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Research funding

Federal research funding gets critical increases for 2023

APA Services’ efforts throughout the 117th Congress contributed to significant investments in federal science agency budgets and research initiatives for which psychologists can compete.

Date created: January 25, 2023 2 min read
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American Psychological Association. (2023, January 25). Federal research funding gets critical increases for 2023. https://www.apaservices.org/advocacy/news/federal-research-funding-2023

Kids on their smartphones

The 117th Congress finished its work by rolling together spending bills into one large omnibus bill for fiscal year (FY) 2023, which included appropriations increases for several agencies that fund psychological science research. The bill also gave additional start-up funds to a new agency, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health, which we expect will fund some behavioral and social science research projects.  

Key research increases include: 

  • National Institutes of Health (NIH): Received a $2.5 billion increase in FY23 for a total of $47.4 billion, directing the agency to maintain the $10-million increase for the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research that APA/APA Services and the psychological science community advocated for in 2021. Among the expanded funding opportunities for the behavioral and social sciences are new initiatives in health communicationopens in new window, climate change and healthopens in new window, equity, diversity, and inclusion initiativesopens in new window, and gun violence prevention research (an additional $12.5 million for FY23 will result in a new call for proposals).
  • NIH and social media: $15 million was designated for the Department of Health and Human Services and NIH to study the impacts of social media on children and report to Congress within five years.
  • National Science Foundation: Received an 11.8% increase, for a total of $9.8 billion to fund basic sciences and education projects. Part of the increase goes to fund a new Technology Innovation and Partnerships directorate that will advance use-inspired and translational research in all fields of science and engineering.
  • Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health: Received $1.5 billion in funds for FY23 (on top of the first $1 billion for planning and start-up appropriated in FY22). The agency is staffing up ahead of its first call for proposals. 

We are renewing efforts in the 118th Congress to gain support for the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) which is based on psychological research and has bipartisan support in the House and Senate. KOSA seeks to hold social media companies accountable after their repeated failures to protect children and adolescents from the practices that make their platforms more harmful. The bill establishes a duty of care for social media companies to protect minors from mental health harms, sexual trafficking, and narcotics. Additionally, the bill requires companies to go through independent, external audits, allows researcher access to platform data assets, and creates substantial youth and parental controls to create a safer digital environment. The impact of social media algorithms on the user experience is woefully understudied due, in large part, to the lack of visibility by researchers into the data and how algorithms work.

For more information, contact Pat Kobor.

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