In a speech on Monday at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, President Obama presented a vision of a new era in research financing comparable to the Sputnik-period space race, in which intensified scientific inquiry, and development of the intellectual capacity to pursue it, are a top national priority.

The president laid out an ambitious plan to invigorate the country's pipeline for innovation, from grade-school classrooms to corporate, government and academic research laboratories.

Mr. Obama's plan includes fulfilling commitments dating from the Bush administration to double the budgets of the National Science Foundation, the science office of the Department of Energy and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

But he is also seeking increases in direct federal investment in medical and energy research, and he would make permanent what has been a sporadic research and experimentation tax credit offered to companies that push beyond the quest for quarterly profits to pursue breakthroughs.

Over all, he described his initiative as "the largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history," receiving hearty applause from the scientists and observers who packed the halls at the National Academy headquarters for the group's annual meeting.

Mr. Obama made clear that a new burst of advances in energy technology, medicine and other important arenas would not come from money alone, but required scientists to get out of their laboratories and find ways to inspire young people "to create, build and invent - to be makers of things, not just consumers of things."

Many elements of his plan had already been introduced, including $400 million in initial financing under the economic recovery bill for an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, akin to a defense research agency created after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik.

He provided fresh detail on an initiative, already included in the economics stimulus bill, creating a $5 billion "Race to the Top" fund available to states doing the most to increase the ranks of trained science and math teachers. Mr. Obama noted that the country faced a shortfall of more than 280,000 math and science teachers by 2015.

He pledged to lift public and private investment in research and development in the United States beyond its high point in 1964, at the peak of the space race and cold war, when such money was 3 percent of the gross domestic product.

Today, that would translate into about $46 billion a year, according to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

William J. Broad contributed reporting.