7

Conclusions and Recommendations

In the process of addressing the Statement of Task, the committee realized that many of its recommendations and key conclusions drew on evidence from different aspects of the chemical economy, including its economics, politics, research goals, and future workforce needs. To make sure there was adequate information for these conclusions, the committee decided to build a body of evidence throughout the report before the final set of recommendations was presented. This chapter is not meant to serve as an exhaustive list of conclusions and recommendations that cover all of fundamental chemical research and the chemical economy but rather targets some big picture areas, as well as a number of specifics that address the committee’s charge, which came through as being particularly important during information gathering, discussions, and deliberations. This chapter begins broadly with recommendations for chemical research and the chemical economy, and then narrows to talk about more specific topics: team science, chemistry and environmental sustainability, challenging the assumptions around chemical research, chemical data, the future chemical workforce, and funding for chemical research. The conclusions summarized here may also be found in the individual chapters. To maintain consistency, the numbers used to designate them are identical to those listed in the different chapters.

7.1 THE IMPORTANCE OF CHEMICAL RESEARCH TO THE CHEMICAL ECONOMY

Throughout the information-gathering process, the committee found numerous examples of how chemistry was central and critical to discoveries that improved the quality of life for all people. In Section 2.3.3, the committee outlined six examples where a foundational base of chemical knowledge, along with several breakthrough chemical discoveries, led to dramatic changes in products or processes, and led to ubiquitous products such as the silicon chips in our electronic devices or the small molecules that are used for birth control, diabetes, or preventing deaths from the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Along with these examples, Chapter 2 notes that together, all sectors reliant on the U.S. chemical economy are responsible for $5.2 trillion, or 25%, of the U.S.

gross domestic product, and the entire chemical enterprise supports 4.1 million jobs in the United States of people who are interacting with the chemical economy. Additionally, there is evidence that chemical patents, and patents that rely on chemical knowledge, are more valuable than comparable patents that are not related to chemistry.

Although expansive and critical to many areas of the economy, the U.S. chemical economy is not the undisputed global leader that it once was. Other countries have seen large sustained investments in their chemical and overall research enterprises, including China and several others, and their rapid advances are starting to threaten U.S. leadership in chemistry in specific areas. Based on all of this information, the committee landed on several important conclusions.

Conclusion 2-3: Chemistry is a foundational and central scientific discipline, and sustained investment in fundamental chemical research provides the chemical knowledge for technology development, generating unexpected discoveries that are the basis for innovation. These innovations directly influence the chemical economy, environment, and quality of life, and also advance knowledge and discovery in many other scientific and technological disciplines, such as the life sciences, information technology, earth sciences, and engineering.

Conclusion 2-4: The chemical economy is critically important for our national economy and our leadership in the international chemical enterprise. This leadership relies heavily on advances in fundamental chemistry that drive the creation of new tools, technologies, processes, and products and enables environmental considerations. However, our nation’s leadership in the chemical industry cannot be taken for granted, and this leadership needs continued and sustained nurturing and support.

Conclusion 2-2: It is challenging to directly link chemical research to economic impact because each chemical product or process relies on a broad body of chemical knowledge and discovery that is built over decades or centuries, and chemical knowledge is also deeply integrated into other disciplines, making the specific impacts of chemistry in the broad scientific enterprise difficult to deconvolute. Additionally, analyzing the economic impact of chemical research suffers from a lack of data, including patent value estimations, widely available licensing terms data, and government grant data.

To take action based on this set of broad conclusions, the committee suggests a set of wide-ranging actions, mostly directed at the U.S. government but with advice, as well, for other actors within the chemical economy such as industry practitioners and academic researchers. In relation to international competitiveness and its national security implications, the committee understands the importance of security but notes that U.S. competitiveness in the sciences relies heavily on attracting international talent and ensuring an open exchange of people and ideas. These recommendations emphasize growing and strengthening the U.S. chemical economy and U.S. competitiveness.

