US White House Office of Science and Technology Policy issues a Nanotechnology Grand Challenges request for information

First, there was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges, then there was some sort of Canadian government Grand Challenges, and now there’s the US government Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges for the Next Decade.

I find it fascinating that ‘Grand Challenges’ have become so popular given the near certainty of at least one defeat and the possibility the entire project will fail. By definition, it’s not a challenge if it’s an easy accomplishment.

Enough musing, a June 18, 2015 news item on Azonano announces the US government (White House Office of Science and Technology Policy [OSTP]) request for information (RFI), which has a deadline of July 16, 2015,

The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) is pleased to highlight an important Request for Information (RFI) issued today by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) seeking suggestions for Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges for the Next Decade: ambitious but achievable goals that harness nanoscience, nanotechnology, and innovation to solve important national or global problems and have the potential to capture the public’s imagination.

A June 17, 2015 NNCO news release further describes the RFI,

The RFI can be found online at https://federalregister.gov/a/2015-14914  [blog posting] and is discussed in a White House blog post at https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/06/17/call-nanotechnology-inspired-grand-challenges. Responses must be received by July 16, 2015, to be considered.

As explained by Dr. Michael Meador, Director of the NNCO, the RFI is a key step in responding to the most recent assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). “PCAST specifically recommended that the Federal government launch nanotechnology grand challenges in order to focus and amplify the impact of Federal nanotechnology investments and activities.”

The RFI includes a number of potential grand challenges as examples. Federal agencies participating in the NNI (see www.nano.gov), working with NNCO and OSTP, developed examples in the areas of health care, electronics, materials, sustainability, and product safety in order to illustrate how such grand challenges should be framed and to help stimulate the development of additional grand challenges by the wider community.

The RFI seeks input from nanotechnology stakeholders including researchers in academia and industry, non-governmental organizations, scientific and professional societies, and all other interested members of the public. “We strongly encourage everyone to spread the word about this request,” adds Meador. “We are excited about this request and hope to receive suggestions for bold and exciting challenges that nanotechnology can solve.”

A June 17, 2015 blog posting on the White House website (referred to previously) by Lloyd Whitman and Tom Kalil provides more insight into the ‘Grand Challenges’,

In a recent review of the NNI [US National Nanotechnology Initiative], the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology called for government agencies, industry, and the research community to identify and pursue nanotechnology Grand Challenges. Through today’s RFI, we want to hear your game-changing ideas for Grand Challenges that harness nanoscience and nanotechnology to solve important national or global problems. These Grand Challenges should stimulate additional public and private investment, and foster the commercialization of Federally-funded nanotechnology research.

By 2025, the nanotechnology R&D community is challenged to achieve the following:

  1. Increase the five-year survival rates by 50% for the most difficult to treat cancers.
  2. Create devices no bigger than a grain of rice that can sense, compute, and communicate without wires or maintenance for 10 years, enabling an “internet of things” revolution.
  3. Create computer chips that are 100 times faster yet consume less power.
  4. Manufacture atomically-precise materials with fifty times the strength of aluminum at half the weight and the same cost.
  5. Reduce the cost of turning sea water into drinkable water by a factor of four.
  6. Determine the environmental, health, and safety characteristics of a nanomaterial in a month.

What would you propose? Read more about what makes an effective Grand Challenge and how to propose your own Nanotechnology-Inspired Grand Challenges for the Next Decade and comment on these examples here. Responses must be received by July 16, 2015 to be considered.

Good luck!

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