Materials Genome Initiative

for Global Competitiveness

June 2011
2 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

About the National Science and Technology Council 

The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) was established by Executive Order 12881 on November 23, 

1993. This Cabinet-level Council is the principal means within the executive branch to coordinate science and 

technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the federal research and development enterprise. Chaired 

by the President, the NSTC is made up of the Vice President, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology 

Policy, Cabinet Secretaries and Agency Heads with significant science and technology responsibilities, and other 

White House officials. For more information visit www.ostp.gov/nstc.

About the Office of Science and Technology Policy

The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was established by the National Science and Technology 

Policy, Organization and Priorities Act of 1976. OSTP’s responsibilities include advising the President in policy 

formulation and budget development on all questions in which science and technology are important elements and 

articulating the President’s science and technology policies and programs. For more information visit www.ostp.gov.
Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness 3

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT 

NATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL 

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20502 

June 24, 2011 

Dear Colleague: 

In much the same way that silicon in the 1970s led to the modern information technology 

industry, the development of advanced materials will fuel many of the emerging industries that 

will address challenges in energy, national security, healthcare, and other areas. Yet the time it 

takes to move a newly discovered advanced material from the laboratory to the commercial 

market place remains far too long. Accelerating this process could significantly improve U.S. 

global competitiveness and ensure that the Nation remains at the forefront of the advanced 

materials marketplace. This Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness aims to 

reduce development time by providing the infrastructure and training that American innovators 

need to discover, develop, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials in a more expeditious 

and economical way. 

Prepared by an ad hoc group of the National Science and Technology Council, this 

initiative proposes a new national infrastructure for data sharing and analysis that will provide a 

greatly enhanced knowledgebase to scientists and engineers designing new materials. This effort 

will foster enhanced computational capabilities, data management, and an integrated engineering 

approach for materials deployment to better leverage and complement existing Federal 

investments. 

The success of this initiative will require a sustained effort from the private sector, 

universities, and the Federal Government. I look forward to working with you to make this 

vision a reality. 

Sincerely, 

John P. Holdren 

Assistant to the President for Science and Technology 

Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy 
4 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

A genome is a set of information encoded in the 

language of DNA that serves as a blueprint for an 

organism’s growth and development. The word 

genome, when applied in non-biological contexts, 

connotes a fundamental building block toward a 

larger purpose.

The Materials Genome Initiative is a new, multistakeholder effort to develop an infrastructure to 

accelerate advanced materials discovery and 

deployment in the United States. Over the last 

several decades there has been significant Federal 

investment in new experimental processes and 

techniques for designing advanced materials. This 

new focused initiative will better leverage existing 

Federal investments through the use of computational 

capabilities, data management, and an integrated 

approach to materials science and engineering. 

What follows describes a vision of how the 

development of advanced materials can be 

accelerated through advances in computational 

techniques, more effective use of standards, and 

enhanced data management. Detailed benchmarks 

and milestones will be laid out in later documents. 

This document is written for all stakeholders in the 

materials development community — from 

experimental and theoretical scientists conducting 

basic research to industrial engineers qualifying new 

material products for market. These stakeholders 

span academic institutions, small businesses, large 

industrial enterprises, professional societies, and 

government. With the engagement of all stakeholders 

in the up-front planning and execution, this initiative 

will ensure the Nation remains competitive in the 

manufacturing and use of advanced materials.

Introduction
Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness 5

Advanced materials are essential to economic 

security and human well-being, with applications in 

multiple industries, including those aimed at 

addressing challenges in clean energy, national 

security, and human welfare. Accelerating the pace 

of discovery and deployment of advanced material 

systems will therefore be crucial to achieving global 

competitiveness in the 21st century. The Materials 

Genome Initiative will create a new era of materials 

innovation that will serve as a foundation for 

strengthening domestic industries in these fields. 

This initiative offers a unique opportunity for the 

United States to discover, develop, manufacture, 

and deploy advanced materials at least twice as 

fast as possible today, at a fraction of the cost.

Vision Statement
6 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

Materials Deployment

The Challenge

Discovery

Development Property

Optimization

Systems

Design and

Integration

Certification Manufacturing

1 2 3 4 5 6

Deployment*

* Includes Sustainment and Recovery

7

Figure 1: Materials development continuum

In much the same way that silicon in the 1970s led 

to the modern information technology industry, 

advanced materials could fuel emerging multi-billiondollar industries aimed at addressing challenges in 

energy, national security, and human welfare. Since 

the 1980s, technological change and economic 

progress have grown ever more dependent on new 

materials developments.1,2 To secure its competitive 

advantage in global markets and succeed in the 

future of advanced materials development and 

deployment, the United States must operate both 

faster and at lower cost than is possible today. 

