Letter Report on the Sixth Assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL OF ADVISORS ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY WASHINGTON, D.C. 20502 January 20 1 7 Dear Mr. President, The vision of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to a revolution in technology and industry that benefits society.1 The NNI has created a foundation for researchers to unearth the scientific secrets of the smallest scale and begin to amplify them into reimagined devices, systems, and new ways of engineering that will address some of the Nation’s greatest challenges. Nanotechnology is already a part of many of the White House and agencies’ current efforts including the Precision Medicine Initiative, the Manufacturing Innovation Institutes, and the Materials Genome Initiative, and revenue from nano-enabled products grew worldwide from $339 billion in 2010 to more than SI trillion in 2013. 2 The NNI is instantiated in law by the 21s1 Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act.3 When the NNI began in FY2001, the total aggregated Federal agency budget for nanotechnology research and development (R&D) was $464 million; that figure was $1.4 billion in the FY2017 request. In the last 16 years, over $24 billion has been dedicated to this effort. By Executive Order 13349, every 2 years we, your President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), examine the Federal government’s role in this national initiative. This letter report serves as our final review of the NNI for this Administration. Grand Challenges In our previous review released in October 2014, we observed that the NNI has spumed significant scientific discovery and understanding of nanoscale phenomena and has deeply integrated nanoscale science and technology into R&D portfolios across the Federal government.4 Our primary finding was that in order for the NNI to realize its vision of revolutionizing technology to benefit society, measurable progress is needed in translating scientific discovery to commercial products. In our primary recommendation, we said that the nanotechnology community can accomplish this by focusing on a series of specific technology goals, and the Federal government should support that effort by coordinating such focus using the Grand Challenge framework that has been successfully used on other large science and technology areas in your Administration (see Appendix). 1 See: vvvvw.nano.gov/about-nni/whal/vision-goals. 2 Flynn, H., “Nanotechnology Update: Corporations Up Their Spending as Revenues for Nano-enabled Products Increase.” 2014, Lux Research. 3 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, (Public Law 108-143), 108th Congress (2003- 2004), www, congress. gov7billT08th-congress/senate-bill/189?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22 108- 153%22%5D%7D&r=l. 4 See: www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/PCAST/pcast filth nni review oct2014 final.pdf.