Recommendation 1: To foster fundamental chemical research and maintain U.S. competitiveness in the chemical economy, the U.S. chemical enterprise should support funding, workforce, and policy structures that attract international researchers and create a nurturing environment for all research talent.

Sub-Recommendation 1-1: Because it is not possible to predict where the next fundamental breakthroughs will come from, funding agencies that support the chemical sciences, such as the U.S. Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, National Institutes

of Health, U.S. Department of Defense, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, should fund the largest breadth of fundamental chemical research projects possible. This should include funding for a large range of topics in chemistry, as well as different scales of research projects, ranging from small grants for individual laboratories to large-scale collaborations and facilities.

Sub-Recommendation 1-2: Participants in the chemical economy including chemical industry, pharmaceutical companies, and instrumentation developers should continue to invest in research and development at universities and scientific research institutions in the United States and should increase investments in broad areas of fundamental chemical research, including a focus on environmental sustainability.

Sub-Recommendation 1-3: The U.S. government should continue to produce policies that support international and open exchange of ideas in the chemical sciences and should engage policy and security experts, academic researchers, and industry professionals when considering any limitations on open engagement that are meant to mitigate economic or security risks to the U.S. chemical enterprise.

Sub-Recommendation 1-4: To help guide policy and funding decisions around chemical research, federal agencies who fund and track data related to scientific research should collaborate to collect, and make available, the tools and data needed to understand the impact of fundamental chemical research on the chemical economy. As a part of this initiative, large-scale evidence-building efforts to collect, standardize, use, and interpret these data should be funded.

7.2 ROLE OF CHEMISTRY IN TEAM SCIENCE

Another important outcome from the report is that major chemical discoveries that have large economic and societal impacts do not happen in a vacuum. There are large bodies of scientific research in areas such as the life sciences, physics, engineering, and the social sciences that contribute to all important chemical and technological advances. Additionally, the inverse is true: chemical knowledge contributes to many diverse fields of science and technology. When teams of researchers with diverse expertise gather to solve a central problem in a critical area, chemistry drives basic knowledge and practical application in order to help teams accomplish major advances. This is highlighted in Chapters 2 and 3 of the report but is very strongly emphasized in Chapter 4, where we discuss the emerging areas of measurement, automation, computation, and catalysis, all of which rely heavily on different fields of research in order to successfully advance. To emphasize this, the committee noted the following conclusion and recommendation.

Conclusion 4-1: Chemistry is an enabling scientific discipline that will continue to have the largest impact on society when chemists collaborate with experts from other areas such as engineering, biology, physics, computation, and data science to generate new fundamental knowledge and create translational impact at larger scales.

Recommendation 2: Research groups across all scales—small-to-medium interdisciplinary teams, large-scale collaborations, and facilities—should reflect the centrality of chemistry to science and engineering. Because of the central and enabling nature of chemistry, experts across chemistry and its subdisciplines should be considered when there are large interdisciplinary projects, highly collaborative institutions, national lab research, and other team-based scientific activities.

7.3 CHEMICAL RESEARCH AND SUSTAINABILITY

With all the advances that chemistry has made to improve the quality of life of all individuals, there is the competing fact that chemistry has also caused a lot of harm to the environment and human health. As noted in Chapter 1, it is ironic that the solutions to many of these environmental issues might very well come from chemistry and chemical engineering. In talking to professionals and researchers from industry, academia, and government, it is clear that the next chapter of fundamental chemical research will look to address the climate crisis and look toward solutions for global sustainability. These solutions will need to come from many different areas of engineering and science, but fundamental chemistry research has already played, and will continue to play, a critical role in advancing some technologies and helping with the co-design of other tools and technologies. Chapter 3 highlights areas where chemistry has already had an impact in solving environmental problems and identifies some of the policies that helped to drive these solutions. Additionally the chapter points out a number of areas of sustainability, many aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, where fundamental chemical research could have the largest impact in the near future. These ideas are emphasized in many of the conclusions from that chapter, as stated below.