At present, the time frame for incorporating new 

classes of materials into applications is remarkably 

long, typically about 10 to 20 years from initial 

research to first use. For example, the lithium ion 

battery, which is ubiquitous in today’s portable 

electronic devices, altered the landscape of modern 

information technologies; however, it took 20 years to 

move these batteries from a laboratory concept 

proposed in the mid 1970s to wide market adoption 

and use in the late 1990s.3,4 Even now, 40 years later, 

lithium ion batteries have yet to be fully incorporated 

in the electric car industry, where they stand to play 

a pivotal role in transforming our transportation 

infrastructure. It is clear that the pace of development 

of new materials has fallen far behind the speed at 

which product development is conducted.

As today’s scientists and engineers explore a new 

generation of advanced materials to solve the grand 

challenges of the 21st century, reducing the time 

required to bring these discoveries to market will be 

a key driving force behind a more competitive 

domestic manufacturing sector and economic growth.5

The lengthy time frame for materials to move from 

discovery to market is due in part to the continued 

reliance of materials research and development 

programs on scientific intuition and trial and error 

experimentation. Much of the design and testing of 

materials is currently performed through timeconsuming and repetitive experiment and 

characterization loops. Some of these experiments 

could potentially be performed virtually with powerful 

and accurate computational tools, but that level of 

accuracy in such simulations does not yet exist.

An additional barrier to more rapid materials 

deployment is the way materials currently move 

through their development continuum (see Figure 1), 

which is the series of processes that take a new 

material from conception to market deployment. It 

comprises seven discrete stages, which may be 

completed by different engineering or scientific teams 

at different institutions. This system employs 

experienced teams at each stage of the process, but 

with few opportunities for feedback between stages 

that could accelerate the full continuum.

In the discovery stage it is crucial that researchers 

have access to the largest possible data set upon 

which to base their models, in order to provide 

a more complete picture of a material’s 

characteristics. This can be achieved through data 

transparency and integration. Another factor limiting a 

scientist’s ability to model materials behavior and 

invent new materials is their knowledge of the 

underlying physical and chemical mechanisms of a 

material system. There is currently no standard 

method for researchers to share predictive algorithms 

and computational methods. 
Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness 7

Materials Deployment

The Challenge 

To achieve faster materials development, the materials 

community must embrace open innovation. Rapid 

advances in computational modeling and data 

exchange and more advanced algorithms for modeling 

materials behavior must be developed to supplement 

physical experiments; and a data exchange system 

that will allow researchers to index, search, and 

compare data must be implemented to allow greater 

integration and collaboration.

Later parts of the continuum are necessarily linear 

(i.e. certification cannot occur before systems design), 

but all stages would benefit from increased data 

transparency and communication. Currently, no 

infrastructure exists to allow 

different engineering teams 

to share data or models. 

Data transparency may 

have the largest impact 

after the material has been 

deployed, due to the fact 

that every industry relies on 

materials as components of 

product design. A product 

designer who needs a 

material of certain 

specifications may not be 

aware that the material has 

already been designed 

because there is no 

standard method to search for it. Data transparency 

encourages cross-industry and multidisciplinary 

applications.

The life cycle of a material does not end with 

deployment. An issue that is coming more to the 

attention of industry and consumers is the recyclability 

and sustainability of materials. Materials engineers 

must design for the ever-changing parameters and 

uses of materials after their initial intended purpose; 

for example, recyclability must become a design 

parameter.

The Materials Genome Initiative will develop the 

toolsets necessary for a new research paradigm in 

which powerful computational analysis will decrease 

the reliance on physical experimentation. Improved 

data sharing systems and more integrated engineering 

teams will allow design, systems engineering, and 

manufacturing activities to overlap and interact 

(see Figure 2).

This new integrated design continuum — incorporating 

greater use of computing and information technologies 

coupled with advances in characterization and 

experiment — will significantly accelerate the time and 

number of materials deployed by replacing lengthy 

and costly empirical studies with mathematical models 

and computational simulations. Now is the ideal time 

to enact this initiative; the computing capacity 

necessary to achieve these 

advances exists and related 

technologies such as 

nanotechnology and biotechnology have matured to 

enable us to make great 

progress in reducing time 

to market at a very low cost.

