Over the last few days I’ve been seeing a lot of notices online about the US Office of Science and Technology Policy’s (OSTP) request for information (RFI) on developing a new strategic plan for the country’s National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). From the item posted by Heather Evans and Travis Earles on the OSTP website,

Today, a Request for Information published in the Federal Register asks for input to assist the Federal government in the development of the 2010 Strategic Plan for the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The NNI is a U.S. Government research and development (R&D) program of 25 agencies working together toward the common vision of 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. The combined, coordinated efforts of these agencies have accelerated discovery, development, and deployment of nanotechnology to help meet the grand challenges now facing the Nation and the world. Established in 2001, the NNI involves nanotechnology-related activities by the 25 member agencies, 15 of which have budgets for nanotechnology R&D for 2011. The proposed NNI budget for Fiscal Year 2011 is $1.76 billion, bringing the cumulative investment since the inception of the NNI in 2001 to nearly $14 billion.

By coincidence I was looking for the nanoportal that Health Canada promised to launch this year according to the response I received from them (in my April 28, 2010 posting),

Q8 – Is there a launch date (as opposed to the vague Spring 2010) for the proposed NanoPortal mentioned in the OECD report (no. 20, Feb. 2010) of the Working Party on Nanomaterials?

Health Canada’s NanoPortal is at the last stage of development. Health Canada is now working on the final details and will provide a launch date in the near future.

Happily, I found a splash page but it leads to this (after you’ve clicked on either the English or the French button),

Password Protected Site

This site is password protected.

Please enter your user name and password.

I was under the impression that Canada’s nanoportal was supposed to be available to the public. According to a March 2008 report (Update on a Framework for Canadian Nanotechnology Policy: A Second Discussion Paper) by Susan Holtz for the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy (CIELAP),

On February 22, 2008 CIELAP held its second workshop on nanotechnology policy, a year after its first workshop on the topic in early 2007. This present document is an update of CIELAP’s March 2007 Discussion Paper on a Policy Framework for Nanotechnology.

A number of nanotechnology policy-related developments during the past year are noted in four areas: public information and engagement; technical and scientific matters; regulatory arrangements; and voluntary initiatives. Among those mentioned are:

• A Canadian public nano portal website, under development at the time of this writing; [emphasis mine](p. i print version, p. 5 PDF)

I’m a little confused. Who was working on a nanoportal in 2008? Is the Health Canada nanoportal another one? Is any information going to be available to the Canadian public?

Finding information about US plans for nanotechnology and funding is infinitely easier than finding equivalent information about federal Canadian plans for nanotechnology and funding. The difference is the effort made at widely publicizing RFI’s, consultations, distributing information, etc. Take this news item posted yesterday (July 8, 2010) on Nanowerk,

The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) will host the Strategic Planning Stakeholder Workshop at the Hotel Palomar in Arlington, VA on July 13-14, 2010. The goal of this workshop is to obtain input from stakeholders—both those who are new to nanoscale science, engineering, and technology and those who are already familiar with these fields and with the NNI-regarding the goals and objectives for an updated NNI Strategic Plan that is currently under development and scheduled for completion by December 2010.

Representatives of the U.S. research community, industry, non-governmental organizations, and interested members of the general public are invited to offer suggestions to the U.S. Government interagency task force that is drafting the new plan, which is an update of the December 2007 NNI Strategic Plan

(see http://www.nano.gov/NNI_Strategic_Plan_2007.pdf).

This is in addition to the OSTP request for information.

By contrast, Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology has not yet issued a single news release in 2010 (they issued 3 in 2009 and nothing in 2008, see for yourself) let alone attempting public consultation or any sort of dialogue. Health Canada’s current public consultation was promoted to 3000 stakeholders as per this interview in my April 28, 2010 posting. Yet I found out by accident. I appreciate that it’s not easy to publicize these efforts but Azonano and Nanowerk amongst others regularly publish news releases from all over the world about any kind of nanotechnology effort including public consultations. As far as I’m concerned, the Canadian government effort at public dialogue/consultation/engagement or even distributing information about nanotechnology can best be described as muted or, more accurately, close to nonexistent.