Chapter	Page
1.     Nanotechnology Initiatives: North America, Europe and Asia	6
2.     Linking  the Nanotechnology Initiative at the regional, state  and cluster Levels	30
3.     Assessing Need	48
4.     Planning Nanotechnology Initiatives  (Regional, State and Local)	53
5.     Launching and Funding Nanotechnology Regional Initiatives	71
6.     Evaluating Nanotechnology Initiatives and Centers    (Safety Costs and Benefits)  Performance Assessment and Rating Tool	99
7.     Costs and Benefit Studies for Centers and Nanotechnology Initiatives	119
8.     Questionnaires and Templates for Planning and Evaluating Nanotechnology Centers and Initiatives	139
9.     Case Studies: Examples of Regional Nanotechnology Initiatives and Centers	161
10. Outcomes, Exercises, Seminar Materials   Appendix Table of Odds for building successful regions and centers   Glossary Bibliography	180   189 210 215 222

Preface: The nanotechnology revolution began with the restructuring of the molecule and erupted with the intensity of the atom. It altered the way research is conducted, disciplines are formed and recreated, and research departments are melded together and structured to adapt to new discoveries. It is a force that moved colleges to combine disciplines, universities to combine colleges, and consortia to link centers and universities within clusters, regions and national initiatives.

Government agencies, industry and universities have reacted to the nano explosion.  New directorates, divisions and institutes were formed to join interdisciplinary configurations linking projects and developing new ways of thinking and application. Nanotechnology is the force driving new patterns of funding and combinations of agency resources within interdisciplinary initiatives and nano business alliances. Agencies, companies and even university departments are shunning separatism and aloneness for merger and partnerships within the favored consortia modules. Each individual pearl is linked to the necklace of enlightenment; each gem part of the other’s luster, as it twirls about in uncharted directions and loosely defined organizational networks. Boundaries are fuzzy and creatively dependent.  As a result, core institutions connect and compete with each other by chance or design, and universities and businesses take on nuclear-centered responsibilities driving the revolution to a sometimes mired but promising destination termed commercialization and creation.

Without a major university, research lab or knowledge-centered company within its region, a locality is destined to be a user rather than a creator of nanotechnology research and products. Only regions, centers and universities that reconstruct themselves into these broader partnerships will be destined to join the dance with the electrons and protons of the new science, envisioning dreams yet unimagined.

Nanotechnology has helped shorten the distance between regions and universities, and enhanced the need for virtual communication within networks of inexplicable affinity, and the joint mission of relative strangers. Whether a region interacts with a neighboring cluster or a region halfway around the world during the conceptualization and assembly stages matters relatively little.  Distance and separation still count, but not as much as a decade ago.  Lowell, Massachusetts or Seoul, Korea, are but blinks apart on cyberspace transmissions, and supersonic transports from a Cambridge lab. Nearly all producers and partners undertake different, but symbiotic activities at any number of locales, just as the coffee bean is harvested in Ethiopia, packaged in Southeast Asia, marketed in New York, and enjoyed at Starbucks in Philadelphia.

This book presents the framework and methods to evaluate the networks of change, as well as pearls (centers) within the chain of discovery. It provides methodologies to assess the contributions of scientists, interdisciplinary teams, universities, business and centers. It questions the creative and “bottoms up” fabrication process in its many forms, and asks why certain centers and initiatives are succeeding while others are less dynamic. The book isolates the minute qualities of the very best universities in their technology transfer, commercialization attributes and structural arrangements, publications and product development. It provides the groundwork for planning and evaluating nanotechnology initiatives and research centers, and helps determine what research is worth doing. The book ends with an outline for conducting seminars on the nanotechnology revolution and its many applications, and a test of the reader’s ability to absorb the recreated molecules of learning.