Multiple international entities 

have recognized these 

issues and a number of 

foreign countries have 

already embarked on 

programs to address them.6

The National Research 

Council of the National Academies of Sciences, in its 

report on Integrated Computational Materials 

Engineering, describes the potential outcome:

Integrating materials computational tools and 

information with sophisticated computational and 

analytical tools already in use in engineering 

fields... [promises] to shorten the materials 

development cycle from its current 10-20 years to 

2 or 3 years.7

While it is difficult to anticipate the actual reduction 

in development time that will result from this initiative, 

our goal is to achieve a time reduction of greater 

than 50 percent.

Time

Future Materials

Continuum

Materials Continuum

Today

Number of 

New Materials

to Market

Figure 2: Initiative acceleration of the materials continuum
8 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

1. Developing a Materials

Innovation Infrastructure

The Materials Genome Initiative 

will develop new integrated 

computational, experimental, and 

data informatics tools. These 

software and integration tools will 

span the entire materials 

continuum, be developed using an 

open platform,† improve best-inclass predictive capabilities, and 

adhere to newly created standards 

for quick integration of digital 

information across the materials 

innovation infrastructure. This 

infrastructure will seamlessly 

integrate into existing productdesign frameworks to enable rapid 

and holistic engineering design.

† An open platform aims to accommodate 

open access and open source software, with 

mechanisms for independent software 

developers to retain proprietary rights.

2. Achieving National Goals

With Advanced Materials

The infrastructure created by this 

initiative will enable scientists and 

engineers to create any number of 

new advanced materials, many of 

which will help solve foundational 

science and engineering problems 

and address issues of pressing 

national importance. The Federal 

government intends to host 

interagency workshops with all 

relevant stakeholders to identify 

high priority material problems, 

which will be used to develop and 

coordinate the Initiative and to 

sustain the long-term process of 

accelerating materials development 

outlined in this vision document.

3. Equipping the Next-Generation 

Materials Workforce 

Success of this initiative cannot be 

measured by the tools alone, but 

rather by the pervasiveness of 

their use and the outcomes they 

enable. Equipping our nextgeneration workforce with the 

tools and approaches necessary 

to achieve our national goals will 

require stakeholders in government, 

academia, and industry to embrace 

the scope and contents of the 

materials innovation infrastructure. 

This will be achieved with a focus 

on education, workforce 

development, and a generational 

shift toward a new, more integrated 

approach to materials development.

Accelerating the Materials Continuum 

Figure 3: Initiative overview

Materials Innovation 

Infrastructure

Experimental

Tools

Human Welfare

Clean Energy

Next Generation Workforce

National Security

Computational

Tools

Digital

Data

The Materials Genome Initiative would create a materials innovation infrastructure to exploit this unique opportunity. 

The full Initiative is captured in Figure 3.
Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness 9

Computational Tools

Major advances in modeling and predicting materials 

behavior have led to a remarkable opportunity for the 

use of simulation software in solving materials challenges. 

New computational tools have the potential to accelerate 

materials development at all stages of the continuum. 

For example, software could guide the experimental 

discovery of new materials by screening a large set of 

compounds and isolating those with desired properties. 

Further downstream, virtual testing via computer-aided 

analysis could replace some of the expensive and timeconsuming physical tests currently required for validation 

and certification of new materials. 

These computational tools are still not widely used due 

to industry’s limited confidence in accepting nonempirically-based conclusions. Materials scientists have 

developed powerful computational 

tools to predict materials behavior, but 

these tools have fundamental 

deficiencies that limit their usefulness. 

The primary problem is that current 

predictive algorithms do not have the 

ability to model behavior and properties 

across multiple spatial and temporal 

scales; for example, researchers can 

measure the atomic vibrations of a 

material in picoseconds, but from that 

information they cannot predict how 

the material will wear down over the 

course of years. In addition, software tools that utilize 

the algorithms are typically written by academics for 

academic purposes in separate universities, and therefore 

lack user-friendly interfaces, documentation, robustness, 

and the capacity to scale to industrial-sized problems. 

These deficiencies inhibit efficient software maintenance 

and can result in software failures. Significant 

improvements in software and the accuracy of materials 

behavior models are needed.

