F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 0 W W W . R D W O R L D O N L I N E . CO M
2020 GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST
Also in this issue: A look at the 2019 award winners S
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SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ON A MISSION
SIERRA Sierra, the latest in the series of leading-edge Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program supercomputers, represents a radical leap forward in supercomputer technology and performance. This IBM system is an essential tool for scientists at Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia national laboratories, as they address the most demanding computational challenges faced by the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) in furthering its stockpile stewardship mission. The first production system of its kind produced for the NNSA, Sierra’s heterogeneous architecture incorporates IBM Power9 central processing units (CPUs) and NVIDIA Tesla V100 Tensor Core graphics processing units (GPUs). Sierra has a total memory of 1.29 petabytes and a peak performance of 125 petaflops—six times the performance of its predecessor.
MC-15 Next Generation Multiplicity Detector
Spack
SCR Framework enables high performance computing simulations to take advantage of hierarchical storage systems
is an open source software package management tool for scientific computing systems
IMPEDE embolization plug is a permanently implanted vascular occlusion medical device
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IN THIS
ISSUE FEBRUARY 2020
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1
04 From the Editor 06 2019 R&D 100 Winners 41 2019 R&D 100 Special Recognition 42 2019 R&D 100 Winner Index 44 2020 Global R&D Funding
Forecast Executive Summary To purchase the full GFF in PDF format visit rdworldonline.com/gff
68 Ad Index
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NOT ALL CONFERENCES AND EXPOSITIONS ARE EQUAL. IF YOU ARE ONLY GOING TO ATTEND ONE, PITTCON 2020 IS THE CLEAR ADVANTAGE. The small print says it all. Pittcon is the world’s leading annual exposition and conference for laboratory science. This dynamic global event offers a unique opportunity to get a hands-on look at the latest innovations and to find solutions to all your laboratory challenges. The robust technical program offers the latest research in more than 2,000 technical presentations covering a diverse selection of methodologies and applications. Pittcon also offers more than 100 skill-building short courses in a wide range of topics. Don’t miss your chance to attend this all-in-one event and expand your network of scientific resources.
McCormick Place | Chicago, IL | March 1-5, 2020 | www.pittcon.org
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FROM THE EDITOR
A fresh start for 2020
NEW!
Welcome to the new R&D World ! A lot has happened since the last print issue of this venerable brand hit your desks, and we are proud of the new look and feel of the publication.
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Formerly known as simply, “R&D,” the brand was purchased out of bankruptcy by Cleveland-based WTWH Media late last year, and our editorial and event staff worked tirelessly to resurrect the R&D 100 Awards, the R&D 100 Conference, and the website, which has moved to rdworldonline.com. Now, with the new quarterly print publication debuting this month, we’re back at full strength. This brand has a storied history, and I’m excited to be a part of this new chapter. We’re currently gearing up for the 2020 R&D 100 Awards, which open for nominations on March 2nd. New this year, there’s the regular deadline of May 1st (the submission fee is $450, same as in the past), and a late deadline of June 1st (the submission fee increases to $550). This will hopefully eliminate the moving deadlines many of you expressed that you didn’t like. To enter, visit: rd100.secure-platform.com/a anytime after March 2nd. The R&D 100 Conference and Awards banquet will be held this November 4-5 in San Diego, so please mark your calendars now. We’d love to see you there, and are working to build out another great event, focused on learning, networking, and gaining new insights into the constantly evolving business of innovation. In this issue, you’ll find our annual Global Funding Forecast, an industry mainstay for 61 years, and a key resource for industry, government, and academia. Retired R&D editor Tim Studt has once again led the charge with this amazing piece of research — which really has no equal across the world of R&D. While the size of the GFF included in this issue is comparable to years past, we’ve listened to reader feedback, and will also be offering an expanded version of the report online. We’re calling this print version the GFF Executive Summary. An expanded version, the full GFF, which is more than double the length, can be purchased at rdworldonline.com/gff. Lastly, we’re starting the search for our R&D 100 judging panel in earnest. We had a stellar panel last year but are always looking for new blood. If you’d like to be considered, please drop me a note detailing your background to pheney@wtwhmedia.com. &
Paul J. Heney | VP, Editorial Director pheney@wtwhmedia.com On Twitter @wtwh_paulheney
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MECHANICAL/MATERIALS S
Fuel cell catalyst with ultralow Pt loading
Argonne’s LP@PF catalyst substantially reduces platinum usage in fuel cell cathodes through a novel synergetic ORR (oxygen reduction reaction) catalysis design. The MEA (membrane electrode assembly) prepared with this catalyst demonstrates higher fuel cell current and power densities than the commercial benchmarks, even at merely 1/10th and 1/6th of the cathodic Pt loading. It also showed excellent durability during the accelerated stress test, far surpassing commercial benchmarks and multiple DOE 2025 performance targets. LP@ PF catalyst lowers the platinum usage in the fuel cell stack. In fact, an 80-kW fuel cell stack in a passenger sedan using this catalyst will have total Pt loading of less than 7 g, about the same amount as currently used in the catalytic converter of a passenger car with an IC (internal combustion) engine. This low platinum usage will smooth the transition from IC engines to fuel cell in vehicle mass production.
