National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

NIST, founded in 1901, is a non-regulatory federal agency within the Department of Commerce. 

NIST's mission is to promote U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing 

measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and 

improve our quality of life.

Open Data

NIST Public Access Plan

In response to the Memorandum from the Executive Office of the President for the Heads of 

Executive Departments and Agencies: Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded 

Scientific Research, dated February 22, 2013, NIST developed a NIST Public Access Plan, 

which was approved by OSTP and OMB in December 2014. The plan described NIST efforts 

to make freely available to the public, in publicly accessible repositories, all peer-reviewed 

scholarly publications and associated data arising from unclassified research and programs 

funded wholly or in part by NIST. Within the constraints of its mission and funding, NIST will 

also promote the deposit of scientific data arising from unclassified research and programs, 

funded wholly or in part by NIST free of charge unless an exception exists in publicly 

accessible databases. The plan and public comments are available as NISTIR 8084 

[http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8084]. NIST’s Public Access Policy, which was derived 

from the plan, became effective on June 26, 2015 and is available at http://www.nist.gov/open.

Improved Access to Publications and Archival Materials

NIST has partnered with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to use the existing PubMed 

Central (PMC) repository system to provide public access to full-text peer-reviewed scholarly 

publications for NIST, leveraging the well-established search, archival, and dissemination 

features of PMC. NIST plans to acquire a web-based manuscript submission and peer-review 

workflow solution that enables geographically dispersed stakeholders, including both NIST 

employees and non-NIST collaborators, to electronically submit, edit, and search bibliographic 

information and view progress-tracking information during internal review. 

NIST is also working with the Internet Archive, under an arrangement with the Library of 

Congress, to digitize the hundreds of technical reports it has published over more than 100 

years, with the goal that the entire legacy collection of NIST Technical Series publications 

will be available to the public through the Government Publishing Office’s govinfo system. 

Some of these technical publications were targeted to very specific audiences, but many are 

about topics of interest to a broader audience. 
NIST staff members are also enhancing the NIST Digital Archives by adding information 

about and images of artifacts in the NIST Museum collections and photographs portraying 

NBS/NIST history. NIST staff members are tracking the number of web hits on and the number 

of citations of those reports and papers to make a measurement-based determination of the 

effectiveness of this strategy to increase the impact of NIST research.

Improved Access to Research Data

NIST’s plan for providing public access to scientific research data consists of three 

components: data management plans (DMPs), an Enterprise Data Inventory (EDI), and a data 

repository providing a public access infrastructure. Data management plans document how 

NIST will store, archive, and handle accessibility for multiple types of data. The EDI is a 

catalog of the datasets with a user-friendly front end to enable NIST scientists to easily enter 

information about their datasets, and this metadata is sent to data.gov. A portal to the NIST 

Data Repository will also make it easier for agency staff to make their research data publicly 

accessible through the NIST website. 

To enhance its ability to store, exchange, and disseminate its research data to external 

stakeholders and the public as well as to share it between NIST technical staff and their 

immediate collaborators, NIST has been making foundational improvements to its data 

management infrastructure. There are four prongs to this initiative: 

- Analyze data management practices across NIST organizational units, document 

procedures, and build out flexible and extensible tools to support data management plans 

and the Enterprise Data Inventory; 

- Create a robust data management framework for data of all working levels by extending 

cloud-based storage and network connectivity, and deploying easy-to-use interfaces for the 

management of NIST data; 

- Pilot development of a NIST public-access data portal with improved interfaces, with 

particular focus on supporting Standard Reference Data; 

- Accelerate identification, assessment, authorization, and deployment of widely used 

software tools that support data exchange and research collaboration.
Privacy

NIST follows departmental guidance from the Office of Privacy and Open Government. 

Whistleblower Protection

NIST follows departmental guidance from the Office of the Inspector General. 

Websites

Several years ago, as part of an effort to expand dissemination of its research results, NIST 

implemented a content management system (CMS), which included access to an improved 

database of research papers authored or co-authored by NIST researchers. Content is “tagged” by 

topic, enabling the public to subscribe to receive new information posted on the website on specific 

topics of interest such as nanotechnology or energy-related research. Currently, there are more 

than 230,000 subscribers who receive information on approximately 116 different topics. The 

NIST website also includes several blogs that allow members of the public to comment or ask 

questions about posted articles and the CMS includes icons to easily share content from the NIST 

site with social media websites (more than 13,000 “shares” in the first 6 months of FY2017). 

