Getting to Green - Research Progress on Environmental Health and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials - page 63

focused research needs and could be well suited to develop inventories of ENMs and of their intended
uses. Public-private partnerships also provide opportunities for development of instrumentation or
methods to monitor or measure nanomaterial characteristics in laboratory and real-world research
environments, which will enhance the knowledge commons. Well-structured and carefully governed
public-private partnerships can provide unique credibility as they provide insulation against conflicts of
interest.
The management of the potential for conflicts of interest between the dual roles of the National
Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) in both promoting and overseeing nanotechnology has special
implications in Figure 4-1. Conflict of interest not only puts the knowledge commons at risk but has the
potential to invalidate the models that are critical for assessing risk and supporting regulatory decisions.
Management of conflict of interest can provide distinct lines of budget and management authority for
applications-directed and implications-directed research. It can be facilitated by engaging a broad group
of stakeholders with responsibility for helping to develop laboratory and real-world research. As noted
previously, where feasible, appropriately structured public-private partnerships may offer unique
opportunities for controlling and potentially eliminating conflict of interest in the data-collection process.
As described above and illustrated in Figure 4-1, all four implementation issues are central to the
development of a successful nanotechnology EHS research enterprise. The discussion below addresses
steps needed to “get to green” in the implementation indicators.
Steps to Ensure Progress Toward Enhancing Interagency Coordination
In Chapter 3, the committee recognizes the progress that the NNI has made in coordination of
EHS research among federal agencies but reiterates the need for accountability for implementation of the
NNI's EHS research strategy and the need for the strategy's integration with research undertaken by other
entities, both domestically and internationally. The committee considers that little or no progress (red) has
been made in “establishing a mechanism to ensure sufficient management and budgetary authority to
implement the NNI's EHS research strategy” (NRC 2012, p. 183). However, it determined that some
progress (yellow) had been made by the NNCO in annually identifying funding needs for interagency
collaboration. Greater effort is needed specifically to accelerate and enhance high-priority research.
The need for a stronger, central convening authority to direct EHS research efforts conducted
under the NNI has now been raised in at least four separate reviews of the NNI and its strategy (NRC
2009; GAO 2012; NRC 2012; PCAST 2012). As noted in Chapter 2, the latest President's Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) review of the NNI identified “significant hurdles to an
optimal structure and management” (p. 17), reiterating a concern that PCAST had raised in its 2010
review of the NNI (PCAST 2010): that NNI agency representatives on the Nanoscale Science,
Engineering, and Technology Subcommittee (NSET) of the National Science and Technology Council
Committee on Technology lack authority to influence budget allocations, even within their own agencies,
that are needed to meet NNI objectives. In particular, PCAST called on the NSET to establish “high-level,
cross-agency authoritative and accountable governance” (p. 22), noting that one effect of the absence of
such a governance framework is a continuing gap between funded research and the information needed by
decision-makers to manage potential risks effectively.
The present committee's first report (NRC 2012, pp. 166-169) proposed several options for
establishing such authority, either inside or outside the NNI and the Nanotechnology Environmental
Health Implications working group (NEHI) structure. Implementing those or other options need not
require new legislation, but there may be advantages in pursuing such authority in any reauthorization of
the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, as was considered but not enacted by
the 111th Congress. Whatever the mechanism used, the committee reiterates the conclusion of its first
report that “to implement [the NNI's] strategy effectively an entity with sufficient management and
budgetary authority is needed to direct development and implementation of a federal EHS research
strategy throughout NNI agencies and to ensure its integration with EHS research undertaken in the