High energy density and safe battery system for powering electric vehicles Microvast — a leading developer and supplier of innovative lithium-ion battery solutions — partnered with Argonne National Laboratory to develop one of the highest-energy-density lithium-ion batteries available for electric vehicles. Microvast and Argonne accomplished this by successfully integrating three advanced battery components while maintaining fast-charging capabilities and critical safety attributes. By designing battery components optimized for performance and safety, Microvast and Argonne developed four state-of-theart products capable of being manufactured in high volume: an improved full gradient cathode with surface doping (invented by Argonne and scaled up by Microvast); an aramid separator that maintains its integrity at very high temperatures (developed by Microvast); a high-capacity silicon anode (developed by Microvast); and a novel pre-lithiation technology that suppresses irreversible losses (invented by Argonne). These breakthrough technologies are key enablers of electric vehicles that can travel long ranges between charges and are safe. These advances also hold significant promise for enabling even higher energy densities — and thus, longer. vehicle range — while maintaining safety and affordability.
Argonne’s fast, high-efficiency Thermal Energy Storage System (TESS) Thermal energy storage system (TESS) rapidly stores heat and releases it on demand so the heat can be put to productive use, thereby greatly increasing the energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness of many industrial processes. TESS is finding many commercial applications because of this and also because of its unique modular design, which permits TESS units to be configured variously as individual modules of different sizes or as assemblages of large numbers of modules. This would be needed to allow baseload electrical plants to store heat energy for later conversion to electrical power to meet peak load requirements and to enable solar power plants to continue generating levelized electrical power during weather events, cloudy days, and nighttime hours. In TESS, heat is stored as the latent heat of fusion of a phase-change material (PCM), with heat transfer causing the material to either melt or solidify as heat is absorbed or released, respectively. The phase-change process is significantly higher in energy density than sensible heat storage, and latent heat storage systems have exceptionally high exergy efficiencies, as well.
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Cobalt-based nanocrystalline alloys for gapless inductor and sensor applications
Patented cobalt-based nanocrystalline alloys, from National Energy Technology Laboratory, show superior mechanical properties, magnetic performance, and responsiveness to advanced manufacturing processes, such as in-line strain annealing. They enable the manufacture of novel electrical devices, including gapless inductors and sensors that offer unprecedented electromagnetic capabilities for next-generation power technologies, improving performance, boosting efficiency and reducing peak temperature. This market-ready product links atomic-level changes to grid-scale impacts by allowing customization of magnetic properties for a broad range of impactful electrical applications. Converging societal trends — such as the evolution of the nation’s energy infrastructure, demand for more efficient electrical machinery and increasing electrification of transportation — require advanced power magnetic components that provide efficient, reliable and power-dense solutions. Finally, the alloys offer the capability to develop advanced magnetic components that meet the technology demands associated with electrification of the nation’s transportation fleet, including automobile, aviation, aerospace, rail, and naval systems.
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DeltaMax performance modifiers, masterbatches for polypropylene Polypropylene (PP) impact copolymers are among the fastest growing plastics in the world as the demand for appliances, cars, and e-commerce goods drive the need for higher impact plastics. Commonly used in injection molding to create automotive and industrial parts, home goods, and lawn and garden products, consumers expect polypropylene impact copolymer products to be tough, durable, feature a certain quality of stiffness, and — especially in today’s environmentally conscious culture — use natural and material resources responsibly when manufactured. This, however, presents additional challenges to manufacturers to maintain the stiff qualities and impact strength of plastic products. DeltaMax Performance Modifiers, masterbatches for polypropylene, developed by Milliken, address this problem with all-in-one solutions that maximize the flow properties, stiffness, and impact strength of polypropylene through reactive extrusion — altering the polymer structure to more efficiently use the impact modifiers present in the formulation while also enabling more recycled content to be incorporated in products.