NIST has migrated its central web pages from a proprietary CMS to Drupal, an open source CMS. 

The website allows greater flexibility in the functionality of NIST internal and external web pages. 

It is hosted in the cloud, which allows NIST to meet the public’s current and future needs.

Social Media

NIST has created sites on YouTube (more than 7,000 subscribers, more than 1.3 million video 

views), Facebook (more than 57,000 “likes”), Twitter (more than 35,000 “followers”), and 

LinkedIn (almost 23,000 followers) and plans to establish an Instagram account in FY2017. To 

ensure that as many people as possible benefit from NIST’s work, news of major research results 

posted on the NIST website is routinely announced through these additional social media sites.

Transparency

NIST strives to be consistently open and transparent in its interactions with the public and news 

media. 

NIST implements the Department of Commerce Public Communications Policy, which includes 

explicit approval for research staff to talk with the news media and the public directly – without 

prior permission from the Public Affairs Office – about the results of their taxpayer-funded 

research. 

The NIST Public Affairs Office regularly offers communications training to its research staff, 

including describing this media access portion of the policy, to ensure that they are committed to 
broadly disseminating their results to a wide variety of audiences. Plain language training is 

available online and through mentoring and in-person training of NIST employees. 

The Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit dedicated to encouraging transparency in 

scientific communication, surveyed NIST technical staff and found that NIST scientists “are aware 

of free speech protections in the official policy and report a comparatively high degree of 

openness.” 

NIST provides a dedicated referral service for phone and email public inquiries during all business 

hours to ensure that any member of the public may request assistance in locating specialized 

technical reports or experts or in resolving customer-service concerns they may have. The NIST 

website “Contact Us” page includes several different ways for the public to quickly get help with 

many different types of inquiries. NIST’s Public Inquiries office strives to answer general NIST 

inquiries with 24 to 48 hours. 

NIST’s policy on scientific integrity is also easily accessed on its homepage. 

Public Notice

NIST follows departmental guidance from the Office of Public Affairs. 

Records Management

NIST manages its records in accordance with NARA and Department of Commerce regulations, 

ensuring that records are economically and effectively created to meet business needs, kept long 

enough to protect rights and assure accountability, and preserved and available for future 

generations. Records are retained in accordance with NARA-approved records schedules. NIST’s

records management directives and data management infrastructure are clear and concise, 

conveying records management requirements and responsibilities to all NIST staff. The directive 

was updated in December 2016.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests

NIST responds to Freedom of Information Act requests in accordance with Department of 

Commerce regulations and Department of Justice guidance. NIST emphasizes the importance of 

transparency about its operations and regularly performs discretionary releases of documents and 

information that could qualify for exemption from release, but for which there is no foreseeable 

harm. The NIST FOIA Office works collaboratively with NIST Operating Units to obtain 

information in response to requests in a timely manner and to encourage proactive disclosure of 

information. 

Proactive Disclosure

In November 2013, NIST initiated a review of its cryptographic standards-development process in 

response to concerns about the integrity of NIST cryptographic standards and guidelines. As a 
critical component of this review, the NIST Director charged the NIST Visiting Committee on 

Advanced Technology (VCAT) to form a Committee of Visitors (CoV) to serve as technical 

experts to assess NIST cryptographic standards and guidelines development process and if 

necessary provide findings on how it could be improved. NIST made publicly available all 

materials provided to the panel by posting the content on the VCAT website. NIST also held open 

discussions with multiple stakeholders to keep them informed and get their input. 

Congressional Requests

NIST follows departmental guidance from the Office of Legislative and Intergovernmental 

Affairs. 

Declassification

NIST follows departmental guidance from the Office of the Secretary.

Participation

NIST has a rich history of participation in numerous standards development efforts, dating back 

to the beginning of the 20th century when the National Bureau of Standards (which became NIST 

in 1988) was founded. Currently, more than 400 NIST staff members participate in over 115

standards-development organizations on both a national and international scale. 

