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THE U.S. NATIONAL NANOTECHnology Initiative (NNI) was established in 2001 in an effort to coordinate federal nanotechnology R&D initiatives. The purpose of the NNI was to create a framework for a comprehensive nanotechnology R&D program by establishing shared goals, priorities, and strategies and coordinating efforts among individual government agencies. The NNI was just one of several bureaucracies, including the interagency Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Technology and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO), charged with coordinating the country’s nanotechnology research efforts. Recently, these organizations issued the NNI Strategic Plan for 2007, which describes the vision, goals, and priorities of the NNI moving forward. The 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2003 calls for the NNI Strategic Plan to be updated every third year. This current plan updates and replaces the December 2004 plan. Since President Clinton initiated the public funding of nanotechnology research back in the mid-1990s, the © IMAGESOURCE
NNI in the Future The United States revises its strategic nanotechnology program LOUIS ROSS Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MNANO.2008.918159
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result has been quite productive in terms of establishing the most extensive infrastructure in the world for basic nanotechnology-related research. It has created a national network of over 70 research and user facilities established and supported by the NNI throughout the countr y, leading to a “thriving nanoscale science and engineering R&D environment within the United States.” This has certainly helped to provide an incentive for industr y to become
nificant extent. U.S. nanotechnology policies tend to be very important for the entire world at large since it continues to act as the world’s largest economy. What is interesting to note about the growth of domestic nanotech research and commercial activity is its increasing dependence on foreign participation. This would include those graduate-level researchers and faculty who have largely been educated overseas in the U.S. university system and the large foreign com-
The continued growth of the nanotech research infrastructure via the plans contained in the NNI look very promising. involved and explore commercial possibilities and interact with this infrastructure, which is largely tied to the university system. A great deal of understanding and basic research was—and still is—necessar y in order to better understand nanometer-scale phenomena. This will be a ripe area for public funding for many years to come.
DOMESTIC EFFORTS As the United States has been the key country in terms of leading the worldwide effort to increase public expenditures directed at nanotechnology research, development, and commercialization, the new NNI plan is an important bellweather for industry worldwide. Many government and industry plans developed overseas were a direct result, and in direct response, to U.S. funding efforts. Continued public support helps to provide guidance for university-level researchers and those in the industrial sector who continue to have a strong interest, though now somewhat tempered, in commercializing nanotechnology starting in the United States and then “flowing to the rest of the world.” Though it can be argued that in some cases other countries are leading in actual commercialization, especially in Japan and Asia, the United States still tends to shape overseas activities to a sig-
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panies, generally Japanese, Asian, and European, who invest in U.S.-based R&D operations and university labs as industrial partners and who are actively investing in, licensing from, or buying out promising U.S. startup companies in the space. So, in concert with the growth of the U.S. nanotech infrastructure, the system itself has become far more international than the prenanotech era science and technology research infrastructure in the United States. Its continued growth and success depends on a continued inflow and outflow of foreign people, know-how, and capital. It is expected to become increasingly important for U.S.-based technology development initiatives at the public/ university level to be commercialized by a variety of industrial concerns, not all of which will be based in the United States. This especially holds well for nanotechnology. Nanotechnology will become one of the enabling technologies to be developed in a new economic environment where high-value-added university and industrial R&D resources are spread throughout the globe and cross-border partnerships will become common place. The U.S. nanotech research infrastructure will interact with this environment, and the U.S. economy must find appropriate niches to develop domestic economic
activity from all of this public funding. The interdependence is fine as long as continued public funding can be justified.