High strength binder system for additive manufacturing Binder jetting is an additive manufacturing technology that can create geometries out of a variety of materials without the need for costly directed-heat apparatuses such as lasers or electron beams. Any material that can be formed into a powder can be processed via binder jetting. Properties of the printed part, which is driven directly by the binder itself, have been a challenge to the binder jet technology. In this work, Oak Ridge National Laboratory has developed a novel binder for use in binder jetting machines that provides superior properties to artifacts printed sand, which is used in foundries (comprising over half of the binder jet industry). The binder also eliminates the need for toxic components of current foundry binders and provides an environmentally friendly option. Finally, the properties of the binder are so unique that many other applications for printed sand are being investigated, such as large wash-out tooling for carbonfiber composite manifolds and metallized artifacts for industrial and consumer goods.
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Voltanol: Electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide to ethanol The carbon nanospike catalyst Voltanol is a nanotechnology-based catalyst composed of carbon, nitrogen, and copper. With this catalyst, carbon dioxide and water can be converted to ethanol in high yield using renewable electricity. This electrochemical catalyst for the conversion of CO2 to ethanol is an example of the types of approaches society will need to transition off of fossil fuels. For the purposes of transportation, batteries will work well with low-dutycycle applications such as commuting. For heavy-duty
applications such as commercial transport, aircraft and trains, liquid fuels have more than 10 times greater energy density and do not require extended charging times. Carbon-neutral liquid fuels, such as those produced by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory nanospike catalyst, can meet that need without emitting CO2. This catalyst can, in essence, store electricity in the form of a liquid for later use.
FEARCE: Fast, Easy, Accurate, and Robust Continuum Engineering: Improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions in combustion engines FEARCE (Fast, Easy, Accurate and Robust Continuum Engineering), multiphysics software from Los Alamos National Laboratory, improves the understanding of turbulence and how it affects combustion efficiency of fuel mixing with gases to create optimum energy and efficient vehicle power. FEARCE runs simulations on how engine components influence and improve the mixing process, adjusting turbulence inside an engine to generate more power with less fuel while releasing fewer pollutants. FEARCE allows researchers to reduce expensive physical experiments, by planning better engines with its improved modeling and prediction software tools. FEARCE could help make it possible to achieve gas mileages greater than 50 mpg. Such improved vehicle gas mileage could save more than 4 million barrels of oil per day, according to Robert Carling, Transportation Energy Center Director, Sandia National Laboratories, significantly decreasing greenhouse emissions.
Novel nanodiamonds for nanosensing and quantum computing The NV (nitrogen-vacancy) and SiV (silicon-vacancy) color centers in diamonds provide a suitable platform for quantum information processing and nanosensing with roomtemperature functionality. These defects can exhibit long spin relaxation and coherence time and can be manipulated electronically, photonically, and thermally. Currently, NV and SiV nanodiamonds are synthesized by detonation, ball milling,
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and ion implantation, resulting in impurity contamination and generation of defects, which cause environmental decoherence. In addition, control of position and orientation of NV and SiV centers are well beyond the capabilities of the current methods. Thus, creation of these color centers without other harmful defects and impurities, and deterministic placement of them in right orientation in crystalline diamond lattice have presented major challenges. Enter Q-Carbon’s recent research breakthrough, where carbon can be converted into diamond in the form of nanodots, nanofibers, and thin films by pulsed laser annealing at ambient temperature and pressure. These nanostructures can be grown eptaxially and doped with NV and SiV at concentrations exceeding the thermodynamic solubility limits.
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Lotus Superhydrophobic Compositions and Coating Process (LotusFlo) In the oil industry, the drilling process faces myriad challenges in extracting petroleum from beneath the ocean floor, including asphaltenes, which are sticky and tar-like molecular substances found in crude oil; paraffins, soft waxy materials that are derived from petroleum; and inorganic scales, which are mineral deposits that form from the mixing of water with different types of salty liquids. All of these substances adhere to pipes, accumulate and occlude the oil flow and are very costly to remediate. The Lotus Researchers at Southwest Research Institute have developed the Superhydrophobic Compositions and Coating Process (LotusFlo) technology, which is aimed at solving two specific problems: preventing these materials from adhering to pipe surfaces and creating an effective, efficient application process for the coating that is scalable to large production volumes of coated pipe. The technology combines the chemistry of the coating as well as the process by which it is applied, specifically to long tubular structures.
