Report affirms National Nano Initiative, recommends new efforts to maintain leadership

The U.S. government's ten-year-old program for nurturing and coordinating the young science of nanotechnology has been highly successful and has helped to make the United States the world's leader in this increasingly valuable manufacturing sector, concludes an independent report prepared for the President and Congress. But that leadership position is threatened by several aggressively investing competitors such as China, South Korea, and the European Union, according to the report, which recommends a number of changes in the Federal oversight program in order to assure U.S. dominance in the decade ahead.

The report -- released by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, a group of 21 experts from across the country -- is the third in a decade-long series of assessments of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), which coordinates Federal research and development activities involving the manipulation of matter at scales smaller than 100 billionths of meter. The report concludes that the NNI -- which provided $12 billion in investments by 25 Federal agencies over the past decade -- has had a "catalytic and substantial impact" on the growth of U.S. nanotechnology innovation and should be continued.

To read the full report, please go to: www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/pcast