies, including with tactics we would never countenance, we can no longer assume that the fruits of American science will accrue to our own people. Government must mobilize the full force of our enterprise around national challenges, clear the ground for American builders, and reunite the work of discovery and manufacturing across the country.

Fourth, we must prepare our research enterprise for the AI revolution. AI will accelerate and radically transform the way we do science. But even the most capable AI models will be slowed down in the bottleneck of institutions and systems built for the last century. As we renew the infrastructure that powers American science, we must reengineer it for the AI age. And even as AI compresses the time from question to answer, we will still need human hands to build the instrument or prototype. We must build that capacity, too, investing in advanced manufacturing, the skilled trades, and the vast pools of talent and tacit knowledge outside the traditional academic pipeline.

In preparing this report, I have consulted widely across the country’s scientific enterprise, from entrepreneurs driving world-changing breakthroughs in fusion technology, to researchers eager to pursue bold ideas in neuroscience at our universities, to venture capitalists funding revolutionary platforms for drug discovery. Their message is clear and inspiring: given the right conditions, American ingenuity will continue to achieve the impossible.

Throughout our history, Americans have shown remarkable courage in their willingness to reinvent our institutions when the challenges we faced demanded it, from establishing the land-grant university to creating the National Science Foundation to launching the Apollo Program. Each generation has seized its opportunity to expand the frontiers of knowledge and lay down the paving stones of progress. Now it is our time to build the scientific enterprise that will carry America forward and bring prosperity to Americans through the 21st century and beyond.

Mr. President, you have called for a Golden Age of American Innovation. This report is the map to that vision. Our nation cured polio, placed men on the Moon, decoded the human genome, and launched the digital revolution. With your leadership, we will extend our scientific and technological might into the Second American Century and continue to deliver the innovations and discoveries that define the modern world.

Michael Kratsios Assistant to the President for Science and Technology

Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy

Scientific progress and technological innovation were the twin engines that powered the American century. The Manhattan Project fueled the atomic era. The Apollo Program won us the space race. The internet connected us to a digital future. Today, we will usher in the Golden Age of American Innovation. We will make America safer, healthier, and more prosperous than ever before. We will create a future of American greatness for every citizen, restoring the American Dream.

The triumphs of the last century did not happen by chance. As World War II drew towards a close, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote a letter like this one to his science and technology advisor, Vannevar Bush, charging him to explore new frontiers of the mind for the sake of national greatness and pioneer science in peacetime. Dr. Bush’s response laid the groundwork for the uniquely successful American partnership of Government, industry, and academia that built the greatest and most productive nation in human history.

But today, rivals abroad seek to usurp America’s position as the world’s greatest maker of marvels and producer of knowledge. We must recapture the urgency which propelled us so far in the last century. The time has come to return to our roots and renew the American scientific enterprise for the century ahead. So, just as FDR tasked Vannevar Bush, I am tasking you with meeting the challenges below to deliver for the American people.

First: How can the United States secure its position as the unrivaled world leader in critical and emerging technologies—such as artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and nuclear technology—maintaining our advantage over potential adversaries?

We need to accelerate research and development, dismantle regulatory barriers, strengthen domestic supply chains and manufacturing, spur robust private sector investment, and advance American companies in global markets. Rival nations are pushing hard to overtake the United States, and we must blaze a bold path to maintain our technological supremacy.

Second: How can we revitalize America’s science and technology enterprise—pursuing truth, reducing administrative burdens, and empowering researchers to achieve groundbreaking discoveries?

We need new paradigms for the research enterprise, including innovative models for funding and sharing scientific research, redefining how America conducts the business of discovery. We must build an ecosystem that attracts top talent, celebrates merit, protects our intellectual edge, and enables scientists to focus on meaningful work rather than administrative box checking.

Third: How can we ensure that scientific progress and technological innovation fuel economic growth and better the lives of all Americans?

During my first term, we made unprecedented advances in America’s scientific and technological leadership. We launched the American Artificial Intelligence Initiative, vaulting the United States to the front of the pack in the development and deployment of artificial intelligence. Our National Quantum Initiative established the foundation for national quantum supremacy. We created the United States Space Force and charted a new and daring course for America’s further exploration of space. All of this buttressed our security and bolstered our prosperity, and it reaffirmed America’s place as the world’s preeminent technological superpower.

Now, after four long years of weakness and complacency, we must set our sights even higher. I am calling upon you to blaze a trail to the next frontiers of science. We have the opportunity to cement America’s global technological leadership and usher in the Golden Age of American Innovation. We are not just competing with other nations; we are seeking, striving, fighting to make America greater than ever before.

American scientific progress was the beating heart of the 20th century. It delivered victory on the battlefields of World War II, secured America’s triumph in the Cold War, and produced the most prosperous nation in human history. We developed the alchemy that taught sand how to think, conjuring the digital world from silicon chips. American science conquered polio, placed men on the Moon, and gave humanity general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI). This leadership has improved lives and defined the very structure of our modern world.

The foundation of these profound advancements was laid in the years following World War II, thanks largely to the vision set out by Vannevar Bush, the chief science advisor to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman. In his canonical 1945 report, Science: The Endless Frontier , Bush made the prescient case for federal support of basic research, laying the groundwork for the modern scientific enterprise. That enterprise, however, was predominantly built around what became called the “linear model” of technical progress, flowing from basic research to applied research to development of technology and industry. A simplification even then, that model has grown increasingly inadequate as a description of progress eighty-one years later. Discovery today is most often an iterative loop between fundamental and applied work, with industry and engineering playing a vital part in spurring even basic research.

Government funding of research and development, especially basic science in the academy and national labs, has rightly grown in the eight decade