Despite continuing budget challenges, President Barack Obama is committed to supporting areas of research and development investment that are critical for the nation's long-term economic strength, White House science adviser John P. Holdren said Friday at AAAS.

In a news briefing with U.S. and foreign reporters, Holdren said the 2012 budget proposed by Obama this week reduced funding for an array of valuable science-related programs. But the president signaled his economic vision and policy priorities by proposing increases of approximately 6% for civilian R&D and 5% for all basic and applied research combined, compared to 2010 levels.

For the Department of Energy, NASA, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the White House has proposed "double-digit," increases, Holdren told reporters.

"This reflects the president's understanding that science, technology and innovation have been the primary drivers of economic growth and productivity growth for decades," Holdren said, "and no matter how severe the fiscal constraint, this is not the time to stop investing in the drivers of the economic growth we need for recovery, for job-creation, for economic growth going forward."

[See a AAAS video summary of John Holdren's news briefing at the Annual Meeting.]

Holdren, a former president of AAAS, now serves as science adviser to the president for science and technology; director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and co-chair of the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology.
 
Holdren also delivered a plenary address Friday evening to a standing-room-only AAAS audience at the Washington Convention Center. In the news briefing before that, Holdren ranged widely in response to reporters' questions, discussing the U.S. space program and the retirement of the space shuttle, the need for more scientists and engineers in Congress, and the rising strength and vitality of China's S&T enterprise.

"It's not automatic that the United States will be No. 1 in science, technology, and innovation," he said. "This is something that has to be cultivated. It has to be invested in. The president has been very clear that he wants us to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the competition.

"He does not want to preside over the United States sliding into an inferior position... It ends up compromising our economy, our balance-of-payment (in foreign trade), ultimately compromises our security. He's saying, essentially, 'It's a wake-up moment'."