To increase citizen involvement in the development of standards to address new technological 

challenges, NIST has reached out into the community to convene workshops at key locations 

around the country, organize diverse stakeholders, and establish consensus‐developing 

organizations. This strategy has broadened participation and organized communities to take action 

in a prioritized, timely manner. It has been used successfully for developing standards frameworks 

for the smart grid sector, critical infrastructure cybersecurity, disaster resilience, and forensic 

standards. 

Smart Grid Interoperability Panel

In 2009, NIST initiated the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) as a vehicle for NIST to 

solicit input and cooperation from private and public sector stakeholders in developing the 

smart grid interoperability standards framework. With NIST encouragement, the SGIP was 

transitioned to a non-profit private-public partnership organization in 2013, supported by 

industry stakeholder funding and funding provided through a cooperative agreement with 

NIST. The SGIP does not develop standards directly, but rather it provides an open process for 

stakeholders, including NIST, to coordinate and accelerate standards development and 

harmonization and to advance the interoperability of smart grid devices and systems.
Green Button Initiative

NIST provides leadership to the standards development work in the government-inspired and 

industry-led Green Button Initiative, which enables consumers to obtain and share their own 

energy usage information in a standardized electronic format. Working closely with the SGIP, 

industry, and other federal agencies, NIST has led the development of the technology 

foundation for Green Button, including standards, testing, developer tools, and technical 

support for implementers, including many utilities. NIST has also encouraged the formation of 

the new Green Button Alliance, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing Green Button 

implementation and supporting Green Button testing and certification. Based on significant 

nationwide voluntary adoption by utilities, and with support by NIST, over 100 million U.S. 

consumers (and over 8 million Canadian consumers) now have Green Button data access to 

help them better understand and manage their energy usage. 

Materials Genome Initiative

The Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), launched in 2011, is a multi-agency initiative 

designed to create a new era of policy, resources, and infrastructure that support U.S. 

institutions in the discovery, manufacture, and deployment of advanced materials twice as fast, 

at a fraction of the cost. 

The discovery and optimization of new materials for innovative products is a time-consuming 

and laborious process, and computational design of materials has begun to emerge as a 

powerful new tool for materials discovery and optimization. However, major efforts in both 

theory and experiment are needed to provide the data that underlies successful modeling. Given 

its expertise in the integration, curation, and provisioning of critically evaluated data and 

models, NIST has assumed a leadership role within the MGI, establishing essential dataexchange protocols and the means to ensure the quality of materials data and models. 

These efforts will yield the new methods, metrologies, and capabilities necessary for 

accelerated materials development. NIST is working with stakeholders in industry, academia, 

and government to develop the standards, tools, and techniques enabling acquisition, 

representation, and discovery of materials data; interoperability of computer simulations of 

materials phenomena across multiple length and time scales; and the quality assessment of 

materials data, models, and simulations.

Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity

Starting in 2013, NIST has worked with stakeholders to develop a voluntary framework –

based on existing standards, guidelines, and practices – for reducing cyber risks to critical 

infrastructure. The first version of the Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure 

Cybersecurity was released on February 12, 2014. Since then, NIST has collected user 

feedback and experience through a Request for Information and a public workshop. NIST also 

facilitated working sessions on specific technical topics that will be used to enhance the 
Framework in the future. An update to the Cybersecurity Framework that discusses ways for 

organizations to measure their cybersecurity risk management was released in January 2017

Trusted Identities in Cyberspace

Since 2011, NIST has led implementation of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in 

Cyberspace (NSTIC). This global initiative aims to improve the privacy, security, and 

convenience of online transactions through a collaborative effort between the private sector, 

the public sector, advocacy groups, and other non-profit organizations. NSTIC implementation 

has three primary stakeholder engagement approaches: 

1) Modeled after the SGIP, NIST initiated the private-sector-led Identity Ecosystem Steering 

Group, a multi-stakeholder vehicle for the development of the Identity Ecosystem Framework 

(IDEF) – the policy, standards, and accreditation processes for Identity Ecosystem participants. 

The first version of the IDEF was released in 2015. 

2) Over the past several years, NIST has facilitated adoption of NSTIC-aligned identity 

solutions by funding 16 private-sector pilots and two pilots with states through cooperative 

agreements. As of December 31, 2016, the Pilots Program has convened more than 170 

organizations to work together in advancing NSTIC-aligned solutions. The pilots have 

impacted over 7.4 million individuals, with advances occurring across 12 industry sectors –

including the development of 14 multi-factor authentication solutions. 