Enhanced performance anodic epoxy electrocoat
PPG researchers developed the enhanced performance anodic epoxy electrocoat POWERCRON160 to deliver the superior corrosion protection of electrocoat to products with rough metal surfaces for the first time. Electrocoat has been used in the automotive industry for more than 50 years and is one of the key reasons that vehicles no longer rust like they used to. However, electrocoat has always been limited to a thickness of about 50 microns — too thin to protect the peaks of metal on a rough surface such as a cast iron pipe. Through a combination of innovative polymer design, crosslinker, and additive technologies, quality films of Powercron160 can be applied at previously impossible thicknesses up to 200 microns. It provides outstanding corrosion protection to cars, appliances, airplanes, and any other electrically conductive object that can be immersed in water and baked in a cure oven. These coatings are environmentally friendly in that they are water-based and are applied with nearly 100% efficiency (no overspray), which minimizes material waste.
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Nano-functionalized alloys for additive manufacturing HRL’s nano-functionalized alloys address a longfelt need to reduce cost and increase strength in powder bed metal additive manufacturing. Metal AM processes have significant potential to circumvent the limitations of traditional manufacturing routes and enable optimized free-form geometries with arbitrary complexity. Because AM approaches are agnostic to the component being produced, they are ideal for limited production runs (e.g. customization) or for immediate spare parts or platform sustainment. In order to realize these benefits, AM materials must be competitive with incumbent structural alloys employed in the aerospace, automotive, medical, and consumer product industries. HRL’s nano-functionalization approach enables AM materials produced to be performance and composition comparable with their wrought counterparts, a significant leap forward in both functional and cost competitiveness of metal AM. The impact of this disruptive approach and its rapid transformation into an industrially viable product has been recognized by the world’s most impactful scientific journal (Nature) as well as numerous respected trade associations.
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SolarEdge: World’s 1st EV charging solar inverter with solar boost mode for up to 6X faster charging SolarEdge wanted to combine the PV and EV markets in order to accelerate the adoption of both. SolarEdge’s R&D developed the world’s first EV charging solar inverter, which enables solar energy to power EVs, reducing dependence on fossil fuel and shrinking carbon footprints. By supplementing the grid with PV power, the SolarEdge EV charging solar inverter uses its innovative solar boost mode to offer ≤6X faster charging than a standard Level 1 charger. If PV is not available, the EV charger uses grid power for charging ≤5X faster charging than a standard Level 1 charger. This integrated solution offers users reduced total cost of ownership. Management and monitoring of PV and EV is all from a single app. This one elegant solution also helps to decrease stress on the electric grid by helping to use the intermittent supply of solar energy to support the unprecedented energy demand patterns from EVs.
Dow Release Modifier for high efficiency label manufacturing
GREAT STUFF Smart Dispenser
Controlling release force properties is the greatest challenge in release-coating technology. Dow SYL-OFF SL 25 Release Modifier enables high-speed converting and minimizes the risk of web break during label converting processes, representing a new standard in pressure-sensitive labels. As processing and converting conditions become more challenging, performance requirements also increase. SYL-OFF SL25 is designed to meet these demands offering a flatter release profile. In addition to its benefits during processing, SYLOFF SL25 Release Modifier is a solventless and olefin-free formulation. The performance profile of the pressure-sensitive construction can be tuned to meet the low release forces that enable high-speed matrix stripping operations, while simultaneously delivering the higher release forces needed at end use applications such as hand-peel.
The GREAT STUFF Smart Dispenser, from Dupont, is an innovative solution to make air sealing easier, more precise, and with less product waste. The dispenser is reusable for up to 30 days, provides no drip, less mess and greater control. Consumers can worry less about wasting a nearly full can of GREAT STUFF after one use, as this new technology and dispenser design will give end users the flexibility to move from project to project seamlessly, with the option to come back to their air sealing job at a later time. Listening to customer feedback and going back to the drawing board, the new patent-pending dispenser was developed answering the two biggest complaints: messiness and the lack of reuse. GREAT STUFF provides a simple, cost-effective solution to improve energy efficiency and indoor air quality.
