9730689 Honig The symposium Workshop on Present Status and Future Direction of Solid State Chemistry and Materials will deal with the present status and likely future directions of research, development and education in the solid state chemistry and materials area, and it will address the needs of this community. Academic, industrial and government laboratory educators and researchers will consider four topical areas together with another three areas to be addressed by panel discussion. The four topical areas are: (1) Strategies for New Materials Discovery; (2) Structure / Property Relations and Theory; (3) Hybrid Materials and Interfaces; (4) Societal Needs and Technological Opportunities. The three areas to be discussed by panels are: (1) Education and Training; (2) What is Materials Chemistry? (3) Facilities and Resources. The Workshop will be held as an open meeting at NSF on January 15-16, 1998. A document summarizing the findings will be prepared by the Solid State Chemistry and Materials Planning Committee on January 18-19, 1998. This document will be made public and circulated among government agencies such as NSF, ONR, DoD, and DOE for their internal use. %%% The present workshop arose in response to a recent review process at NSF. A committee of visitors (COV) consisting of Susan Kauzlarich (UC Davis), Jack Johnson (Exxon), and Thomas Bein (Purdue U) was selected to study the procedure by which proposals are reviewed and selected for funding within the solid state chemistry program at DMR. Susan Kauzlarich represented this group in a larger COV, which consisted of representatives from all DMR programs, and this larger committee prepared a report for the Assistant Director of NSF in April, 1996. In that report the COV voiced concern over the lack of continuity between this and previous COVs which had been drawn from the Materials Research Advisory Committee (MRAC). The COV recommended that the Division find ways to benefit from c ommunity input and also to provide the needed continuity for the COVs. Thus, the Division of Materials Research is responding to a recommendation by the MPS Advisory Committee to enhance the COV process. This will be accomplished through a three year plan: (1) In the first year, hold a seies of topical workshops tied to each of the programs within the Division of Materials Research. This would provide a focus for the exacting scientific opportunities within a particular subfield. Near the end of the year, a workshop would be held calling together some of the members of these workshops to set priorities among the various new opportunities. (2) In the second year, hold a series of workshops on areas at the periphery of the Division's interest. The interfacial areas would be identified through community input and from outgrowths of the first year workshops. For continuity, some of the workshop members from the first year panels would be invited to attend this series of workshops. (3) The Divisional COV would then be held in the third year. The members of the COV would be drawn, although not exclusively, from the attendees at the workshops held the previous two years. Also, the COV noted in their report to the Assistant Director that funding statistics by scientific area were not available, and in response to this DMR is now developing a taxonomy of the field of materials research and the programs. This taxonomy will be useful in evaluating the balance of scientific effort in the programs and across the Division. ***
