On September 11, 2023, the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) convened a first-of-its-kind Nanotechnology Infrastructure Leaders Summit at the White House’s Eisenhower Executive Office Building . The meeting included the leadership of 35 different user facilities, open research laboratories, and innovation institutes that take many different forms but share the mission of facilitating access to cutting-edge tools and expertise that are critical to research and development, which often occurs at the nanoscale.
These organizations represent programs funded by a multitude of federal agencies that are a part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, including the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense.
The NNCO brought together these diverse infrastructure programs to strengthen connections and lower barriers to essential resources along the innovation pathway in order to accelerate discoveries and their successful commercialization by basic researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry.