A new report calls on Congress to spend $6.6 billion over the next 12 years on research facilities at the National Institute of Standards and Technology to maintain global leadership in measurement science.
A blue-ribbon advisory panel says the U.S. government needs to spend $6.6 billion over the next 12 years on research facilities at the National Institute of Standards and Technology to maintain global leadership in measurement science.
Founded in 1901, NIST is an agency within the Department of Commerce charged with promoting U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness through research on measurement standards. Such standards are essential for everything from computer chip manufacturing and internet communication to electricity distribution and ensuring the reliability of COVID-19 tests.
The NASEM panel notes that over the past 20 years annual reports from a congressionally mandated review committee of outside experts has “consistently and unequivocally reported that the root cause of NIST’s progressive facilities decline is grossly inadequate funding,” and has repeatedly called on Congress to pay for upgrades.
In the past, each dollar invested in NIST facilities has returned $9 to the U.S. economy, according to independent studies. That ratio is three times higher than what companies typically expect to get back when they upgrade facilities and makes the proposed spending “one of the best investments the government can make in the nation’s research,” says committee member Eric Dillinger, a vice president of strategic consulting at Woolpert, an architecture and engineering firm.
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