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Eshmuno CP-FT resin
Removing aggregates during the downstream purification of monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapeutics is imperative since these impurities increase the risk of an immunogenic response and can reduce efficacy. Aggregates are the most challenging impurity to remove in the downstream purification of mAbs, as they are not removed by protein A chromatography and they have very similar isoelectric points and hydrophobicities to the monomeric protein. MilliporeSigma’s Eshmuno CP-FT resin is the first CEX resin designed to efficiently remove aggregates using flow-through frontal chromatography. It has a novel tentacle ligand technology composed of both negatively charged ligands and neutral spacers that was optimized for the efficient removal of mAb aggregates. The unique tentacle structure facilitates displacement of the bound monomer by aggregates, which is the key process in a flow-through frontal chromatography mechanism.
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DIFA (Distance Fabric) — New dimension of weaving machine By integrating weaving, mechanical and electrical engineering, and electromagnetic, optical, pneumatic, and artificial algorithm technologies, the Taiwan Textile Research Institute and the VUTS research team in the Czech Republic have collaborated to produce a unique machine that can weave 3D fabrics with variable heights to produce distance fabrics with an interlaced structure. The air-jet weaving machine, called the DIFA, produces innovative composite materials that can be used to improve the durability of airbags and produce rigid, lightweight panels. The DIFA has instigated a departure from the traditional techniques that have been used for more than 30 years in the creation of sandwich and spacer fabrics. It enables the production of reinforced composite materials in various fields, such as those of aerospace technology, transportation, boat construction, architecture, sports, rescue technology, water activities, and energy generation, and thus might inspire further developments in these fields.
Bionic Intelligent AGV Fleet System The Bionic Intelligent AGV (BI-AGV) Fleet System, from the Metal Industrial Research & Development Centre, imitates the agility and mobility that ants exhibit when carrying objects, which means all of the Centre’s power wheel models can move autonomously, as well as form into an optimal arrangement to carry an object collaboratively according to the shape and weight of the object. The flexibility they show in response to the size, shape, and the weight of objects being carried can cut down costs spent in purchasing different models of AGVs. Simply put, they have unified different AGV specifications. The BI-AGV System not only changes the manufacturing chain, sales, and application of AGVs but brings forth a new way of thinking for smart factories and automatic warehousing systems.
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High impact polymer resin
Marvite Materials (These products are named in honor of the key inventor, Marvis White, who is suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and is now retired from Engi-Mat Co.)
Polypropylene is among the fastest-growing plastics in the world, injection-molded to make automotive and industrial parts, home goods, and lawn and garden products. There are, however, inherent tradeoffs between melt flow properties, stiffness, impact strength, and use of recycled content when manufacturing products. Milliken & Company has developed DeltaMax Performance Modifiers masterbatches for polypropylene, representing a breakthrough in this long-standing struggle in the plastics industry. These easyto-use additives increase the polymer melt flow rate of polypropylene without sacrificing durability — in fact the recycled resin mirrors or even surpasses the properties of virgin polypropylene in strength and application. It enables the use of up to 100% post-consumer and post-industrial recycled resins, improving manufacturers’ energy savings and environmental impacts, and simplifying the formulation process for polymer processors through an all-in-one solution. DeltaMax Performance also enables lower operating temperatures, saving energy and increasing the efficiency through reduced injection-molding equipment cycle times.
Marvite Materials provide improved heat dissipation in motors and similar machines by providing a high thermal conductivity flow path from the windings to the motor housing while providing the necessary electrical insulation. Marvite Coated Wire and Marvite Motor Resin (or motor varnish) each provide a dramatic increase in thermal conductivity relative to conventional materials. Together, these two distinctly formulated materials — which are collectively referred to as Marvite Materials — provide a highly effective heat flow path in a motor. Incorporation of Marvite Materials in the build of a motor, in place of conventional coated wire and motor resin, results in lower motor temperatures, improved operating efficiency and increased motor power density. Relative to a motor with conventional materials, a motor with Marvite Materials can either provide the same power with a smaller size, or increased power at the same size. Additionally, Marvite Coated Wire offers a thermal index of 281° C, offering extended operating lifetimes as well as enabling increased motor life at elevated temperatures.
Capacitor-assisted high-power battery GM has invented a disruptive capacitor-Assisted Battery (CAB) technology in which a hybrid electrostatic and electrochemical capacitor is implemented and co-exists within the same cell of virtually any Li-Ion intercalation electrochemistry. CAB products have demonstrated superior cold cranking to -30° C and outstanding high temperature (up to 55° C) durability compared to base Li-Ion alternatives. The technology has also demonstrated reduced discharge voltage droop, which is crucial for high-powered automotive motors, as well as greater charge acceptance for regen within system voltage limits. The longer life and superior performance enable reduced pack volume, weight, and cost for low-voltage systems. The new CAB battery simultaneously provides superior benefits for meeting peak power demands and fast charging needs of ultra-high energy density chemistries in higher voltage systems, as well as nonautomotive market applications.
