This award from the Office of Special Projects of the Division of Chemistry provides funds for the partial support of a study by the Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology (BCST) of the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources of the National Academy of Sciences that will identify research frontiers in catalysis science and technology. In recent years, United States leadership in the catalysis science and technology has been increasingly challenged by researchers in Japan and Western Europe. During this period, there has been a growing perception among U.S. scientists and engineers that research opportunities in catalysis are becoming less timely and interesting. It is widely acknowledged that the size and vigor of the general U.S. effort in catalysis research is not at the level needed to effectively meet future national needs and international challenges. The BCST believes that the scientific basis for further advances in catalysis is strong, and that a high-visibility report offering a substantive discussion of research frontiers could do much to focus attention on new directions in the field and to serve as a brief guide to promising research areas for a broad national audience. This project, which is jointly supported by the Division of Chemistry and the Division of Chemical and Thermal Systems of the NSF, the U.S. Army Research Office, the U.S. Department of Energy, and other sources, will bring together some eight distinguished academic and industrial researchers to draw input from the chemistry, biochemistry, chemical engineering, molecular biology, solid state physics, and materials science communities, assimilate that input, and craft a forty-page report that will be widely publicized and distributed to academic and industrial researchers.