COMPETITIVE EDGE In many ways, the U.S. strategy toward building a strong nanotechnology “competitive position” is in stark contrast to the often more highly coordinated and industrially relevant and supportive policies of other countries. It is also contradictory. For example, calls for funding are usually wrapped in “enhancing domestic economic competitiveness” clothing, though its clear that cooperation should be emphasized more in order to achieve success. Also, U.S. plans often lack focused sector industrial planning and road mapping, which is often left to individual industrial sectors and companies, on their own, to decide. These efforts more often than not are quite shallow, though there are numerous state initiatives that are much better at building distinct industrial clusters using local university resources. In the NNI plan, though there is mention of such activity, it is not nearly as coordinated on the federal level as it may appear when looking at what industry is interested in or may be doing. U.S. planning is more fragmented and democratic, with numerous agencies supporting projects that focus on funding basic and applied research but fairly weak when it comes to directly supporting industry unless it is small scale, and that is lacking as well. It is strongly believed and assumed that the private sector will naturally take up the cause of commercializing technology. However, especially in times of economic instability and forced restructurings, the private sector needs to be more incentivized via deeper public spending commitments by the government, which, in effect, helps to reduce corporate R&D costs and associated risk. U.S. companies are very sensitive to this issue now, and they have increasingly turned to university-based research efforts both at home and, increasingly, abroad. More applied work is being “outsourced” to university labs, and universities recognize the new potential business opportunity of playing that role. This phenomena is a direct result of the inherent lack of support for industrial policy
measures, which is often derided as “corporate welfare.” Though, historically, it can be argued that such cultural attitude toward supporting industry was a natural consequence of the history of economic development and political realities in the United States, it may not be appropriate for nurturing nanotechnology and harvesting the benefits of successful commercialization. It appears that numerous other countries, including many in Asia and Europe, understand this and are attempting to integrate the private sector more into government plans even beyond their traditional ways of utilizing government support to build domestic industry. In countries such as Japan, the government has been encouraging more private sector/academic collaboration as well and has refused to let budget cuts affect public outlays for S&T. Funding for basic research in academia and government technology roadmaps should focus on developing core technologies that can easily be transferred to the private sector. As part of this process, more collaboration should take place between the government, academia, and industry. This may sound obvious, but in practice it may not be so easy. In regard to nanotechnology, an enabling technology that impacts such a broad variety of industrial sectors, it is critically important. The multidisciplinary nature of the technology and its novelty make it very necessary for a well-thought-out industrial policy, as well as coordination and cooperation among all parties involved.
MEET THE NEW NNI The new NNI plan is the result of the efforts of the 25 NNI participating agencies and a collection of their initiatives. In addition to specifying high-level goals, the plan identifies activities aimed at accomplishing those goals and supporting those initiatives. The plan identifies major subject areas, or program component areas (PCAs), in which investments are needed to ensure the success of the initiative. Finally, the plan identifies a number of representative high-impact application opportunities that cut across the NNI program component areas and that align with the competencies and missions of participating agencies.
Along with the agencies involved, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the National Research Council of the National Academies also participated and have strongly supported the NNI to date, leading to the maintenance of a healthy public budget. It is expected that such support should continue, even in the face of inevitable cuts in federal and state public spending due to an expected economic downturn and rising budget deficits. While the U.S. plan to continue to fund nanotechnology has been approved, there have been significant revisions that are important but not related to supporting commercialization. This includes plans to support research related to environmental, health, and safety issues and on the education and societal dimensions of nanotechnology. Also, the new plan emphasizes the need for exemplary, highimpact application opportunities that are “visionary, yet realistic.” These illustrative examples highlight the range of cuttingedge research and the variety of areas in which nanotechnology will transform industrial sectors and society. The success of this strategy will be, and has been, hard to quantify, but the important point is that nanotechnology is the best option for investing public funds because of the potential return in so many industrial sectors. In the United States, the issue may be that these government initiatives are operating in a type of vacuum where private sector feedback and interaction may be less than meets the eye and a thorough understanding of foreign nanotech initiatives and commercialization activities have, arguably, largely been ignored. This is not necessarily a fault of the purveyors of these initiatives, but government agencies cannot be expected to have the private sector insight it takes to determine where private sector R&D money may be deployed. In regard to overseas activities, it’s a challenge for the private sector to keep abreast of activities, even large ones, especially in countries that operate in, for example, Japanese and Chinese. The NNI and concerned agencies should consider the above during their strategic planning sessions. It’s quite common in the United States for these activities, which include
the hosting of topical workshops sponsored by the NNI in which academic, government, and industry experts develop research recommendations for a variety of application areas, to lack a substantive understanding of what is going on overseas.
HARVESTING RESULTS Needless to say, nanotechnology is still emerging and the fruits of this infrastructure and the new initiatives as defined in the revised plan will be accumulated over several decades. Some of this nascent technology is finding its way into products at the very basic level. End-user products are being enhanced, such as the inclusion of low-grade nanotubes into sports equipment, and intellectual property has been created at a fast pace. The United States must not succumb to its natural instinct to be short sighted, and the government must continue to strongly support public spending for nanotechnology. The ability to file thousands of “nanotechnology” patents could be a function of our thriving legal system, and companies can easily be discouraged from betting on new technologies if associated agency costs exceed a company’s taste for risk. Sustained R&D is taking place in several Asian countries, led by Japan. Other countries including China are emerging but could develop a ver y strong, natural competitive advantage in certain areas. One important factor affecting their industrial policy decisions is the goal of utilizing innovation to support and enhance their manufacturing capabilities. The continued growth of the nanotech research infrastructure via the plans contained in the NNI look very promising. The new NNI plan must be supported by a long-term political commitment to keep funding intact regardless of what happens to the macro economy in 2008 and the following three to four years. There will be strong political pressure to cut budgets, and it must be resisted.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Louis Ross (
[email protected]) is president and chief executive officer of Virtus Advanced Senors. He serves as the commercialization editor for IEEE Nanotechnology Magazine.
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