Open innovation will play a key role in accelerating the 

development of advanced computational tools. A system 

that allows researchers to share their algorithms and 

collaborate on creating new tools will rapidly increase 

the pace of innovation, which currently occurs in isolated 

academic settings. An existing system that is a good 

example of a first step toward open innovation 

is the nanoHUB, a National Science Foundation program 

run through the Network for Computational 

Nanotechnology.8 By providing modeling and simulation 

applications that researchers can download and use on 

their data, nanoHUB.org supports the use of computational 

tools in nanotechnology research. Researchers can 

access state-of-the-art modeling algorithms and 

collaborate with colleagues via the website. To rapidly 

increase knowledge of first principles and advance 

modeling algorithms, it is essential for the materials 

industry to accept open innovation and design these 

tools on an open platform.

The ultimate goal is to generate computational tools 

that enable real-world materials development, that 

optimize or minimize traditional experimental testing, 

and that predict materials performance under diverse 

product conditions. An early benchmark will be the 

ability to incorporate improved predictive modeling 

algorithms of materials behavior into existing product 

design tools. For example, the crystal structure and 

physical properties of the materials in 

a product may change during the 

product’s processing, due to varying 

conditions. It could be disastrous to 

the performance of a product if, for 

instance, the tensile strength of its 

bolts changed during manufacture. The 

ability to model these morphology and 

property changes will enable faster and 

better design.

Achieving these objectives will require 

a focus in three necessary areas: (1) 

creating accurate models of materials 

performance and validating model predictions from 

theories and empirical data; (2) implementing an openplatform framework to ensure that all code is easily 

used and maintained by all those involved in materials 

innovation and deployment, from academia to industry; 

and (3) creating software that is modular and userfriendly in order to extend the benefits to broad user 

communities.

Experimental Tools

The emphasis of the Initiative is on developing and 

improving computational capabilities, but it is essential 

to ensure that these new tools both complement and 

fully leverage existing experimental research on advanced 

materials. Effective models of materials behavior can 

only be developed from accurate and extensive sets of 

data on materials properties. Experimental data is 

required to create models as well as to validate their 

key results. Where computations based on theoretical 

frameworks fall short, empirical testing will fill in the 

Developing a Materials Innovation Infrastructure
10 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

gaps. As mentioned previously, most computational 

models are not yet capable of multi-scale modeling. 

Empirical data will help the models 

bridge gaps in the “material length 

scale” and significantly accelerate the 

pace of building fundamental 

understanding and developing new 

materials. Once the models are 

improved by incorporating new data, 

they will provide faster, more efficient, 

and more comprehensive performance 

data than could be generated by 

experiments alone. 

One advanced technique that is already 

implemented in industry is high 

throughput combinatorial processing. The General 

Motors Company, for example, has been working on 

next-generation catalysts for automobile exhaust 

emission control and on developing detailed kinetics 

and predictive physics-based models to describe the 

performance of these catalysts.9 With support from

the Department of Energy in 2002, General Motors used 

high throughput combinatorial techniques to rapidly 

synthesize and screen a broad range of catalyst 

materials, the most promising of which were tested on 

engines and are being considered for commercial use.10

This type of rapid characterization technique, when 

complemented by computational capabilities and a 

highly trained workforce, will help to accelerate the 

discovery process.

Beyond leveraging existing experimental work, there will 

be specific needs for new techniques in experimentation 

and characterization to realize the synergy between 

experiments and computational methods. New 

experimental and characterization tools must be rooted 

in fundamental physics, chemistry, and materials science. 

Materials properties will be measured as a function of 

key variables, such as composition and processing 

history, as they relate to empirical theories and existing 

data. The experimental input required goes far beyond 

a single set of measurements. In most cases, researchers 

must combine and calibrate data from many experiments 

into a single larger data set that represents the entire 

system and allows the determination of complex 

properties. One important characterization technique is 

the visualization of structure in three dimensions. This 

is typically done by assembling and aligning a large 

number of two-dimensional images. The final 

representation may then be combined with compositional, 

mechanical, electronic, and optical property 

measurements to give quantitative and complete 

descriptions of a material. 

The experimental piece of this initiative 

will implement existing and new 

methods and technologies to 

characterize relevant properties 

efficiently and quantitatively during 

synthesis and processing or over a 

range of operating conditions and 

environments. In situ characterization 

techniques to determine materials 

properties during processing will be 

paired with computational tools to 

enable rapid screening of materials, 

reactions, and processes over a wide range of length 

and time scales. Experimental outputs will additionally 

be used to provide model parameters, validate key 

predictions, and supplement and extend the range of 

validity and reliability of the models.

