The National Research Council recently released its Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, a required assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) by the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003. This document makes recommendations to the Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee and to the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) “that will improve the NNI's value for basic and applied research and for development of applications in nanotechnology that will provide economic, societal, and national security benefits to the United States”. The assessment of federal research initiatives; NNI stakeholders; metrics, definitions of success, and data; NNI planning, management, and coordination frameworks; and technology transfer and commercialization are discussed. {C}
That vision and the current set of NNI goals are broad and encompass a host of activities and outcomes that support the nanotechnology “ecosystem” in the United States. As a means to validate the influence of the NNI investments, the review cites the growth in nonfederal activities; for example, companies are investing in research and development, state and regional agencies are providing support, and standards bodies are developing new standards. But these achievements still require coordination and oversight to provide direction, accelerate progress, and build a sustainable infrastructure that will support the nanotechnology-enabled products of the future. Participating agencies allocate resources in accordance with their missions, rather than in a centralized or “top-down” manner. As a result, management of the NNI by the NSET Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Technology and the NNCO has been limited primarily to coordination and information-sharing. Although that approach has led to a system that creates knowledge and educates future scientists and engineers, the present report is a recognition that the NSET Subcommittee and the NNCO want to explore specific pathways to increase the value of the NNI to the nation and expedite progress toward economic and societal goals.
The National Nanomanufacturing Network (NNN) supports the assessments presented in the Triennial Review if the NNI, and has been collaborating on many facets of the suggestions provided. With the goal of providing a catalyst for R&D advancement in nanomanufacturing though information sharing, the NNN participates in and highlights progress in effective technology transfer, commercialization, nanoinformatics, EHS, and public policy, as a few examples. Some of the specific recommendations of the NRC report are below, and the entire report can be found here.
In assessing the three parts of the task statement—technology transfer and commercialization, metrics of progress toward goals, and overall management and coordination—the NRC committee identified five crosscutting concepts that informed the recommendations offered in the chapters of this report and that can serve as approaches to enhancing the NNI.
Second, strengthening NNI planning, management, and coordination can be enabled by developing and implementing interagency plans for focused areas—the signature initiatives and the working groups. Effective plans include goals, desired outcomes (from short term to long term), and models and actions that link investment, outputs, and short-term outcomes to ultimate long-term outcomes. The plans must also identify agency roles and responsibilities, milestones and metrics, and reasonable timeframes. The NNI agencies have already identified signature initiatives as “ripe for expedited advancement” through such coordination, planning, and management. The working groups are similarly focused and could increase their effectiveness for the NNI community substantially through greater planning. The plans—and progress reports—would naturally be included in the NNI supplement to the president’s annual budget.
Third, the NNI website (www.nano.gov) needs to serve the various stakeholder groups— including researchers, small and large businesses, educators and students, and the mass media—better. The website is a repository of NNI reports and links to many agency resources. It also provides good introductory information about nanotechnology. However, it can be expanded and improved to be more service-oriented. For example, it can be a portal to NNI user facilities with a searchable database on publicly available facilities, capabilities, and equipment in the agencies; it can also provide clear guidance on technology transfer and commercialization, including worker safety and regulatory issues.
Fourth, the NSET Subcommittee, NNI agencies, and the NNCO need to take advantage of advances in technology and methods for data collection and social-network analysis to develop and test specific metrics for assessing progress toward NNI goals and informing program management. Many of the metrics recommended in this report are based on data that are publicly available or may already be collected by the agencies. For example, starting with the information contained in the recommended searchable database of NNI projects, publications, patents, citations, students trained, and other information on NNI outputs can be collected and linked from other publicly available databases. The committee emphasizes the need for review, with domain experts, of those and other suggested metrics and the proposed models linking the metrics to desired NNI outcomes for collection and analysis of the data collected over at least 3 years to assess whether the metrics both reflect progress toward the desired outcomes and inform NNI management decisions in a cost-effective manner.
Fifth, the NNI would benefit from identifying, sharing, and implementing best practices, such as those described in this report, especially related to technology transfer and commercialization. The diversity of processes and agreements used by agencies, federal laboratories, and universities—and in some cases lack of flexibility—can be a barrier to transitioning research results to practical and commercial use, particularly by small companies and startups. In addition to more conventional pathways for transitioning research from universities and government laboratories to businesses, such as sponsored research and licensing, the NNI agencies could work together to partner with industry consortia to identify and address long-term research needs of sectors that have potential for high economic impact. The NSET Subcommittee, the NNI agencies, and the NNCO are to be commended for their work and progress in coordinating such a diverse multiagency program. The NNI has been a leader among interagency initiatives in many ways. Now it has an opportunity to be more effective and as a result more valuable to the nanotechnology community and the nation. The committee believes that the recommendations in this report will help the NNI to fulfill its goals and facilitate progress toward its vision.
