What Is OSTP? A Public Administrator's Guide to Science Policy

What does a $5 million office with 23 employees actually do inside the White House? In fiscal year 2025, according to USAFacts, that was the entire footprint of the Office of Science and Technology Policy: net spending of $5 million and, as of May 2026, 23 civilian federal employees advising the president on artificial intelligence, climate science, biomedical research, and federal R&D coordination across roughly two dozen agencies.

For students of public administration, OSTP is a compact case in how statutory placement, budget authority, and staffing capacity determine whether a small agency can convert presidential priorities into agency action, or watch its mandate outpace its resources.

What Is OSTP and Where Does It Sit in the Executive Branch?

Placement within the federal hierarchy determines how much influence a policy office can actually wield. For public administration and policy professionals analyzing executive branch operations, the Office of Science and Technology Policy demonstrates how statutory design shapes an agency's access to presidential decision making.

Statutory Foundation and Executive Branch Position

Congress established OSTP in 1976 through the National Science and Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act.³ The office resides within the Executive Office of the President, positioning it alongside entities like the Office of Management and Budget and the National Security Council.³ This placement is not ceremonial. OSTP staff work in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the West Wing, giving them physical and institutional proximity to daily White House operations.

The office's structure allows for a director plus up to four associate directors, all requiring Senate confirmation.² As of 2026, Michael Kratsios serves as OSTP Director and Assistant to the President for Science and Technology.¹ The director serves at the president's pleasure, meaning the role can be terminated without cause, a design that keeps the office accountable to presidential priorities but also vulnerable to leadership turnover during transitions.

Why Placement Matters for Public Administration

OSTP's position creates a direct conduit between scientific expertise and evidence-based policymaking, including budget formulation. When the director participates in interagency discussions, the office can shape how research and development funds flow across departments. This differs from agencies like the National Science Foundation, which must advocate upward through department channels before reaching the Executive Office.

For those pursuing a career in public administration, OSTP illustrates a structural pattern: small offices embedded in the Executive Office of the President often punch above their budget weight because they influence the priorities that larger agencies must follow. The director's dual role as presidential advisor and statutory officer means OSTP recommendations carry both formal authority and informal access.

The associate director positions, which were vacant as of early 2023 and have not been publicly filled since, reveal capacity constraints.³ With confirmation requirements for senior roles but limited political bandwidth for nominations, OSTP has operated recent policy initiatives through deputy and principal assistant positions that bypass Senate confirmation.

OSTP's Core Functions: Science Advice, Budget Coordination, and Regulatory Oversight

On July 21, 2026, OSTP and the Office of Management and Budget jointly issued the FY 2028 R&D Priorities Memorandum,¹ the latest instrument through which the office carries out its three core functions: advising the president directly on science and technology matters, coordinating the federal research and development budget across agencies, and promoting evidence-based standards in regulatory science.

Advice and Budget Coordination Work Together

OSTP's advisory role is not confined to memos and speeches. It shows up structurally in how the federal R&D budget gets built each year. Agencies draft their FY 2028 funding requests for submission to OMB, but OSTP shapes those requests before they arrive by issuing joint priority guidance with OMB. The new memorandum directs any agency with at least $3 billion in FY 2026 research and development budget authority to submit an action plan to the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and the OMB Director within 90 days.¹ Those plans cover execution for FY 2026 and FY 2027, separate from the FY 2028 budget formulation itself, and must spell out concrete steps such as new funding opportunities, program solicitations, pilot initiatives, and organizational changes tied to specific priority areas.

