§7504 Quadrennial External Review of the National Nanotechnology Program

Summary

The Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office must hire the National Research Council to do a full review of the National Nanotechnology Program every four years. The review must check technical progress and whether the Program met its goals and metrics. It must look at how the Program is managed and coordinated across agencies, the money each agency spends and whether that money is enough, how well discoveries move to private companies, and whether the Program supports work across different science fields. The review must also check how the Program deals with ethical, legal, environmental, and other social concerns. It must give recommendations for new or changed goals, new research areas, partnerships and management changes, policy and budget changes, better ways to measure success, how the Coordination Office is doing at sharing technology with agencies and industry, how the United States compares to other countries, and how nanotechnology affects the U.S. economy and how to increase that impact. As part of the first four-year review, the Council must do two one-time studies. One study must look at whether molecular self-assembly can be used to build materials and devices at the molecular scale. The other must look at whether we need standards or rules for safe and responsible nanotechnology, including issues like self-replicating nanoscale machines, releasing such machines into the environment, encryption, defensive technologies, using nanotech to boost human intelligence, and using nanotech to build artificial intelligence. Within 30 days after getting the first review—and within 30 days after each future four-year review—the Director must send the findings and recommendations to the President. Then, within 30 days after the President gets the report, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy must send a copy to Congress.