Conclusion 3-1: To implement a circular economy, the future will require a paradigm shift in the way products are designed, manufactured, and used, and how the waste products are collected and reused. These new processes, and the use of clean energy and new feedstocks to enable these processes, will require novel chemistries, tools, and new fundamental research at every stage of design.

Conclusion 3-2: Transitioning the chemical economy into a new paradigm around sustainable manufacturing, in which environmental sustainability is balanced with the need for products that will improve quality of life, enhance security, and increase U.S. competitiveness, will require substantial investment and innovation from industry, government, and their academic partners to create and implement new chemical processes and practices.

To accomplish this paradigm shift in the chemical sciences many steps will need to be taken, and a concerted effort will be needed from government, industry, and academia. While some of the specifics of this transition are explained in Chapter 3, collaboration between different groups involved in design and implementation will be critical for moving forward.

Recommendation 3: The chemical industry and its partners at universities, scientific research institutions, and national labs should create opportunities to collaborate so that the objectives of fundamental research can directly assist in the design process of companies implementing new processes or practices toward environmental stewardship, sustainability, and clean energy.

While the conclusions and recommendations above take a broad look at environmental sustainability, and think through a shift of the entire chemical economy, there are specific conclusions and recommendations that apply to researchers. For chemical research to evolve with, and help advance, the moving landscape of the chemical economy toward sustainability, there are two key conclusions that the committee came to, based on the evidence gathered in Chapter 3.

Conclusion 3-3: As fundamental chemical research continues to evolve, the next generation of research directions will prioritize the future of environmental sustainability and

new energy technologies. Keeping sustainability principles in mind during every stage of research and development will be critical to accomplishing this goal.

Conclusion 3-4: Chemical research will have the greatest impact addressing energy and environmental sustainability if researchers and practitioners develop and use tools to quantify and mitigate environmental and human health impacts of new discoveries and are aware of the societal implications of their work, and if the research is driven by policies that identify specific environmental sustainability outcomes.

To encourage academic researchers to keep environmental sustainability in mind at every stage of research, the committee noted that grant mechanisms usually do not ask researchers to consider the environmental impact of their work unless it is directly related to the grant or contract for which the researcher is applying. Although not ubiquitous in grant writing, “broader impacts statements” have been an important mechanism in encouraging researchers to think through how their labs and research are interacting with the community around them. To similarly encourage all academic chemical researchers to keep environmental sustainability and environmental stewardship at the front of their minds when considering all different types of research endeavors, the committee thought an optional “environmental impacts” statement would be the best way to accomplish this.

There are some inherent downsides to this kind of statement. There is frequently resistance from the scientific community toward the need for additional writing and information to be included in the research proposal writing process. Additionally, it can sometimes be difficult to consider environmental impacts of basic research that does not yet have a described application. Instead of being a burden for researchers, the committee envisions the environmental impacts statement as an optional opportunity to think about how their research aims fit into the broader context of climate change and other environmental issues. Adding an environmental impacts statement would also allow researchers to gain experience applying a systems-level thinking approach to understand their own impact, and how their research might be used to reduce environmental impact or address grand challenges such as climate change. These kinds of statements would strengthen research proposals through broader thinking about the environment.

Recommendation 4: All chemistry-related research grants and proposals should have an option to explain the “environmental impacts” of the proposed research, as an option under the “broader impacts” statement. The “environmental impacts” statement should include a summary of the possible environmental impacts, what is being done to mitigate those impacts, and any outcomes from the research that will directly impact environmental sustainability.