3) NIST advances standards and guidance by working with stakeholders to advance the 

measurability of identity and authentication solutions to further risk-based decision-making 

and support the evolution of an efficient marketplace for identity solutions. 

Privacy Risk Management Framework

NIST also has initiated development of a privacy risk-management framework to support 

improved privacy engineering in the design of information systems. NIST is developing a 

NIST Interagency Report on privacy-engineering objectives and a model to enable 

identification of privacy risk and improved responses. NIST held two public workshops, with 

attendance from industry, government and academia, in FY2014 to inform the development of 

this report, and presented the draft concepts through a live webcast with an interactive question 

and answer period. Comments received were posted publicly.

Organization for Scientific Area Committees

Since 2013, NIST has collaborated with the Department of Justice and the forensic science 

community to create the Organization for Scientific Area Committees (OSAC), established to 

coordinate development of standards and guidelines for forensic science. OSAC has named 

more than 400 new members to 23 subcommittees on forensic disciplines such as firearms and 

toolmarks and facial identification, and is bringing a uniform structure to what was previously 
an ad hoc system, with the goal of improving the quality and consistency of forensic science 

in the United States.

Community Resilience Planning Guide

In 2017, NIST released six new guide briefs to complement its previously released Community 

Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure. The documents help communities 

implement a six-step process to improve community disaster preparedness and resilience. The 

effort focuses in particular on the role that buildings and infrastructure lifelines play in ensuring 

community resilience. NIST convened 5 workshops across the country to engage stakeholders 

in the development of the Guide. First issued in 2015, the Guide will be updated periodically

as new best practices and research results become available and as communities gain 

experience using the guide and recommend improvements.

Big Data Public Working Group

Big Data is another important area in which NIST is leading public participation in standards 

development. Although there is broad agreement about the remarkable potential of "Big Data" 

to spark innovation, fuel commerce, and drive progress, the rate at which data volumes, speeds, 

and complexity are growing is outpacing scientific and technological advances in data 

analytics, management and transport. 

NIST is leading the NIST Big Data Public Working Group (NBD-PWG) to develop consensus 

definitions, taxonomies, reference architectures, and technology roadmaps to accelerate the 

deployment of robust Big Data solutions. The NBD-PWG, which is open to the public with 

active membership from industry, academia, and government, has five subgroups that have 

developed Phase 1 of a Big Data Interoperability Framework that will define and describe highlevel reference architectural components. Seven volumes representing Stage 1 of the NIST 

Big Data Interoperability Framework V1.0 are available.

In 2017, we moved into phase 2, exploring interfaces between these components. We are 

updating the set of documents produced in phrase 1 by aggregating low-level interactions into 

high-level general interfaces in the reference architecture. In stage 3, we will validate the 

reference architecture by building Big Data general applications through the general interfaces.

Standards Education

Standards provide industries and innovators with a common language that facilitates trade, 

simplifies transactions and enables people to work together toward greater common goals that 

cut across disciplines and borders. NIST supports the development of standards by identifying 

areas where they are needed, convening stakeholders and providing technical and scientific 

guidance and expertise to help stakeholder groups reach a consensus. In 2016, NIST awarded 

five grants totaling more than $350,000 to universities in four states to advance standards 

education. Under the Standards Services Curricula Development Cooperative Agreement 
Program, recipients will work with NIST to integrate instruction related to standards and 

standardization into undergraduate and graduate curriculum at U.S. colleges and universities. 

Grants in 2016 were awarded to City University of New York, The City College (New York), 

Drexel University (Philadelphia), Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana), Rochester 

Institute of Technology (Rochester, New York), and the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, 

Michigan). 

Collaboration

To help accomplish its mission, NIST seeks out high-quality partnerships, collaborations, and 

other interactions with U.S. companies, universities, and agencies at the federal, state, and local 

levels. Each year, NIST hosts about 2,700 associates and facility users who collaborate with its 

scientists. NIST works with over 1,300 manufacturing specialists around the country to help small 

and mid-size manufacturers improve and grow. NIST has several designated user facilities 

available for both proprietary and non-proprietary research. Access to these facilities is generally 

provided on a first-come, first-served cost-reimbursable basis. 

