With the advent of the Obama administration a new wind is blowing in the US capital, a wind that has also brought change to S&T. Among the top challenges are climate change and energy. "Driving the energy-technology innovation needed to reduce energy imports and climate-change risks, while creating green jobs and competitive new businesses" is one of four top S&T priorities for the US, according to Science Advisor John Holdren. 1
Energy Secretary Steven Chu and President Barack Obama
With Nobel Prize-winner Steven Chu as the energy secretary, Barack Obama has chosen a first-rate scientist to lead the green energy revolution in the Department of Energy (DOE). Prior to his appointment, Chu led the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in pursuit of new alternative and renewable energies.
Immediately after his confirmation, Dr. Chu began to untangle the red tape and start the changes required to develop a more carbon-constrained US economy. On top of the FY2009 budget of the DOE, Chu received an additional $38.71 billion in stimulus funding to implement the vision of becoming the world's leading exporter of renewable energy.
Within the Office of Science, the basic research funding arm of DOE, $777 million will go into 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) over a period of five years. Roughly one-third of the centers are supported by Recovery Act funding. Each center will receive between $2 million to $5 million per year for an initial five-year period.
A new wind is blowing that should overcome hurdles which block energy breakthroughs.
The 46 EFRCs were selected from a pool of 260 applications and will be established at 31 universities, 12 DOE National Laboratories, 2 non-profits, and at a corporate research laboratory. Among the host institutions are MIT, Princeton, Michigan State, Carnegie Institution, Argonne, and Oak Ridge.
"EFRCs are small-scale collaborations that focus on overcoming known hurdles in basic science that block energy breakthroughs - not on developing energy technologies themselves," Secretary Chu testified before Congress. 2
What a change: Twentytwo months ago – in September 2007 – the last patients of the provincial hospital in Maria Gugging were moved to other facilities. Then the steam shovels, excavators, trucks, and cranes took over, together with up to 300 construction workers. The last of the craftsmen left the site the evening of May 30, 2009 – just in time for 3000 friends, guests, and visitors who had arrived on June 1 for a personal look at the new campus of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria) in the Vienna Woods. The main attractions were the new Lecture Hall and the renovated Central Building. Children were invited to participate in a hands-on science adventure in the park while the adults relaxed in deck chairs on the lawn."
President Heiz Fischer
IST - Austria President Tom Herizinger
The Open Campus Day marked the beginning of a four-day celebration of the transition of IST Austria into full operation. On June 2, Austria’s President Heinz Fischer, Science Minister Johannes Hahn, and the Governor of the province of Lower Austria, Erwin Pröll, officially inaugurated the Institute. June 3 was committed to the first scientific meetings and – in the evening – to representatives of Austrian industry. On June 4 the scientific meetings concluded with a symposium on “Neurons and Machines.“
In his speech on June 2, IST’s first president, Tom Henzinger, presented three newly appointed professors: the computer scientists Krishnendu Chatterjee and Herbert Edelsbrunner and the cell biologist Carl-Philipp Heisenberg. This increased the number of professors at IST Austria – including Nick Barton and Henzinger himself – to five. Henzinger, an internationally renowned computer scientist, was born in Linz and looks back on a 24-year career abroad at Stanford, Cornell, Berkeley, and ETH Lausanne. He was appointed by the Board of Trustees on December 4, 2008, as the first president of IST Austria and will be officially installed September 1, 2009.
Chatterjee is an assistant professor in a tenure track position; the others signed open-ended contracts as professors. Chatterjee took up his new position on June 1, Edelsbrunner on August 1. Carl-Philipp Heisenberg will start work at IST Austria on February 1, 2010, and move to Klosterneuburg with his full group once the Science Lab is available in summer 2010. The groundbreaking ceremony for this building also took place on June 2. By the end of 2016 more than 500 scientists will be working on the campus.
