Advanced Research
Instrumentation and Facilities
Committee on Advanced Research Instrumentation
Committee on Science, Engineering,
and Public Policy
National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering/ Institute of Medicine
Richard E. Bissell
March 26, 2008
Committee Membership
MARTHA KREBS, (Chair)
Director, R&D Division, California Energy Commission
and Former Director, Office of Science, DOE
MARILYN L. FOGEL
Staff Member, Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie
Institution of Washington
DAVID BISHOP
President, New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium
LESLIE A. KOLODZIEKSKI
Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, MIT
MARVIN CASSMAN
Independent Consultant and Former Director of the
National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the
NIH.
ALVIN L. KWIRAM
Professor, Chemistry at University of Washington
Exec. Director, NSF’s S&T Center in photonics and
optoelectronics
ULRICH DAHMEN
Director of National Center for Electron Microscopy at
LBL
WARREN S. WARREN
Professor of Chemistry, Radiology, and Biomedical
Engineering, Duke University; Director, Center for
Molecular and Biomedical Imaging
THOM H. DUNNING, JR.
Director, National Center for Supercomputing
Application at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.
DANIEL WEILL
Former Director, Ocean Drilling Program and the
Instrumentation and Facilities Program in NSF’s Division
of Earth Science.
Congressional Language
Assess the need for an interagency
program to establish and support
fully equipped, state-of-the-art
university-based centers for
interdisciplinary research and
advanced instrumentation
development.
Charge to Committee
1.
2.
3.
What are the current programs and policies of
the major federal research agencies for
advanced research instrumentation?
What is the current status of advanced midsized research instrumentation on university
campuses? How are such instruments
currently designed, built, funded, operated,
and maintained?
What challenges do federal agencies and
universities identify regarding such
instruments?
Charge to Committee
4.
5.
6.
Would an interagency program to fund mid-size
advanced research instruments that are used by
researchers funded by many agencies help respond to
these challenges? If so, what should be the
components of such a program?
Are sufficient federal programs available to provide
the intellectual and financial resources necessary to
develop new mid-sized instruments that respond to
research community needs?
What federal policies could be put into place to
enhance the design, building, funding, sharing,
operations and maintenance of mid-sized advanced
research instruments?
Method
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Survey
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University Administrators
Disciplinary Societies
Independent Research Institutes
Researchers
Literature Search and Scholar Presentations
Presentations from NSF, NSB, NIH, DOE,
NOAA, DHS, USDA, OSTP, NSTC, COGR
Public Comment Session
Institutional Survey Questions
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Does your institution have any instruments whose
capital cost at the time of purchase was greater
than $2M and less than $100M?
If no additional federal funding were available, do
you think the need for instrumentation in this
range is sufficient that funding should be diverted
from research grants to instruments? What new
kinds of instrumentation in the $2-100M price
range do you think your institution will be
interested in five years from now?
Do you have any additional thoughts regarding
advanced research instrumentation which you
would like to share with the Committee?
Report Addresses Four Major Issues
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Defining Advanced Research
Instrumentation and Facilities (ARIF)
Status of Federal Agency Funding for ARIF
Improvements in Federal Agency Processes
for ARIF
Improvements in University Sponsorship
and Operation of ARIF
Defining ARIF
Instrumentation and facilities that house
collections of closely related or interacting
instruments used for research and includes
networks of sensors, data collections, and
cyberinfrastructure
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Acquired by large scale centers or research
programs rather than individual investigators
Requires substantial institutional
commitment and high level decision-making
Requires expert research-support staff for
operation and maintenance
Generally in the few to tens of millions of
dollars in cost
Federal Agency Funding for ARIF
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Agencies have programs for million-dollar
class facilities
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Generally not sufficient for total purchase
Generally do not provide for operation,
maintenance or appropriate upgrades
No agency has a specific category for ARIF
scale activities
When ARIF is funded within an agency,
neither the planning nor funding process is
apparent outside the agency
Improvements in Federal
Agency Processes
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Establish centralized programs for ARIF
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NSF MRI program should expand to include ARIF
NIH should eliminate the capital cost limit of the HEI
program and substantially increase its instrumentation
investment
Planning and Evaluation of Proposals
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Require business and management plans that include
information on space, technical staff, and O&M funding
Include selection criteria that respond to agency goals
such as sharing instrumentation, supporting diversity with
regard to research field. Geographic and institutional
diversity
Improvements in Federal
Agency Processes
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Fund O&M Costs
Sustain proportional support for ARIF when
budgets are stagnant or declining
Coordinate ARIF programs on an
interagency basis
Elevate ARIF as a topic for NSTC
coordination and cooperation
A specific interagency ARIF program is not
needed
Improvements in University
Sponsorship and Operation
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Operations & Maintenance
Space
Research Support Staffing
Availability to Researchers
Oversight
Instrumentation Development
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NSF-wide
Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI)
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CONTACTS
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Joan M. Fryejfrye@nsf.gov(703) 292-8040 Randy Phelpsrphelps@nsf.gov(703) 292-8040
Office of Integrative Activities
Major Research Instrumentation Program
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PROGRAM GUIDELINES
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08-503 Solicitation
DUE DATES
Full Proposal Deadline Date: January 22, 2009
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SYNOPSIS
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The Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI) is designed to increase access to scientific and engineering
equipment for research and research training in our Nation's organizations of higher education, research museums,
and non-profit research organizations. This program seeks to improve the quality and expand the scope of
research and research training in science and engineering, and to foster the integration of research and education
by providing instrumentation for research-intensive learning environments. The MRI program encourages the
development and acquisition of research instrumentation for shared inter- and/or intra-organizational use and in
concert with private sector partners.
The MRI program assists in the acquisition or development of major research instrumentation that is, in general,
too costly for support through other NSF programs. For proposals over $2 million, requests must be for the
acquisition of a single instrument. For proposals requesting $2 million or less, investigators may seek support for
instrument development or for acquisition of a single instrument, a large system of instruments, or multiple
instruments that share a common or specific research focus.
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Sowing the Seeds
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Increase federal investment in long-term basic research-10%/year over next 7 years focusing on physical sciences,
engineering, mathematics, information sciences and DOD
basic research funding.
Provide early-career researcher grants—200 grants at
$100,000/year over 5 years to outstanding researchers.
Institute National Coordination Office for Advanced
Research Instrumentation and Facilities--$500
million/year over 5 years.
Catalyze high-risk, high-payoff research—Technical
program managers allocated 8% federal research agency
budgets for discretionary spending.
Institute Presidential Innovation Award—Recognize
persons who develop unique scientific and engineering
innovations in the national interest when they occur.
Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy—Modeled
on DARPA, this agency would focus on creative out-of-thebox transformational energy research that industry by itself
cannot or will not support
For More Information
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Email rbissell@nas.edu
Call 202-334-2424
COSEPUP Webpage
www.nationalacademies.org/cosepup