In addition, NIST jointly operates research organizations explicitly established to promote the kind 

of cross-disciplinary collaborations that accelerate research results. NIST hosts as many as 100 

conferences, workshops, symposia, and other meetings annually. Many are co-sponsored with 

other federal agencies, academic institutions, professional societies, or industry groups. 

National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence

NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) brings together experts from 

industry, government, and academia to develop and effectively transfer practical cybersecurity 

standards, technologies, and best practices to the nation’s business sectors. By accelerating 

dissemination and use of standards, best practices, and integrated tools and technologies for 

protecting information technology assets and processes, the NCCoE fosters trust in U.S. 

business sectors and improves the overall security of the economy. The NCCoE supports 

implementation of existing cybersecurity guidelines and frameworks, serves as a technical 

resource for both public and private sectors, and contributes to the development of 

cybersecurity practices and practitioners.

Today, the NCCoE has programs working with the health care, energy, financial services, 

transportation and retail sectors. In addition, the center is addressing challenges that cut across 

sectors, including mobile device security, software asset management, cloud security, identity 

management, and secure email. 

Centers of Excellence

NIST has also created Centers of Excellence to provide an interdisciplinary environment where 

researchers from NIST, academia, and industry will collaborate on emerging areas of basic and 

applied research and innovations in measurement science. The first of these centers, the Center 
for Hierarchical Materials Design (CHiMaD), was established in 2013 to accelerate materials 

discovery and development; provide opportunities to transition new breakthroughs in advanced 

materials to industry; convene multidisciplinary and multi-sector communities for in-depth 

discussions; and provide training opportunities for scientists and engineers in materials 

metrology. 

Two Centers of Excellence were established in 2015 after selection through a merit-based 

competition. The Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning focuses on tools to 

support community disaster resilience. The center works on developing integrated, systemsbased computational models to assess community infrastructure resilience and guide 

community-level resilience investment decisions. The center also provides a scientific basis 

for developing resilience metrics and decision-making tools and for evaluating cascading 

effects that arise in interconnected physical and social infrastructures. 

A third center, the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence, was announced 

in May of 2015. This center supports NIST’s efforts to advance the utility of probabilistic 

methods to enhance forensic analysis. Working with NIST researchers and partners from four 

universities led by Iowa State University, the Forensic Science Center of Excellence evaluates 

and solidifies the statistical foundation for fingerprint, firearm, toolmark, and other pattern 

evidence analyses, and for multimedia evidence analyses. The center also develops and 

implements an education and training program to ensure that judges, lawyers, and forensic 

science investigators can effectively decipher the results of statistical analysis on pattern and 

digital evidence.

Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office

NIST provides leadership and coordination across all federal agencies with programs in 

advanced manufacturing by leading the interagency Advanced Manufacturing National 

Program Office (AMNPO). In particular, the AMNPO is charged with enabling industry-led, 

private-public partnerships focused on manufacturing innovation to enhance technology 

transfer in U.S. manufacturing industries. With participation from all federal agencies involved 

in U.S. manufacturing, the AMNPO has established Manufacturing USA. The collaboration is

a network of linked Institutes for manufacturing innovation with common goals but unique 

concentrations, which create a manufacturing research infrastructure for U.S. industry and 

academia. 

The Institutes solve industry-relevant problems, as well as provide work force training needed 

in manufacturing. To date, 14 Institutes have been stood up by the Departments of Defense, 

Energy, and Commerce. In FY 2016 NIST held an open-topic competition that ultimately 

resulted in the launch of the latest of these organizations, the National Institute for Innovation 

in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (NIIMBL). 
NIST is responsible for convening all Institutes within the Manufacturing USA for sharing of 

best practices and providing support infrastructure.

Technology Transfer

NIST works to disseminate its research results as broadly as possible. In September 2016, 

NIST announced the Federal Impact Assessment Challenge, to encourage retrospective studies 

of the economic and social impacts from technology developed completely or in part by federal 

researchers and then transferred outside the government. The ultimate goal of the challenge is 

to develop metrics that measure economic and societal impacts at the local, regional, national 

or global levels. These metrics will then be available to policy makers and stakeholders to 

evaluate the net impact of federally developed technologies.

