VISITING COMMITTEE
MINUTES OF FEBRUARY 5-6, 2008 MEETING
GAITHERSBURG, MD
ATTENDANCE
|
Visiting Committee |
NIST Leadership Board |
NIST Staff |
Introduction
The meeting was called to order by Visiting Committee Chairman, Dr. David Spong, at 8:30a.m. He welcomed everyone and reviewed the agenda: The meeting begins with a presentation by Dr. James Turner, NIST Acting Director who will give an overview of the President’s FY 2009 budget proposal and NIST’s Draft Three-Year Programmatic Plan. The remainder of the day will be spent in subcommittee break-out sessions, with report-outs back to the Full Committee. Day two allows time to finish a draft of the annual report. The meeting will conclude with a business session to elect a new VCAT Chair and Vice Chair and to decide on future meeting dates.
NIST Update
NIST Acting Director, James Turner, talked about the FY 2009 budget and the NIST three-year plan. In a competitive world, the United States is in danger of loosing its preemptive position. The President and Congress strongly support the American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI). The FY 2009 budget had a 15% increase overall in the funding request from what was enacted in 2008 for NIST and the other three ACI agencies. Dr. Turner said the America COMPETES Act was a call to action. There is a $115M increase from the FY 2008 budget enacted to the FY 2009 budget in the NIST Core Programs; the areas that the ACI is focused on. That is a 22% increase to put NIST back on the doubling track. The FY 2009 President’s Budget request proposed an end to two Industrial Technology Services outreach programs: Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) which helps small manufacturers, and Technology Innovation Program (TIP), authorized in the America COMPETES Act, for high risk technologies to address critical national needs.
The FY 2009 President’s budget request provides increases for 17 NIST initiatives, including four new initiatives):
-
Addressing urgent environment, safety and security needs (+$26.2 million)
Nanotechnology: Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) (+$12M)
Climate Change Science (+$5M)
National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) (+$3.3M)
Disaster Resilient Structures/Communities (+$4M)
Biometrics: Identifying Friend or Foe (+$2M) -
Boosting U.S. science/engineering capacity and capability (+$63.7 million)
NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) Capacity and Capability (+$2M)
Boulder Building 1 Extension (+$43.5M)
JILA Building Expansion (+$13M)
Safety, Capacity, Maintenance and Major Repairs (+$5.2M) -
Investing in strategic and rapidly advancing technologies ($+$42.8 million)
Bioscience Measurements and Standards (+$10M)
Quantum Information Science (+$7M)
Nanotechnology: From Discovery to Manufacture (+$7M)
Innovations in Measurement Science (+$3M)
Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative (+$5M)
Optical Communications and Computing (+$5.8M)
Enabling the Use of Hydrogen as a Fuel (+$4M)
Manufacturing Innovation through Supply Chain Integration (+$1M)
Addressing the new “Comprehensive National Cyber Security Initiative”, VCAT member Dr. Cerf spoke about a March visit to Malaysia at the invitation of their Prime Minister to discuss a new program in cyber security. Dr. Cerf offered to facilitate some interaction between NIST and Malaysia.
NIST’s THREE-YEAR PROGRAMMATIC PLAN is formally in draft awaiting final clearance. The plan encompasses three elements:
Strategic Goals: (direct future planning of three overarching strategic goals)
- technological change
- domestic and global marketplace
- critical national needs
Foundation for Planning: (help guide the organization)
- outreach and identification of measurement needs
- multiyear investment framework
- infrastructure for success
- evaluation of investments
Strategic Approach: (manage NIST programs for maximum impact)
- identifies and targets problems
- leverages resources
- stimulates stakeholders
- develops capabilities
- creates incentives
- enhances training
- stimulates investment
- provides tools
Much of NIST’s work involves other agencies where there is coordination of investments, i.e., in biotechnology NIST works with NIH and FDA; in biofuels work involves DOE, other areas where there is coordination of effort include cyber technology and the National Earthquake Hazard Response Program (NEHRP). In particular, at the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) NIST scientists played important roles: Clayton Teague headed the coordinating group for the NNI, Roger Van Zee headed the strategic plan for the NNI, and Dianne Poster headed the strategic plan for the NNI EHS. There are many opportunities where NIST can offer unique expertise and find the common thread to fund programs.