This pattern is not new. The administration issued similar cross-cutting R&D priorities memoranda in September 2025 for FY 2027 and earlier for FY 2025,²³ establishing a recurring annual rhythm in which OSTP and OMB coordinate public policy making before individual agency budgets are finalized. As the Congressional Research Service has documented, agency budgets ultimately get reviewed, revised, and approved by OMB before becoming part of the president's annual budget request to Congress.⁴ OSTP's role sits upstream of that approval: it evaluates agency proposals, aligns research portfolios with national public policy priorities, and helps shape initiatives that cut across departmental lines, but it does not appropriate funds and does not make final budget determinations.⁵

Regulatory Oversight as a Coordinating Function

OSTP's third function, regulatory oversight, works less through standalone rulemaking authority and more through coordination. The office promotes the use of sound science in agency rulemaking and works alongside OMB to issue supplementary implementation guidance when priorities require it.¹ For public administrators, this triad, advice, budget coordination, and science-based regulatory review, illustrates how a small executive office can exercise influence disproportionate to its appropriations by controlling the process architecture agencies must follow.

OSTP's Budget and Workforce: What Small Size Reveals About Policy Capacity

OSTP operates with one of the smallest budgets and staffing levels in the Executive Office of the President, yet it carries a mandate that touches every federal agency engaged in research and development. These figures reveal how resource constraints shape the office's ability to deliver science advice at the highest level of government.

How OSTP Influences Public Administration and Federal Agencies

OSTP operates with just 23 civilian employees and a $5 million annual budget, yet its influence radiates across every federal department that touches research, technology, or innovation. Understanding the mechanisms behind that influence is essential for public administrators at every level of government.

Interagency Coordination and OMB Budget Review

OSTP shapes federal priorities not by running programs itself but by steering the machinery that other agencies rely on. Its primary lever is the interagency committee process. OSTP convenes working groups drawn from agencies like the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense to align research portfolios with presidential priorities. When OSTP issues annual R&D priority memos, those documents become the framework that the Office of Management and Budget uses to evaluate agency budget requests. Program managers who ignore those signals risk seeing their proposals flagged during the budget passback process.

Implementation Guidance and Regulatory Impact

OSTP directives also surface in the day-to-day work of administrators responsible for regulatory impact analyses. When the office releases implementation guidance following executive actions on AI governance or climate data standards, agencies must translate that guidance into enforceable rules, procurement specifications, and reporting requirements. The follow-through on AI-related executive actions, for instance, required dozens of agencies to stand up internal review processes, designate chief AI officers, and publish risk assessments, all tasks that fell to career public administrators.

Why Administrators Must Read OSTP Signals

OSTP does not directly fund most federal programs, which can lead administrators to underestimate its relevance. That is a mistake. Budget justifications for science and technology programs are far more persuasive when they align with current OSTP priorities. Grant applicants, contracting officers, and policy analysts who track OSTP memos gain an early read on which areas will receive favorable budget treatment and which face cuts.

For MPA and MPP students, the lesson is structural: a small advisory body, positioned correctly within the Executive Office of the President, can redirect billions in federal spending without controlling a single program dollar. Learning to interpret and respond to those signals is a core competency for anyone pursuing a career in federal science policy or interagency coordination.

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Case Examples: OSTP's Role in AI, Climate, and Emerging Technology Policy

OSTP's clearest 2023-2026 governance contribution is not a standalone science portfolio, but its power to turn presidential priorities into agency obligations. The strongest current cases cluster around AI governance, while climate, biomedical R&D, and open science show a more diffuse pattern.

AI Governance: Executive Order 14110

Executive Order 14110, issued in 2023, gave OSTP a formal coordination role with the Office of Management and Budget on federal AI risk management.¹ Agencies were directed to strengthen the effective and appropriate use of AI, advance AI innovation, and manage AI risks. OSTP also served as vice chair of the interagency council on federal AI use, a procedural position that gave the office influence over implementation rather than only policy language.²

From an intergovernmental relations public administration perspective, the order was a coordination design case. It did not give OSTP sole authority, but paired it with OMB for management and spending functions, and with the National Institute of Standards and Technology for technical standards.

The order's implementation structure produced agency deliverables by 2024.³ It directed the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop AI safety guidelines in coordination with the Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Commerce, and National Science Foundation. That assignment translated broad policy language into specific institutional work.

