Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (2016) / Chapter Skim
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2 From Research to Commercialization: Need for NNI Focus
2 From Research to Commercialization: Need for NNI Focus
Pages 22-43
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From page 22... ...
to "foster the transfer of new technologies into products for commercial and public benefit." NNI spending, however, has been predominantly in support of research, including user facilities and equipment used by researchers. This NNI investment has built and sustained a diverse multidisciplinary research enterprise in universities, federal laboratories, and industry.
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Figure 2.1 illustrates the relationship among components of the nanotechnology innovation ecosystem, from research and education infrastructure to commercial products and applications. Beginning with the U.S.
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The process of transitioning a technology by pushing it toward a particular application often requires resources that, if not forth coming, can lead to the technology being caught in the so-called "valley of death." On the other hand, the commercial sector usually starts with a technology need and seeks to "pull" in a technology solution, either from an in-house research group or from the broader innovation ecosystem. Recognizing that research is fundamental to innovation, the federal government provides businesses tax credits for investing in research.
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1 Basic principles Scientific research begins to be N/A observed and translated into applied research reported. and development (R&D)
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The incubator model is one that can help the early stage technology creator access the necessary learning and support infrastructure to fill the gaps until later stage investors engage. Incu bators often are supported by state or regional economic development agencies and frequently are located near a research university.
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NNMIs SBIR Agency Core Basic Research STTR ARPAs D, HS, I, E FAA CoE DOD UARC NIST MEP ONR FNC DOD RIF DOD MURI DOD MANTECH NASA ARMD ULI DOD Title III NASA GCD NASA NIAC NASA TDM NASA STRG NASA Centennial Challenge DOE HPC4Mfg DOE Innovation Hubs DOE Lab Corps DOE EFRC DOE TFC DOE EMN NSF ERC DOE TIA NSF GOALI DOE SBV NIH CAP NSF I/UCRC NIH CRP NSF I-Corps Investment in NIH I-Corps Commercialization Valley of Investment in Death Discovery TRL 1-3 TRL 4-6 TRL 7-9 FIGURE 2.2 Illustration of the many federal programs specifically addressing technology transition as part of the manufacturing-innovation process, shown with the technology readiness levels (TRLs) at the bottom of the figure.
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. A NERC must build on a significant fundamental discovery or engineering breakthrough in nano technology and/or nanomanufacturing research that is ready to feed into proof of-concept engineered system test beds within the 10-year life span of an ERC.3 How can the NNI better couple to innovation programs, such as those shown in Figure 2.2, in order to grow the funding for nanotechnology innovation and to ensure the United States captures the value of the substantial NNI investment in nanotechnology research?
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and Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges. NANOTECHNOLOGY SIGNATURE INITIATIVES Established in 2010, NSIs are multiagency initiatives designed to focus a spotlight on technology areas of national importance that may be more rapidly advanced through enhanced interagency coordination and collaboration.
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In the 2017 supplement, it was announced that one of those, Nanotechnology for Solar Energy Collection and Conversion, was sunset in 2016. A white paper for a new initiative, Water Sustainability through Nanotechnology, was released in March 2016.7 The five current signature initiatives are in nanomanufacturing, nano electronics, nanotechnology knowledge infrastructure, sensors, and sustainable water.
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9 NI, "Progress Review of the NNI Nanotechnology Signature Initiatives," http://www.nano.gov/ N node/1536, accessed September 1, 2016. 10 NNI, 2015, A Progress Review of the NNI Nanotechnology Signature Initiatives November 2015, http://www.nano.gov/sites/default/files/pub_resource/nsi_status_report_executive_summary.pdf.
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A brief survey of some successful grand challenges offers insights and common attributes. 12 NRC, 2013, Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative¸ The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
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In his speech, President Kennedy argued that the United States should not follow but rather should lead in the "race for space" and set an ambitious target of completing the challenge by the end of the decade. Like the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program was a grand challenge backed by robust federal spending and strong governmental coordination and leadership by a single agency, in this case NASA.
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The initiative has a clearly stated goal of an installed system price of $1.00 per watt or electricity cost of $0.06/kWh. Other characteris tics of the SunShot Initiative that are consistent with a successful grand challenge include the following: •• A clear timeframe for achieving the goal; •• A single lead organization (DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy)
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The Grand Challenges for Engineering are aspirational and the end points, such as "secure cyberspace," are not realistically fully achievable. In addition, the National Academies does not fund research programs, but has continued to highlight the challenges by sponsoring events that bring together leaders from the engineering community and through a website (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/)
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These grand challenges were to be "instantiated across the NNI ecosystem and in the management of federal activities to focus NNI participants on significant problems of major national interest that, by com mercializing the associated science and technology, will benefit society."18 The report went on to say that organizing activities around grand challenges would be a major community rallying point and would provide additional tools to man age and measure the effectiveness of NNI 2.0. The PCAST Report also articulated important characteristics that grand challenges exhibit, including the following: •• They have a measurable end point.
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In fact, one way of mitigating the risk inherent in taking on an effort of this magnitude may be to pursue more than a single approach to the problem, thus involving even more institutions than would be engaged in a single approach. With these characteristics in mind, PCAST recommended that OSTP and the NSET establish grand challenges not just to harness, but to focus and amplify the impact of federal nanotechnology activities.
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These nanotechnology innovations will have to be developed in close coordination with new computer architectures, and will likely be informed by our growing understanding of the brain -- a remarkable, fault-tolerant system that consumes less power than an incandescent light bulb.20 In July 2016, a more detailed white paper prepared by several NNI agencies was released. The white paper outlines technical priority areas and a vision for the research and development needed to achieve near-, mid-, and long-term technical goals.21 The nanotechnology-inspired grand challenge meets many of the charac teristics of a grand challenge as identified in the 2014 PCAST report The recent white paper includes milestones, although not all are measurable, en route to the final grand challenge goal that are and valuable in their own right.
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A more likely scenario is that agencies will report activities that align with the grand challenge, but such activities will only be coordinated, not led, nor show progress toward specific goals. Also, as noted in Chapter 1, a glaring obstacle to the NNI participating agencies tackling the grand challenge is the fact that it requires advances in areas other than nanotechnology, such as computer science and engineering and neurobiology.
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Possible mechanisms to focus NNI efforts on areas that relate to other ini tiatives include developing plans with goals and milestones to address specific nanotechnology needs of the initiatives, establishing an NSI, or -- as described below -- sponsoring a prize competition. PRIZES: A MECHANISM FOR PROVIDING FOCUS AND IMPLEMENTING GRAND CHALLENGES In recent years, there has been an increased interest in and use of open inno vation prizes that engage a broader community of innovative thinkers to develop solutions to a variety of hard problems and grand challenges.
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Government agencies have posted challenges on InnoCentive. According to the InnoCentive website, they have developed a methodology called Challenge Driven Innovation, "an innovation framework that accelerates traditional innovation outcomes by leveraging open innovation and crowdsourcing along with defined methodology, process, and tools to help organizations develop and implement actionable solutions to their key problems, opportunities, and challenges."24 Over the years, InnoCentive has established a pool of solvers eager to work on interesting problems and a platform for posting diverse challenges.
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Recommendation 2.4: NNI agencies should use innovation incentive prizes to engage a broader community to solve technical problems, particularly those underlying grand challenges and other national initiatives. NNI agen cies can offer prizes directly, or work through existing organizations.
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. TSCA requires manufacturers of new chemical substances to provide specific information to the Agency for review prior to manufacturing chemicals or introducing them into commerce.
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