Stimulus Boosted Federal Research Spending

The legislation that Congress passed last winter to stimulate the economy ratcheted up federal spending on research and development in the 2009 fiscal year, the National Science Foundation said in a report Wednesday. The NSF said that total federal R&D spending rose by 12.2 percent in 2009, to $157 billion from $140 billion in 2008. Virtually all of the increase came in non-defense spending, with most of the gain coming in health-related research and in general science research.