Strategy Documents and the 2025 Action Plan

OSTP's role continued in later strategy documents. The 2023 National AI R&D Strategic Plan Update framed AI research and development as a coordinated federal science effort.⁴ In 2025, America's AI Action Plan placed OSTP in lead or co-lead roles for AI international governance and innovation, alongside the State Department, Commerce Department, and National Security Council.⁵ The 2026 National Policy Framework for AI carried that trajectory forward.⁶

Climate, Biomedical R&D, and Open Science: A Capacity Gap

The current public record does not identify a discrete OSTP-led climate science, biomedical R&D, or open science initiative from 2023 to 2026 with the same named program evidence.⁷⁸⁶ The closest climate and energy link appears indirectly through the AI safety coordination with the Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security. For public administration students, this is itself a governance lesson: coordination capacity is not evenly distributed across science policy domains, and an office with limited staff must choose where to concentrate its convening authority. OSTP's influence is often strongest where it has an explicit assignment, not where a policy area simply exists.

Three lessons emerge. First, coordination requires formal assignments and named partners, as in the AI order's pairing of OSTP with OMB and NIST. Second, prioritization shapes capacity, because civil service systems and staffing limits force OSTP to concentrate on a few high-stakes domains. Third, implementation gaps are visible where no named initiative exists, and students should read that absence as a signal about current federal science policy priorities.

With just 23 employees and a budget that has shrunk by more than half since 1980, OSTP is tasked with advising the president on everything from artificial intelligence to climate science, a capacity paradox that defines modern executive branch advisory work.

Public Administration Careers in Science and Technology Policy

Federal science and technology policy careers span the Executive Office of the President, major research agencies, and interagency coordination bodies. The roles below reflect real federal position types drawn from recent USAJOBS postings and White House office descriptions. MPA and MPP graduates are well positioned for many of these positions, particularly those emphasizing program analysis, budget examination, and policy coordination rather than laboratory science.

Graduate Certificates and MPA/MPP Pathways for Ostp-Related Work

Students interested in careers at or alongside OSTP have a growing menu of graduate credentials that blend science and technology policy with core public administration competencies. The programs below range from standalone graduate certificates (typically 12 to 18 credits) to full MPA concentrations and dedicated master's degrees. Because tuition structures vary by residency status, enrollment type, and financial aid, prospective students should consult each program's website for current cost details.

State and Local Public Administration Relevance of OSTP Outputs

How does a White House science advisory office shape the day-to-day work of a state health department or a city emergency management agency? OSTP has no direct authority over state and local governments, but its guidance reaches them through federal funding conditions, shared data standards, model practices, and intergovernmental coordination.

Public access and research data standards

The 2022 OSTP public access memo requires federally funded research and underlying data to be made immediately available.¹ For state and local agencies, the practical effect appears in grant agreements, university local government partnerships, and public health collaborations that must include data management plans, public repositories, and immediate-access publication rules. State chief data officers can adopt the Federal Data Strategy's focus on metadata, data hosting, and API capabilities² to make local portals more interoperable with federal systems. State universities and public libraries can apply NIST's Research Data Framework and persistent identifier services when building open data repositories.³

AI governance and procurement expectations

OSTP's interagency coordination role on artificial intelligence signals a federal shift toward documented risk management, transparency, testing, and governance controls.⁴ Local procurement offices and state IT administrators can apply this direction through AI inventories, impact assessments, and review standards for public-facing systems, even though OSTP does not issue direct directives to cities or counties. Public administrators can treat these as federal administration best practices rather than federal requirements.

Public health, climate, and emergency management

During the COVID-19 response, OSTP supported standard search tags, high-performance computing coordination, and an open research dataset⁵, practices that local health departments can extend through structured, machine-readable guidance. Emergency managers and public health administrators can use those metadata approaches to improve local dashboards and alerting systems. Climate resilience offices can draw on open science workflows such as the NOAA Openscapes initiative and NASA's multiyear open science program to require persistent identifiers and reusable datasets in resilience planning. EPA's open science mentorship pilot offers a similar model for state environmental agencies.³