NIST regularly organizes technology showcase events to bring together innovative 

technologies, licensable inventions, research and engineering facilities, small-business support 

resources at the federal and state levels, and sources of funding, all under one roof. NIST also 

hosts “listening sessions” in to hear from local communities about how federal labs can 

contribute to economic development. Technology Transfer partnership activities across 

Commerce are described in an annual report. 

Lab to Market

NIST plays a prominent role in fulfilling requirements of the Lab to Market Cross Agency 

Priority (CAP) Goal, one of 15 goals established as part of a 2011 Presidential Memorandum 

on Technology Transfer. As part of this effort, in FY2015 NIST initiated a pilot NIST 

entrepreneurship program, partnering with the Minority Business Development Agency 

(MBDA) to integrate minority business development into the Lab to Market process, working 

with other agencies to develop policies and tools to bring investors and capital to the 

technology commercialization process, holding workshops with universities on extramural 

commercialization, and conducting economic studies to evaluate impact in identified priority 

areas. Also as part of the Lab to Market Team, NIST has placed all of its technology data and 

facility-use data on data.gov in a machine-readable format for other parties to use.

Challenges

Global City Teams Challenge

NIST is partnering with other federal agencies and the private sector to sponsor a yearlong Global City Teams Challenge to help communities around the world work together 

to address issues ranging from air quality to traffic management to emergency services 

coordination. GCTC identifies standards and measurements to guide technology 

innovators in creating solutions that can work anywhere and lay the groundwork for a 

future of smarter cities. 
In 2017, NIST is inviting communities and innovators to create teams that will foster the 

spread of “smart cities” that take advantage of networked technologies to better manage 

resources and improve quality of life. Voluntary participants will work collaboratively to 

build, deploy, and test transformative Internet of Things/Cyber-Physical Systems 

applications within communities across the U.S. 

This new challenge leverages the success of the previous GCTC round, which took place

from September 2014 through June 2015 and brought together more than 200 companies, 

universities and other organizations from more than 40 cities worldwide to form teams 

that developed and applied smart city technologies. That challenge demonstrated that 

these technologies have the potential to create jobs and business opportunities and provide 

socioeconomic benefits. 

In 2016, a mid-course Tech Jam was held in Washington, D.C., leading to the capstone 

event in June in Austin, Texas, where city teams demonstrated smart solutions that provide 

measurable benefits to residents, such as reducing traffic congestion, lowering energy 

costs, enabling aging in place, and more.

Transactive Energy Challenge

Transactive Energy (TE) refers to techniques for managing the generation, consumption, 

or flow of electric power within the electric power system through the use of economic or 

market-based constructs while considering grid reliability constraints. As the electric grid 

transforms to integrate more wind and solar energy and to give customers more choice 

and control in their use of energy, the concept of transactive energy is expected to play a 

key role. Members of NIST’s Smart Grid Team have been working closely with the 

Department of Energy to understand TE’s potential and to support utilities, technology 

developers, and policy makers. The TE Challenge brings researchers and companies 

specializing in simulation tools together with utilities, product developers, and other grid 

stakeholders to create and demonstrate modeling and simulation platforms while applying 

transactive energy approaches to real grid problems.

Head Health Challenge III

NIST joined with the National Football League (NFL), GE, and Under Armour to launch 

Head Health Challenge III, an open innovation competition to support the discovery, 

design, and development of advanced materials that better absorb or dissipate impact 

energy. NIST is refining measurement approaches and convening the research and 

industry communities to assess the state of performance testing for impact energy 

absorbing/dispersing materials and identify gaps in these measurements. The ultimate goal 

will be to develop standard testing methods for these materials systems over the next 

several years. These new materials have the potential to improve the performance of 

protective gear and equipment for athletes, members of the military, and others. 
Head Health Challenge III was part of the $60 million Head Health Initiative, a multiyear 

collaboration between GE and the NFL launched in March 2013. Entries were judged by 

leading experts in the field of materials science, who selected five winning research 

organizations to receive a $250,000 award each to advance their work in developing 

technologies that can help prevent mild traumatic brain injury. One grand prize winner 

was selected from the five and received an additional $500,000 to further develop their 

innovation. The five winners were announced in December 2015; the grand prize winner 

was announced in summer 2017.

Nutrient Sensor Challenge

Nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus are essential for plant growth but high nutrient 

concentrations in our waterways can be harmful to ecosystems and to human health. 