Digital Data

Data — whether derived from computation or experiment 

— are the basis of the information that drives the 

materials development continuum. Data inform and 

verify the computational models that will streamline the 

development process. The goal of this initiative is not 

only to allow researchers to easily incorporate their own 

data into models but additionally to enable researchers 

and engineers to incorporate each other’s data. The 

sharing of data will give each research or engineer a 

broader set of information to work with, which will 

render more accurate models. A data-sharing system 

would also facilitate multi-disciplinary communication 

between scientists and engineers working on different 

stages of the materials development continuum. The key 

to accelerating the rate of innovation is streamlining 

how data are incorporated into models and experiments 

and enabling data transfer between various software 

systems at different institutions. Data transparency is 

also crucial in the later stages of the continuum, after 

discovery. For product designers looking for a material 

with certain parameters, a system that would allow them 

to search for advanced materials would be invaluable. 

Enabling cross-industry applications will be an important 

piece of the Initiative.

Creating this data transfer system will be a challenge, 

but not an unprecedented one. Various innovative data 

transfer methods have been developed, for example, for 

Developing a Materials Innovation Infrastructure

© Robert Rathe
Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness 11

sharing patient information between different hospitals. 

As described in a 2010 President’s Council of Advisors 

on Science and Technology report on Health Information 

Technology, one viable option is tagging medical 

information with metadata that contains the patient’s 

identifier and can be found via a simple crawl through 

all the hospitals’ data.11 The advantage of a metadata 

system is that once the data is formatted it can be 

incorporated into any number of 

software systems at different institutions 

for analysis. Standard formats for the 

different types of materials data let 

researchers easily understand and 

incorporate their colleagues’ findings 

into their own models. Another 

potentially useful technology is cloud 

computing, which allows for efficient 

remote data storage and sharing of 

software applications. It will be 

necessary to devise new approaches 

to data storage specific to materials 

data to enable effective retrieval and analysis.

Issues surrounding intellectual property naturally arise 

during discussions of data. There is an unavoidable 

tension between the scientific need for openness and 

the industrial concern for protection of intellectual 

property. Indeed, to be effective, this initiative will need 

to harmonize with any number of business models. 

In the example of metadata tagging, participants would 

be able to tag certain pieces of data as private so that 

those data would not be included in the crawl. Whatever 

data-sharing model is adopted, it is essential for 

companies working at all stages of the materials lifecycle 

to be free to share information when they feel disclosure 

would yield a net benefit, yet still keep valuable 

intellectual property confidential.

The digital data contribution to this 

initiative will establish a data-storage 

and transfer system for materials 

researchers and engineers. The system 

implemented would preferably allow 

participating institutions to retain their 

legacy software systems but facilitate 

data transfer and efficiently integrate 

the new data into models. The system 

must also allow institutions to choose 

which of their data sets are searchable. 

In addition, this initiative will emphasize 

accuracy and verifiability of models 

and experimental tools being developed and support 

informatics research to enable the most effective 

retrieval and analysis of materials data in this new 

paradigm. Advanced data-sharing techniques at all 

stages of the development continuum will be the 

driving force behind the Initiative and help build the 

scholarly record.

Developing a Materials Innovation Infrastructure
12 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

The infrastructure created by this initiative will facilitate and expedite the discovery and development of a broad 

spectrum of advanced materials, to the benefit of scientific inquiry and the national economy. Some of our Nation’s 

most pressing challenges — in areas such as clean energy, national security, and human welfare — could 

be addressed by advanced materials. This initiative will foster cross-sector and cross-disciplinary collaboration 

so that scientists and engineers working on related materials for different purposes can cooperate and provide 

a better result. The examples that follow are problems that reflect how diverse the field of materials science is and 

how broad an impact this initiative may have. They are mere examples, however, of the types of problems that 

could be addressed.

Materials for National Security

The Department of Defense and the national defense laboratories are significantly invested in materials research. 

The research labs work on advances in lightweight protection materials, electronic materials, energy storage, and 

bio-surrogate materials to name a few. While the Department of Defense uses advanced materials to protect and 

arm our troops, materials also play a role in many other areas of national security. Critical minerals are a 

relevant example.

Material Example: Finding Substitutes for Critical Minerals

Minerals are important components 

of many products civilians use in 

daily life (e.g., cell phones, 

computers, and automobiles), as 

well as crucial military applications 

(e.g., avionics, radar, precisionguided munitions, and lasers). 

