White House OSTP and NNCO Announce Series of Events in Celebration of 20th Anniversary of the Authorization of the NNI

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) announced on December 4, 2023, a series of events to drive U.S. leadership in nanotechnology, in celebration of the 20-year anniversary of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act. The announcement notes that for the past two decades, the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) “has worked with more than 20 departments and agencies to advance a vision to understand and control matter at the nanoscale, for the benefit of society.” As reported in our November 10, 2023, blog item, the NNI community will host a symposium on March 5, 2024, at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C., to recognize the impact of research and development at the nanoscale and plan NNI’s future. During the week of December 4, 2023, NNCO will release a series of reports and stories illustrating NNI’s impact. The announcement states that this will include readouts from the Nano4EARTH roundtable discussions about applying nanotechnology solutions to address climate change, such as surface technologies, new batteries and energy storage solutions, and greenhouse gas capture approaches. NNCO will highlight a new independent study about how the U.S. nanotechnology community contributes tens of billions of dollars — and potentially hundreds of billions of dollars — to the economy each year. NNCO will also feature the stories of early-career scientists who represent the future of nanotechnology.