Recommendation 4 is intentionally vague because the committee understands that different funders will have different funding requirements and missions, and might approach such a statement in a wide variety of ways. Similar to the way that the National Science Foundation asks about broader impacts, an environmental impacts statement would benefit from being broad and allowing researchers to include what they think is appropriate. Some possible topics that could be addressed in an environmental impacts statement include, but are not limited to,

• how the methods, chemicals, or technologies used in the research will help to reduce the environmental footprint in comparison to what is currently available;
• what aspects of environmental impact could be measured or tested using the methods under development in the proposed research;

• understanding how the research will be applied to technologies such as carbon capture that could help mitigate climate change; and
• showing a systems-level understanding of how the research might have an impact on the environment and explaining steps that were taken to mitigate any negative impacts.

7.4 CHALLENGING THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS OF CHEMICAL RESEARCH

Complementary to the paradigm shift toward sustainability described in the previous section, there is a transition happening in the way we collect and use energy. This change is happening rapidly and, as noted in Chapter 3, is affecting the materials, technologies, and processes that are needed to effectively implement the energy landscape. As shown throughout this report, chemical research and the chemical economy have been critical to the implementation of the current energy landscape. Today and in the near future, there are many areas ripe for chemical discovery in a new energy landscape that prioritizes clean alternatives and decarbonization. To accomplish these scientific advances more effectively, there are several factors to take into account, such as the changing needs for metals and minerals that arise with the increase in electric vehicles and complications with acquiring metals based on shifting international politics (see Sections 1.3.2 and 3.4.2.2). Researchers, economists, and industry professionals must constantly assess the assumptions being made about the different aspects of the chemical economy and decide if those assumptions are true or if they are likely to change. By understanding what is most likely for the energy landscape in the future, chemical researchers can make decisions about what the pressing needs will be to help move sustainability forward.

Conclusion 3-5: As the world moves deeper into its current energy transition—including the switch to electric vehicles, the implementation of clean energy alternatives, and the use of new feedstock sources—coupled with an increasing focus on circularity, the committee expects that decarbonization, computation, measurement, and automation will significantly alter the operations and processes of current industries, creating new opportunities and challenges that will benefit from fundamental chemistry and chemical engineering advances.

Recommendation 5: Changes in energy sources complemented by the technology and processes offered by chemical companies will lead to entire industries being created, transformed, and terminated. A group of experts from chemistry and other impacted disciplines, who represent the chemical economy and academic research, should be convened to assess the implications of these industrial shifts and understand their impacts on current chemical research paradigms. Based on the information from these discussions, funding agencies and the chemical industry should put money toward interesting opportunities for chemical research that might emerge based on these trends.

7.5 CHEMICAL DATA AND ANALYSIS

In Chapter 4, we explore the emerging tools and technologies of measurement, automation, computation, and catalysis. These four technologies will not only be critical to addressing the future of sustainability, as noted in Chapter 3, but will also continue to accelerate research in all areas of chemistry. These technologies are also exciting to fundamental chemistry research because, in addition to advancing chemistry, the tools themselves have all benefited from the accumulation of

chemical knowledge. Additionally important is that chemical and chemistry-related data are critical to all of these emerging tools and technologies. In assessing these emerging tools and technologies, there was a common thread noted by the committee on the importance of well-curated and accessible data to benefit all aspects of chemistry. While there have been some efforts to collect and share chemical data, as noted in Chapter 4, the practice is not universal, and there is a particularly large dearth of negative data in chemistry. A large supply of both positive and negative data would be particularly helpful for developing models and for understanding different molecular properties and interactions, as well as learning how to more accurately measure chemical systems. For progress to continue, a concerted effort must be made to establish standards for how chemical data are collected, stored, and distributed, leading to the following conclusion and recommendation.

Conclusion 4-3: The ability to collect, document, store, share, and use chemistry-related data is needed to advance the use of new tools such as computation and automation in fundamental chemical research, and increase the accessibility of chemical research to a larger community of practitioners. This information architecture will produce an indispensable tool for the chemical sciences research community to increase the pace and efficiency of innovation by fully harnessing advances made with previous research investments.

