On April 27, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) released the “Report to the President and Congress on the Fourth Assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI),” a congressionally mandated biennial review. Five of the 24 researchers providing input to the report were from the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts School of Public Policy (SPP).

The PCAST recommendations will be influential in the approval of $1.8 billion in federal funding proposed for fiscal year (FY) 2013 for 15 agencies with budgets dedicated to nanotechnology research and development. The work of Drs. Alan Porter, Juan Rogers, and Phil Shapira, along with EI2 researcher Jan Youtie, are cited a number of times. Work by SPP PhD students Sanjay Arora and Luciano Kay are also cited.

The report notes that, as initial federal investments in nanotechnology mature, outputs and impacts from research activities are being given more attention.  SPP researchers provided data and studies defining and assessing key indicators of research productivity, including publication and patenting rates, as well as patterns of collaboration (see report data beginning on page 5 and list in Appendix A).   PCAST found that the NNI, which to date has provided $16 billion in investments by 26 federal agencies, “has had a ‘catalytic and substantial impact’ on the growth of the U.S. nanotechnology industry and should be continued.” PCAST states that, in large part due to the NNI, the U.S. “is today, by a wide range of measures, the global leader in this exciting and economically promising field of research and technological development.”  

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