Nanotechnology in Homeland Security Workshop

I am pleased to welcome you to this important workshop. The area of applications of nanotechnology in homeland security has emerged on this campus as one of intense interest and activity across a number of different fields, and we have been looking forward to this workshop as a way of seeing where we are and where we might go.

For us, this workshop brings together a number of dimensions that define what Illinois science is about. One dimension, perhaps the most obvious one, is support of genuinely cutting-edge scientific research. This institution is proud of its scientific contributions over many years.

One of the ways we have maintained world-class science is by creating the sort of discipline-spanning structure that seems best suited to responding to the contemporary problems and puzzles that science addresses. Our prototype for this kind of institution was, of course, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. The Beckman brings together more than 600 researchers from 30 different departments to form work groups that range across broad thematic initiatives in biological intelligence, human-computer intelligent interaction, and molecular and electronic nanostructures. In the nearly 25 years since it opened, the Beckman Institute has become a world model of the agile, interdisciplinary scientific institution.

We have created a number of such institutions since the Beckman model was put in place. A recent creation along these lines is the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology. Established in 2001, CNST works as a collaboratory for seamless integration of interdisciplinary research from atoms and materials to devices and systems. Researchers from five different colleges are involved in this center. CNST differs from some of our other scientific institutions in that it is developing a curriculum for nanotechnology education, which will transcend a number of campus departments and units. This way of integrating cutting-edge research and education is, I think, an exciting new form for the university.

In addition to cutting-edge science, two other dimensions of who we are will be very much on display in this workshop: Our long-standing commitment to developing research applications to fill critical societal needs, and our historic involvement in development of science policy.

Both of these dimensions are illustrated by the career of Roger Adams, the legendary chemist who fashioned our Department of Chemistry into a world leader and whose achievements still inspire us. Adams set the contemporary model for partnerships between industry and university researchers when he formed his long-lasting relationship with the chemical industry, especially his consulting arrangement with DuPont, which began in 1926. The model that Adams fashioned continues to guide university/industry collaborations nationwide. The arrangements by which universities and industry-based scientists collaborate to develop important new applications owe a great deal to Adams.

In addition, Adams’ involvement in science policy continues to cast a large shadow over the development of science in this country and around the world. Adams was invited to be the first president of the National Science Foundation, a post he declined in order to pursue his own work. He was also elected to be President of our university, another post he declined and for the same reason.

During the second world war, Adams served in Washington, leading the efforts of chemists in support of the war effort, an undertaking that produced such breakthroughs as the development of synthetic rubber. And after the war, Roger Adams played a major role in rebuilding the structure of science internationally, leading missions to Germany and Japan to assess how science might be rebuilt in those countries. He was an influential advocate of internationalism in science, and of a structure of exchange and support built solely upon scientific merit.

In many ways, then, this workshop both owes much to and builds upon the long tradition of science at Illinois, with its emphases on cutting-edge work, and on development of new applications to serve national needs, within the national science policy that Illinois researchers have helped to shape. This is a proud tradition, and one that is continuously renewed in meetings such as this one.

I thank you all for your contributions to this meeting and to our institution, and I offer my best wishes for a most productive meeting.