Federal and State agencies, researchers, utilities, and watershed managers across the 

United States measure these concentrations to gain a better understanding of nutrient 

levels and how nutrients move through the environment—empowering both scientific 

research and more-informed watershed management decisions. Better sensors can also 

help federal and state agencies, communities, and the private sector better track progress 

of their nutrient control programs and the significant investments they have made to 

reduce nutrient pollution. In 2015-2016, the EPA, NOAA, USGS, and NIST, in 

conjunction with the Alliance for Coastal Technologies, ran the Nutrient Sensor Challenge 

for development of sensors that are affordable, accurate, and reliable.

NIST Open Government Initiatives

The table below shows a list of initiatives for NIST.

Table 1 - NIST Initiatives

Operating Unit Project Status

Estimated 

Completion

NIST Improving NIST's Data Management Infrastructure Ongoing/Continuous

Establishing New Centers of Excellence Completed (May 2015)

Engaging Citizens to Develop a Disaster Resilience 

Framework

Completed 

(October 2015)

NIST Reference Data Challenge Completed 

(November 2015)

Improving Access to Publications by NIST Authors Live/Operational

Global Cities Teams Challenge In Progress August 2017
Operating Unit Project Status

Estimated 

Completion

Modernization of Standard Reference Data In Progress July 2019

Materials Data Curation System In Progress September 2016

Head Health Challenge III - Advanced Materials for 

Impact Mitigation

In Process Summer 2017

• Project – Improving NIST’s Data Management Infrastructure

Some of NIST’s data outputs are highly vetted data products intended explicitly for broad 

dissemination. However, a large fraction of the valuable data that NIST produces is in support 

of scientific, engineering, and other technical work, allowing scientists to demonstrate results 

and draw conclusions that are then published in scholarly journals. The teams producing such 

research data can vary in size from dozens of researchers to individual staff scientists. In some 

cases the data are shared only within small, internal teams of NIST employees, while in other 

cases the data must be shared with collaborators in other government agencies, national labs, 

academia, industry, or foreign institutions. The volumes of data also cover a large range, from 

the scale of terabytes in a single dataset to a few megabytes for one team’s annual output.

In order to enhance NIST’s ability to store, exchange, and disseminate NIST research data with 

external stakeholders and the public as well as between NIST technical staff and their immediate 

collaborators, NIST is making fundamental and foundational improvements to its data 

management infrastructure. There are four areas in this initiative: 

 1) Analyze data management practices across NIST organizational units, document procedures, 

and build out flexible and extensible tools to support Data Management Plans and the Enterprise 

Data Inventory; 

 2) Create a robust data management framework for data of all working levels by extending 

cloud-based storage and network connectivity, and deploying easy-to-use interfaces for the 

management of NIST data; 

 3) Pilot development of a NIST public access data portal with improved interfaces, with 

particular focus on supporting Standard Reference Data; and 

 4) Accelerate the identification, assessment, authorization, and deployment process for widely 

used software tools that support data exchange and research collaboration. 
• Project – Engaging Citizens to Develop a Disaster Resilience Framework 

Natural and man-made disasters cause an estimated $57 billion in average national annual 

costs, with large single events resulting in losses of $100 billion or more. Recent events, such 

as the World Trade Center disaster, Hurricane Katrina, and Superstorm Sandy, have 

highlighted a need for current practice to consider the functionality and interdependencies of 

buildings and infrastructure systems and the role they play in restoring the fabric of the 

community following a hazard event. 

To address this problem, NIST has developed and regularly updates a community-centric 

Community Resilience Planning Guide for Buildings and Infrastructure Systems, which 

assesses existing standards, codes, and practices, and identifies gaps that must be addressed to 

bolster community resilience. From 2014 and 2017, NIST convened a series of Community

Resilience Workshops around the country to engage a broad network of stakeholders with 

multidisciplinary expertise to help develop the Guide, with a focus on the role that buildings 

and infrastructure lifelines play in ensuring community resilience. It also created a series of

new Guide Briefs, which are used with the main Guide to address specific topics such as 

overcoming common myths about disaster resilience or implementing short-term disaster 

recovery options while longer-term solutions are being prepared. 