Recommendation 6: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in consultation with the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the American Chemical Society, and other global chemistry professional societies, should lead an effort to explore pathways that provide an open-source, accessible, and standardized way for chemical researchers to store, share, and use data from chemical experiments. In establishing these pathways, NIST should seek input from professional societies and stakeholders from different areas of chemical research and data science so that they can best understand the infrastructure needs of different research communities such as inorganic, organic, and analytical chemists. Once standards and data repositories are established, publishers should require researchers to submit all data related to reactions, measurements, or other chemical experiments to these established open-source repositories.

7.6 CHEMICAL WORKFORCE

Throughout this report, there is an emphasis on the individuals who are responsible for chemical advances and those who are driving the chemical economy. Chapter 2 noted how expansive the chemical economy is and how it supports millions of jobs. While the committee understands that not all of these employees will go through chemistry or chemical engineering programs, the persons who are trained as chemists and chemical engineers are connected to and dependent upon all other people in the chemical economy. Formulating conclusions and recommendations for employees of the chemical economy that are not trained in chemistry and chemical engineering is beyond the scope of this report. However, in Chapter 5, there is an emphasis on important areas that will help to build the next generation of the chemical workforce who make their way through chemistry and chemical engineering programs. Importantly, there is a strong need for a diverse workforce that is developed through equitable training practices, such as well-developed mentorship and professional development programs. Additionally, the chapter emphasizes the need for chemistry curricula to be adaptable to the future needs of the chemical enterprise. There are three conclusions from that chapter that cover these principles.

Conclusion 5-1: A skilled science and engineering workforce paired with a diverse, inclusive, and equitable science and engineering research enterprise is central to a thriving, nimble chemical economy equipped to respond to emerging challenges and maintain U.S. competitiveness.

Conclusion 5-2: The current structures and systems governing funding, promotion, retention, and professional development are in conflict and can stymie holistic career advancement for students, faculty, and research staff.

Conclusion 5-5: Creating an equitable and inclusive learning environment that exposes trainees of the future chemical workforce to new and innovative chemical tools, technologies, and instrumentation, as well as interdisciplinary knowledge and critical collaboration skills, will require a serious and sustained investment from funding agencies, universities, industry partnerships, and accreditation programs. This investment is critical because the tools and practices that enable chemical research are constantly evolving, and training programs must be able to adapt to best facilitate the learning of basic-to-advanced chemical principles that will help students succeed.

To properly address these conclusions on a practical level, the committee recommends that steps be taken to fund research in chemical education, continually reassess chemistry curricula, and continue to provide opportunities for professional development. The following recommendations lay out these ideas in more detail.

Recommendation 7-1: Funding agencies that support chemical research should put a substantial investment toward education research to continue enabling the development of innovative ways of teaching students about new and emerging concepts, tools, technologies, and instrumentation in chemistry while creating an inclusive learning environment for all students.

Recommendation 7-2: Universities, colleges, and accreditation programs should continually reassess their curriculum requirements and pedagogical practices to ensure that chemistry students in the chemical sciences are receiving state-of-the-art inclusive training and the most current chemical information and advances.

Recommendation 7-3: Universities and agencies that fund and support education in the chemical sciences should provide professional development at all levels, allowing for opportunities that are specific to the needs of each educational or career stage, such as programs that connect students with internships or resources for career exploration and providing faculty with professional development opportunities aimed at advancing their scholarship and teaching.

Recommendation 7-4: To continue progress in improving the diversity and equity of the chemical workforce, universities and chemical sciences departments should regularly assess their recruitment and retention practices related to trainees, faculty, and research staff. These assessments should be guided by relevant experts in research-informed equitable recruitment and retention practices of higher education institutions and units that also understand the nuances and details of the particular institution or entity. Institutions and units should continually take action and make meaningful investments based on their assessments. This work should be reported in a timely and transparent fashion to the institutional community.