There are over 800 projects paid for by other agencies, as well as unpaid collaborative work. There is coordination of budgets with other agencies for investments. The National Science and Technology Council have a number of major committees and subcommittees. NIST’s Acting Director co-chairs the Committee on Technology with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the subcommittees under that Committee do coordinate interagency plans. The National Science and Technology Council groups are preparing a record of accomplishment for the next Administration to make a compelling case to continue the on-going work.
In the three year programmatic plan, NIST has demonstrated the cross roads for the U.S. to stay number one as other countries are investing more heavily in technology. There must be investments made in the physical capabilities and intellectual capabilities at NIST’s facilities.
The USMS office understands industrial partners are important to the work done at NIST and as a result of a series of workshops a report was written to understand what the measurement needs are. NIST receives their input and also looks over the horizon to see more opportunities.
NIST’s return on investment is $1 for NIST research to produce $44 in benefits to U.S. economy. This number based on the result of 19 economic studies that look at the immediate impact of NIST work. NIST’s senior economist, Dr. Gregory Tassey, can come back to VCAT to explain the rigorous macroeconomic study; 1:44 return on investment is a conservative number.
VCAT member Dr. Cerf stated the return on investment figure also may involve others who participated in the research. He would like NIST to take a closer look at the number and provide a report on how that number was produced.
VCAT member Dr. Serum said he has read the reports and agrees the numbers are too conservative and he too would like an extrapolation. In his view the extrapolation would still be conservative.
VCAT member Dr. Fleury stated that if the number is low and conservative, maybe NIST is more effective than other scientific agencies.
NIST Program Office Director, Mr. Eric Steel said Mr. Jack Marburger, the President’s science advisor, said if he had a dollar to invest, he would invest money in NIST because of their return is better than any place he knows of. NIST is one of the only agencies to do this kind of study; others do extrapolate large numbers that are hard to believe. Mr. Steel said as with measurements, NIST is rigorous and conservative on the return on investment extrapolation.
VCAT member Dr. Spong suggested this topic of return on investment be added to the agenda for the next meeting.
VCAT member Dr. Serum asked if NIST has a way to measure whether the U.S. is technologically number one in the world or not, as compared to other countries that are becoming more technologically innovative and competitive. As a measurement organization, NIST might want to put some measurement parameters on that challenge.
VCAT member Dr. Cerf commented that you can look at the distribution of the GDP in other countries that comes from the high technology sectors; you can look at the rate of foreign patenting in the U.S. system and other foreign patenting. China has increased patented technology. Can the Council of Economic Advisory do an economic analysis to see if we can get some good data?
NIST Chief of Staff, Mat Heyman, commented that there was a Department of Commerce Blue Ribbon Panel of corporate and government officials to look at improving the measurement of the innovation process.
Mr. Eric Steel continued to explain how NIST partnered with NSF and Census (DoC) to look at economic data and labor data as a function of the science programs to understand the impact of science and innovation.
That concluded the presentation by Dr. Turner and discussions.
VCAT Chair Dr. Spong reviewed the proposed VCAT report draft outline.
The remainder of the meeting involved break-out sessions and discussions to prepare the annual report. The 2007 Annual Report was delivered on March 3, 2008.
Other business
The election results were Dr. James Serum as the new VCAT Chair and Dr. Vinton Cerf as the new VCAT Vice Chair.
The future meeting dates were decided:
June 10-11, 2008 (Boulder, CO)
October 28-29, 2008 (Gaithersburg, MD)
February 3-4, 2009 (Gaithersburg, MD)
June 9-10, 2009 (Boulder, CO)
October 13-14, 2009 (Charleston, SC)
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 12:00 p.m. on February 6, 2008.
I hereby certify that, to the best of my knowledge, the foregoing minutes are accurate and complete.
Janet Brumby
Executive Director
NIST Visiting Committee on Advanced TechnologyE. David Spong, D.Sc.
Chair
NIST Visiting Committee on Advanced Technology
Page created: 04/14/08
Page maintained by: VCAT webmaster
