Public, Private Sectors Are Busy Chasing R&D’s Frontiers
One key area of federal R&D investment now is in nanotechnologythe emerging field of molecular and atomic level research, from one to 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. The National Nanotechnology Initiative, launched by former President Clinton in 2000 and signed into law last year by President Bush, will fund $3.7 billion in new research through fiscal 2008. "This makes nanotechnology a long-term scientific initiative," says Mark Jamison, advanced technology manager for HDR Inc., Omaha.
Bush now wants nearly $1 billion in fiscal 2005 to spread around federal agencies and their academic partners (see chart, next page). "The investment will advance our understanding of nanoscale phenomena...and enable use of this knowledge to bring about improvements in medicine, manufacturing, high-performance materials, information technology and energy and environmental technologies," says a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy statement. The effort is already requiring exacting structures that push the envelope of design and construction technique, and require newand not always smoothrelationships between government, academic project owners and their building teams.