According to a National Academies 

study, each person in the United 

States consumes, on average, 25,000 pounds of non-fuel 

minerals each year.12 Yet the United States does not 

mine or process much of that raw material. The National 

Academies defines a critical mineral as one whose supply 

chain is at risk, for which the impact of a supply 

restriction would be severe, or both. Currently, the 

American manufacturing sector is struggling to maintain 

adequate supplies of critical minerals at reasonable 

costs. As the use of critical minerals increases, this 

supply shortage may be amplified unless additional 

domestic supply is identified and captured.

Many materials are referred to as “critical” because 

supply is highly concentrated in either one country or by 

a few corporate interests, and because they are used in 

the production of goods that are important economically 

or for national security. Today, there is particular concern 

about materials like platinum, tellurium, and certain rare 

earth elements because they are essential to the 

manufacture of products in key high-growth sectors, 

including clean energy, consumer electronics, and 

defense, among others. The discovery and development 

of technology substitutes that deliver the same 

functionality but replace critical minerals, like the rare 

earth elements, with those that are more earth-abundant 

is one strategy that would have the dual benefit of 

protecting our military capabilities while also addressing 

the growing dependence on any mineral resource, 

domestic or foreign, that are unstable or subject to 

supply disruptions. The infrastructure created by this 

initiative could assist researchers and engineers to 

rapidly discover and develop substitutes for technologies 

and applications that are currently dependent on these 

critical minerals for which no known alternative is 

available today. Such applications will range from 

personal electronics to missile guidance systems. 

Achieving National Goals Using Advanced Materials
Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness 13

Achieving National Goals Using Advanced Materials

Materials for Human Health and Welfare

There are many applications for advanced materials to address challenges in human health and welfare — from 

biocompatible materials like prostheses or artificial organs to protective materials designed to prevent injury. 

Advanced materials designed to prevent traumatic brain injuries are one example with potential benefits across 

diverse user groups including athletes and military personnel.

Material Example: Preventing Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injuries (TBI) occur 

when an external force impacts the 

head or body, leading to a loss of 

consciousness, amnesia, and/or 

alterations in normal brain function. 

An estimated 360,000 military 

personnel have been afflicted by 

a TBI during the conflicts in Iraq 

and Afghanistan, and each year 

1.7 million civilians suffer from TBI due to falls and athletic/

vehicle accidents. The medical costs and lost productivity 

of these injuries are estimated to exceed $60 billion 

annually.13,14 

Suitably designed protective gear can prevent these injuries. 

Designing gear that accounts for the wide range of 

conditions and circumstances that can lead to TBI, however, 

presents a challenging materials problem. For example, 

advanced materials might be used in a host of protective 

technologies for military and passenger vehicles, body 

armor, and sports equipment to limit the devastating 

effects of blasts, impacts, and collisions. But in each 

circumstance, understanding the response of protective 

gear and the subsequent manner in which impact forces 

are transmitted to the brain (or body) is paramount for 

innovative and targeted materials solutions.15 This initiative 

could provide tools to assess the requirements of these 

different applications, optimize materials designed for 

specific uses, and identify potential overlapping uses for 

materials in the military and civilian sectors.

Materials for Clean Energy Systems

Developing sources of clean energy and reducing our dependence on oil are key national priorities. Materials 

research can help us find new technologies such as better catalysts for the production of biofuels, artificial 

photosynthesis to derive energy directly from sunlight, novel high-efficiency solar photovoltaics, and portable energystorage devices. There are also many ways advanced materials could reduce dependence on oil in the transportation 

sector, as the following example points out.

Material Example: Reducing Oil Dependence for Transportation

Of the 12 million barrels of oil per 

day the U.S. imported from foreign 

sources in 2009, two-thirds was for 

transportation fuels.16 Motorized 

road transport consumes around 19 

percent of the global energy supply,15

and aviation accounts for another 3 

percent.17,18 Improving fuel efficiency 

in the transportation sector is 

therefore an important target for decreasing oil consumption.

The development of new lightweight materials for vehicles 

could significantly improve fuel efficiency. Every 10-percent 

reduction in passenger vehicle weight in a conventional 

combustion engine car could reduce fuel use by six to eight 

percent.19,20 Yet, to be successful, these lightweight materials 

would still need to meet the structural integrity and safety 

standards of more traditional materials in use today — for 

both commercial passenger vehicles and those designed for 

military deployment.

