The White House named the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a partner institution Monday in its Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness, an effort to maximize the speed with which the nation discovers, develops and produces new material resources that can solve problems in areas ranging from energy and national security to human health and wellness.
According to the news release, it can take as long as two decades from the time a material is discovered to it being used as a commercial product such as high-efficiency jet engines and solar cells that generate electricity as economically as coal.
UW-Madison plans to confront today’s materials challenges to remain at the forefront of technological innovation through the creation of the Wisconsin Materials Innovation Institute. As an interdisciplinary technological center, the WIMII will provide the groundwork for researchers in areas such as mathematics, statistics, computer sciences, information science, chemistry, medicine and engineering, according to the news release.
The WIMII will also introduce collaboration among materials researchers at UW-Madison, the University of Michigan and Georgia Tech. These universities will work together to begin dialogue focused on the improvement of a nationwide network for materials innovations.
Researchers in the WIMII will work with a variety of new and existing university, governmental and industrial partners to create the tools, teams and technologies needed to expand U.S. materials innovation. The UW-Madison College of Engineering has also pledged an initial investment of $5 million to create the WIMII.
Cyrus Wadia, assistant director for the research and development of clean energy and materials in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said material resources matter to the future of our country.
"The Materials Genome Initiative is catalyzing important collaborative advances from industry, academia and the federal government, so that together we can secure the nation's future as a leader in this critical technological domain," Wadia said in the release.