• Project – NIST Reference Data Challenge 

NIST launched its first app challenge in 2015, intending to spur the development of new ways 

to use standard reference data (SRD) on mobile devices. SRD are scientific and technical 

databases that cover a broad range of chemical substances and properties and are used in many 

scientific disciplines. Six machine-readable SRD products were made available to developers, 

and the challenge garnered 25 entries. Judges rated submissions based on four criteria: the 

potential impact of the app to help students and other technical experts use NIST SRD; 

creativity and innovation; implementation criteria such as potential user engagement and how 

well it would work; and whether or not the app used at least one NIST dataset. Prizes totaling 

$45,000 were awarded to three developers in November 2015; two honorable mentions were 

also awarded.

• Project – Improving Access to Publications by NIST Authors

NIST has partnered with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to utilize the existing PubMed 

Central (PMC) repository system to provide public access to full-text peer-reviewed scholarly 

publications and associated data for NIST, leveraging the well-established search, archival, and 

dissemination features of PMC. NIST staff began depositing papers in 2015. NIST has plans 

to acquire a web-based manuscript submission and peer-review workflow solution that enables 

geographically dispersed stakeholders, including both NIST employees and non-NIST 

collaborators, to electronically submit, edit, and search bibliographical information and view 

progress tracking information during internal review of manuscripts.
NIST is also working with the Internet Archive, under an arrangement with the Library of 

Congress, to digitize the hundreds of technical reports it has published in the past 110 years, 

with the goal that the entire legacy collection of NBS/NIST Technical Series publications will 

be available to the public through the Government Publishing Office’s Federal Digital System. 

Some of these technical publications were targeted to very specific audiences, but many are 

about topics of interest to a broader audience. 

• Project – Global Cities Team Challenge 

The 2017 Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC 2017) brings together communities with shared 

smart city goals and teams them with innovators from industry and academia to apply Internet 

of Things and Big Data concepts in making cities measurably more sustainable, resilient, 

livable, and workable. GCTC identifies standards and measurements to guide technology 

innovators in creating solutions that can work anywhere and lay the groundwork for a future of 

smarter cities. 

In 2016, NIST’s GCTC program sponsored a Tech Jam in Washington, D.C., leading to a 

capstone event in June in Austin, Texas, where city teams demonstrated smart solutions aimed 

at reducing traffic congestion, lowering energy costs, enhancing aging in place, and more. 

GCTC 2016 also included training opportunities for cities interested in using Commerce 

Department data, including the Census Bureau’s CitySDK. 

• Project – Modernization of Standard Reference Data

For more than 50 years, NIST has been making standard reference databases available for a 

broad range of chemical and physical properties for use in many scientific disciplines including 

biology, chemistry, engineering, forensics, materials science, and physics. Customer 

expectations for a ‘useable’ data product have changed as technology has evolved. Most of 

the 100 databases are currently available as searchable tables. We are modernizing the look 

and feel of these databases and incorporating APIs to make the databases easier to use and to 

allow access to the data through code rather than requiring users to perform multiple manual 

searches. 

• Project – Materials Data Curation System

The Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), launched in 2011, aims to dramatically shorten the 

time it takes businesses to discover, develop, and deploy new materials, by capitalizing on 

breakthroughs in materials modeling, theory, and data mining. The MGI approach is expected 

to decrease cost and time-to-market by 50 percent. The NIST Materials Data Curation System 

(MDCS), an infrastructural platform developed to support the MGI, provides a means for 

capturing and transforming this materials data into a structured format that is XML-based and 

amenable to transformation to other formats so that the data can be shared across academia, 

the government, and industry. The MDCS was beta-tested in 2016.

• Project – Head Health Challenge III – Advanced Materials for Impact Mitigation 
NIST joined with the National Football League (NFL), GE, and Under Armour to launch Head 

Health Challenge III, an open innovation competition to support the discovery, design, and 

development of advanced materials that better absorb or dissipate impact energy. These new 

materials have the potential to improve the performance of protective gear and equipment for 

athletes, members of the military, and others. The challenge was part of the $60 million Head 

Health Initiative, a multiyear collaboration between GE and the NFL launched in March 2013. 

Entries were judged by leading experts in the field of materials science who selected five 

winners to receive a $250,000 award each to advance their work in developing technologies 

that can help prevent mild traumatic brain injury. One grand prize winner was selected from 

the five and received an additional $500,000 to further develop their innovation. The five 

winners were announced in December 2015; the grand prize winner was announced in summer 

2017.