§16535 Discovery Science and Engineering Innovation Institutes

Summary

The Secretary must set up several distributed, multidisciplinary institutes at National Laboratories to turn basic science and engineering discoveries into new technologies that help the Department’s missions and keep the United States competitive worldwide. The institutes will work on critical emerging technologies, for example sustainable energy, materials and processes at different scales, micro- and nano-engineering, computing and information engineering, and genomics and proteomics. The Secretary must partner the institutes with colleges and universities to train students, build new undergraduate and graduate programs, and do research, and with private industry to develop new technologies. Each year the Secretary may choose up to 3 institutes to get grants. Choices must be merit-based and made through an open, competitive process. An institute can get grant funding for no more than 3 fiscal years. The Secretary must ask the National Academy of Sciences to review the institutes and send a report by not later than 3 years after August 9, 2007. Grants of $10,000,000 are authorized for each selected institute for each of fiscal years 2008 through 2010.