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The estimated annual support provides funding for user-related activities in the major areas of facilities support for user access, educational outreach that responds to the need for enhanced public awareness, K-12 outreach, and user support activities targeted at opening access of the unique facilities to the broader biological and chemical sciences community. It also provides for a competitive in-house research program that will advance the facilities by stimulating new science applications and technological developments. Facilities Support would fund postdoctoral fellows, research scientists, and technicians who would develop new technology, maintain existing technology, and help make the technology available to users. A portion of the funding in this area will be allocated to a Visitor Program to provide partial support for users to be on site for those interactions that require interactions not adequately provided through remote access and other collaboratory tools. These funds also support the infrastructure and include remodeling and construction costs where appropriate. User and Educational Program funds would support user training and access, outreach to non- specialists with problems to be solved, and education of the broader public about the scientific issues involved in this technology and its applications. In-House Research Program funds would support technology and applications development at leading edge Sectors through a peer-reviewed proposal process with the restriction that this funding should use the facilities and advance the facilities. The In- House Research Program should be focused on supporting innovative and risky research that offers significant potential to advance high field NMR in new areas of science to impact new technological opportunities. Funding would be allocated using external peer review and would be limited to approximately two years. After the initial funding period, any projects requiring additional support should be submitted to existing federal agency programs. These funds would pay for the core research devoted to the development of specialized technologies at individual NMRC Sectors in areas such as (cryo)probe development, pulse sequence development, experimental strategy development, NMR data processing and analysis, and sample production and labeling. Facility Instrumentation funds would support computers for data processing, analysis, and communications; equipment needed for sample preparation and characterization; test equipment used in instrumentation development and maintenance; and NMR instrument maintenance, modifications and upgrades. Network support would fund collaboration software and tool development as well as remote access development and support. Bridging interdisciplinary boundaries with collaboratorium tools will be essential for drawing in the latent community of users. The NMRC Planning Committee urges the Federal Government to establish an interagency dialogue to consider the nation's future needs for NMR instrumentation at the highest magnetic fields and develop a national strategy to respond to the near exponential growth in the cost of such instrumentation. NMR is poised to address many items on the nation's scientific agenda and the need for advanced instrumentation is clearly presented in this report. |
