Where Scientific Stimulus Funding Went

The stimulus plan passed by the US Congress earlier this year provided $21 billion for scientific R&D to be allocated through the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Energy, and other agencies. (The full text of the bill is available in this large pdf file.) The debate still rages amongst politicians and economists about just how many jobs the $787 billion bill has created. In the meantime, the government has launched an interesting website detailing where that scientific R&D money went.

Call it propaganda–the site is called ScienceWorksForUS–but it’s interesting to browse through the detailed list and see which research projects were funded and for how much. You can browse by state from the homepage, and a full report is here in a large pdf file. A lion’s share of the funds was allocated through the National Institutes of Health, and a browse through of projects funded in my home state of California reflects this. However, there was also an emphasis on renewable energy research. For analysis on stimulus funding of renewable energy technologies, check out Technology Review editor David Rotman’s two-part feature on the subject here and here.