7.7 FUNDING CHEMICAL RESEARCH

The funding landscape for chemical research in the United States is quite broad, and as described in Chapter 6, chemical research is funded by a diverse set of private and public sources. One of the major advantages of this broad network of funding opportunities is that many different types and scales of chemical research are able to seek out and secure funding. One downside is that it can be challenging for new researchers to navigate this complicated landscape. While there are many other challenges with the funding landscape, overall, it is able to provide a wide variety of opportunities, and many aspects do not require immediate change. There are a number of conclusions in Chapter 6 that outline the main findings, but the final recommendations focus on three areas where there is the greatest possibility to be impactful to the U.S. chemical research enterprise and the chemical economy.

First, the committee wanted to highlight the importance of the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs in chemistry. This is one of the few government funding mechanisms where there is an opportunity to build fundamental chemical research into a product, process, or technology that will impact the broader chemical economy. In Section 6.1.3 of the report, we highlight some of the success stories of SBIR/STTR programs that funded chemistry-related projects. For these reasons, the following conclusion and recommendation highlight SBIR/STTR programs.

Conclusion 6-2: Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs have proven to be an important mechanism for advancing the chemical enterprise. There are many examples of fundamental chemical research being further pursued as a marketable product or process to contribute to the chemical economy through SBIR/STTR programs, and these programs also foster an emerging area of the chemical workforce where university researchers create and work in these small start-ups that are based on the grants from these programs.

Recommendation 8: Funding agencies should continue to support and publicize innovations in the chemical sciences through Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs in order to leverage their previous investments in fundamental research and allow researchers the opportunity to bring new products or processes to market.

In the landscape of public and private funding, one area that has become more prominent over the past several years is the rise of philanthropic support. Section 6.3 outlines the many ways that philanthropies have contributed to fundamental chemical research. But relative to federal funding for basic research, philanthropy supports far fewer schools and research projects. The future of scientific funding will continue to include larger percentages of money from philanthropic organizations and independent donations. To ensure that science works to address big societal issues such as climate change and human health, funders will need to invest in the fundamental chemistry that informs and is critical to so many other areas of science. This will be particularly impactful if foundations and organizations continue to have minimal influence on the specifics of funded projects, instead allowing scientists to identify approaches and solutions to global problems. The following conclusion and recommendation start to address these issues.

Conclusion 6-4: In the near term, foundation and individual philanthropic support is likely to grow as a resource for innovations in chemistry. This support provides an important opportunity to use scientific evidence and exploration to address challenges that will benefit all of society, such as climate change and human health.

Recommendation 9: The American Chemical Society, along with other chemistry-related professional societies, universities, and their academic leaders, should explore mechanisms to be more proactive in communicating to philanthropists and foundations about the promise of fundamental chemistry in addressing national and global problems. University and academic leaders should emphasize the importance of funding structures between philanthropic and federal funding mechanisms that ensure balance and complementarity.

To accomplish the chemical research described in this report, there is a critical need for laboratory space, instrumental facilities and support, access to computation, and much more. Chapter 4 covered different emerging areas of research that will be needed for continued advances of chemical science, and all of these areas rely on institutional infrastructure. Infrastructure is also critical for training the next generation of the chemical workforce. In Chapter 5, we showed that there is a need to continually rethink and adapt curricula, based on new tools and technologies that will be critical to the future of research and industry. Having infrastructure in place gives institutions the ability to train students, faculty, and other professionals on these emerging technologies.

In its final section, Chapter 6 explains some of the current issues with how institutional infrastructure is supported. This is particularly important to trainees who will be entering the chemical economy, because chemical research requires a working knowledge of many different facets of technology and research, all of which are supported through infrastructure. These findings are summarized with a conclusion and a supporting recommendation.

Conclusion 6-1: Investment in the infrastructure at research universities is not well supported. This diminishes the opportunities for many talented chemical researchers to use the newest tools, technologies, and instrumentation and prevents trainees from having access to the newest technologies being used in the chemical workforce.

Recommendation 10: The federal government should invest more to support research infrastructure at research institutions to ensure that talented chemical experts and trainees with outstanding ideas can be competitive for research awards.