In addition, automobile companies are starting to deploy 

alternative vehicles such as hybrids, electric cars, and 

hydrogen fuel-cell-powered cars. The technologies used in 

these vehicles have great potential to replace conventional 

combustion engines, however there are unresolved issues 

limiting their widespread use. Current batteries have low 

energy density and take a long time to charge. Hydrogen 

fuel cells powerful enough to run a car use significant 

quantities of high cost metals. 

This initiative could provide tools to optimize and deploy new 

materials such as high-performance, cost-effective, lightweight 

structural materials and better portable energy-storage 

devices that will address national economic 

and security challenges through the reduction of oil use in 

the United States.
14 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

It is clear that a new infrastructure for materials 

development will not solve real-world problems unless it 

is widely deployed. Equipping our next-generation 

workforce with the tools and approaches necessary to 

achieve our national goals will require stakeholders in 

government, academia, and industry to embrace and 

continuously expand the scope and contents of the 

materials innovation infrastructure. Investments must 

also be directed toward advancing a culture supporting 

the routine production and use of the tools developed, 

illustrating the opportunities and advantages it creates, 

and guiding its implementation and 

validation across the entire materials 

continuum — from education of 

undergraduates through the adoption 

of these paradigm shifts by industry. 

The inherently fragmented and 

multidisciplinary nature of the materials 

community poses barriers to establishing 

the required networks for sharing 

results and information. One of the 

largest challenges will be encouraging 

scientists to think of themselves not as 

individual researchers but as part of a powerful network 

collectively analyzing and using data generated by the 

larger community. These barriers must be overcome. 

Rapid advances in materials discovery and design will 

be realized not merely through one-on-one interactions 

or pre-existing relationships, but also through multiple 

layers of collaboration among government agencies, 

academia, and industry. The Initiative will develop and 

support a coordinated effort to establish the infrastructure 

and protocols to facilitate collaborations among 

academic, government, and industrial participants, both 

by function (experimentalists, engineers, theoretical 

scientists, and computer scientists) and institution 

(academia, government research laboratories, small and 

medium enterprises, and large companies). New 

partnerships will also be stimulated between manufacturers 

and software developers to rapidly convert sciencebased materials computational tools into engineering 

tools. 

By expanding and facilitating more integrated relationships, 

the Initiative will bring experimentalists, theorists, computer 

scientists, and engineers into closer proximity to work in 

the same research space. Furthermore, the digital data 

aspects and open platforms that call for more transparency 

and easy access to data will facilitate a more integrated 

materials community, thereby expediting the development 

of more accurate models, highly reproducible and 

validated work, and a better understanding of materials 

properties and product design. 

Support for advanced computation and experimental 

tools will provide basic research opportunities that will 

serve to educate researchers, faculty, and students in the 

critical aspects of contributing to and applying the 

infrastructure from discovery to deployment. This includes 

the increased use of modeling and simulation along with 

understanding how these must be 

coupled with new experimental and 

characterization tools. 

University involvement with the 

foundational science and engineering 

problems will further encourage 

materials scientists and engineers to 

learn how to integrate their knowledge 

into quantitative tools that materials 

and systems design engineers can use 

to identify, optimize, and speed product 

development. A natural consequence of 

this integrated and coordinated research approach will 

be the introduction of new cross-disciplinary courses in 

undergraduate and graduate curricula that put into 

practice the fundamental tenets of the Materials Genome 

Initiative. 

An added benefit is that the computational toolsets 

developed through this initiative will become an integral 

component of all engineering programs, allowing students 

to explore “what if” scenarios as part of their regular 

coursework. This exploratory approach will instill in them 

the fundamental principles of integrated discovery that 

underlie this initiative, and ensure that the next-generation 

of scientists and engineers are empowered to fully exploit 

the power of this new infrastructure, while continuing to 

expand the tools and knowledgebase on which future 

advances will depend.

Finally, an important extension of these educational 

efforts into the industrial sector will be continuing 

education programs to enhance the skills of professionals 

in industry, who will have an important role as implementers 

of these materials innovations. Professional societies 

serving the materials community can utilize and leverage 

their existing education infrastructure, experience, and 

expertise to further advance this goal.

Equipping the Next-Generation Workforce
Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness 15

Achieving the Vision

Next Steps

While this document does not describe specific policy 

actions for implementation of the Materials Genome 

Initiative, it does suggest next steps toward achieving 

the vision outlined here. The Administration will begin a 

“road mapping” exercise on all pieces of the materials 

innovation infrastructure — for example, by convening 

workshops between government agencies, industry, 

national labs, and universities to elicit suggestions for 

policy, infrastructure design, and the identification of 

high priority foundational science and engineering 

problems. While some government agencies have existing 

programs that will connect to the goals of this initiative, 

in FY 2012 the Obama Administration has requested 

$100M in support for multi-year programs that will 

launch various components of the Materials Genome 

Initiative. These programs are across: the Department of 

Energy (DOE), the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology (NIST), the National Science Foundation 

(NSF), and the Department of Defense (DOD)

While all aspects of this initiative will be coordinated 

among the participating agencies, this budget request 

includes the following new targeted activities:

1. The DOE Office of Science and NSF will work together 

to enable the development, maintenance, and 

deployment of reliable, interoperable, and reusable 

software for the next-generation design of matter. 

The DOE, through its Computational Materials and 

Chemistry by Design program, and NSF, through 

aspects of its Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st 

Century Science and Engineering, will coordinate 

activities on the development of high quality 

production software toolkits that both incorporate 

new algorithms and allow for interoperability with 

existing software tools. 

2. In support of their advanced software programs, both 

the DOE and NSF will also coordinate activity in the 

development of next-generation characterization tools 

that provide the fundamental basis for development 

of and validation of the algorithms and software 

tools.

3. An Advanced Materials by Design program led by 

NIST will target the development of standards 

infrastructure, reference databases, and centers of 

excellence that will enable reliable computer modeling 

and simulation for materials discovery and 

optimization. This activity will be coordinated closely 

with the DOE and NSF efforts on software and 

experimental tool design.

4. The DOD will invest in basic and applied computational 

materials research directed toward enhancing 

performance and accelerating transition of advanced 

materials to meet a broad array of national security 

needs and maintain a technological advantage in 

defense systems along the full materials continuum 

from discovery through deployment, including 

maintenance and recovery of assets. These efforts 

will be integrated across the science and technology 

programs of the military services (i.e. Army Research 

Labs, Office of Naval Research, and Air Force 

Research Labs). 

5. DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy NextGeneration Materials program will leverage 

computational tools to accelerate manufacture and 

characterization of new materials for energy 

technologies. It will invest in such areas as: new 

materials used in manufacturing processes, new 

hybrid composite material systems with improved 

materials properties and lower manufacturing cost, 

modeling and simulation tools for predicting spatial 

and temporal variability of new materials, and tools 

for rapidly verifying fitness of new materials for 

intended use.

6. NSF and DOD will play a lead role in addressing the 

next-generation workforce goals by: facilitating new 

partnerships between the relevant science and 

engineering communities in academia, government 

and industry to promote a culture supporting and 

embracing the use of the capabilities developed 

within this initiative; and engaging with students and 

colleagues to develop the culture and relevant 

training of the next-generation workforce.

© Robert Rathe
16 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

Conclusion

In summary, advanced materials are essential to human well-being and are the cornerstone for emerging industries. 

Yet, the time frame for incorporating advanced materials into applications is remarkably long, often taking 10 to 

20 years from initial research to first use. The Materials Genome Initiative is an effort that will address this problem 

through the dedicated involvement of stakeholders in government, education, professional societies, and industry, 

to deliver: (1) the creation of a new materials-innovation infrastructure, (2) the achievement of national goals with 

advanced materials, and (3) the preparation of a next-generation materials workforce to sustain this progress. Such 

a set of objectives will serve a more competitive domestic manufacturing presence — one in which the United 

States will develop, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials at least two times faster than is possible today, 

at a fraction of the cost.
Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness 17

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References
18 Materials Genome Initiative for Global Competitiveness

This whitepaper and initiative were prepared by the ad-hoc interagency Group on Advanced Materials and formally 

approved through the National Science and Technology Council, Committee on Technology. This group had 

substantive contributions from representatives in the following organizations: White House Office of Science and 

Technology Policy; Department of Energy: Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, and Office of Energy Efficiency 

and Renewable Energy; Department of Defense: Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and 

Engineering, Army Research Laboratory, Office of Naval Research, Air Force Research Laboratory; National Science 

Foundation: Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences, Directorate for Engineering; and Department of 

Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The points of contact for this whitepaper are Tom Kalil (Ex Officio) and Cyrus Wadia (Interagency Group Chair). 

All inquires may be directed to cwadia@ostp.eop.gov.

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