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A green battery printed on LoRa-IoT devices
NAMI’s Printed Battery-HP was engineered to meet demands from thin and flexible LoRa-IoT devices and applications that will soon face the market. Printed Battery-HP provides unprecedented power performance for any flexible printed batteries, characterized by the ability for this battery to reliably supply pulse currents of 45 mA and also maintain performance at a low temperature of -20˚ C. Such performance was previously not possible for other flexible printed batteries. The significant improvements were made into every battery component, i.e. the printed carbon current collector, cathode, anode, and electrolyte. As a result of improvement in all these areas, Printed BatteryHP achieved a quadruple reduction of internal impedance, with four times higher peak current capability compared to available printed batteries on the market. Also, the battery only reaches the cut-off voltage after the active materials become exhausted. Full utilization of the battery capacity for carrying out high current pulses adds cost effectiveness for the LoRa-IoT devices that will be powered by NAMI’s Printed Battery-HP.
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SILASTIC MS-4007 moldable optical silicone for Eaton’s Ephesus LumAdapt 8 LED Sport’s Stadium Light SILASTIC MS-4007 is a versatile new optical material that enables innovation for advanced LED lighting systems with unprecedented design freedom and photothermal stability relative to traditional injection-moldable optical plastics. This innovation allows optical designers and manufacturers to produce complex lenses with more efficient integration of modern LEDs, improving both form and function. The Ephesus LumAdapt 8 LED luminaire, with secondary optics fabricated from SILASTIC MS-4007, is an excellent example of how new material innovations can lead to product innovations. The LumAdapt system delivers 50,000 lumens through a customized optical system that allows for dynamic beam tuning to enhance the viewing of indoor and outdoor sporting events for athletes, spectators, and at-home television viewers. The hydrothermal and mechanical stability of SILASTIC MS-4007 allows the optical elements in the LumAdapt system to withstand demanding environmental conditions.
Polartec Power Air Polartec Power Air is the first fabric technology engineered to reduce fiber shedding. By encapsulating lofted fibers within a multilayer, continuous yarn fabric construction, this revolutionary new platform offers advanced thermal efficiency that is proven to shed five times less than other premium ‘mid-layer’ weight fabrics. Insulation that effectively regulates core body temperature has traditionally been achieved via lofted or high pile knit structures that hold warm air. Although Polartec is a leader in making resilient materials, it has recognized that any exposed fiber is susceptible to shedding as a function of normal wear. The Polartec Power Air construction process mitigates this by encasing the insulating lofted fibers within the knitting process. As such, Polartec Power Air will enable more responsible, durable and versatile apparel design by the world’s leading apparel brands, which rely on Polartec for textile innovation.
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First polyethylene-based build material in 3D printing: EVOLV3D OBC EVOLV3D Olefin Block Copolymer (OBC) is a unique build material designed for 3D printing by both Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), one of the most common methods for 3D printing, and direct pellet printing. It is produced by a Dow proprietary process resulting in unique performance properties useful in applications where low-density, chemically resistant, durable, recyclable polymers are required. The unique property set empowers designers and engineers seeking to develop prototypes and functional parts for a wide variety of applications. It’s best described as a rigid elastomer, different from most 3D printable polymers that are rigid, brittle materials. It brings a totally unique set of material properties to the design palette. Dow’s EVOLV3DTM printing technology platform revolutionizes 3D-printing by providing novel, high-performance, and more sustainable material solutions. Acceptance of 3D-printing beyond prototyping applications is limited by the availability of materials with a performance window beyond high modulus, low elongation, rigid materials.
High thermal conductivity impregnating resin — Voltatex 4224 By using Axalta’s new Voltatex 4224 as an impregnating resin the performance of electric motors can be increased significantly, by conducting the thermal energy as fast as possible from inside to outside of the electric device. That enables the motor manufacturer to increase the performance of the electrical machine while keeping the temperature of the motor at an acceptable level. Voltatex 4224 also allows the reduction of size and weight of the electrical device. When using standard impregnating resins, the size is dictated by the ability to manage the thermal energy inside the motor. By using Voltatex 4224 thermal energy can be better transferred out from the motor allowing for smaller motor sizes at equivalent performance levels. Application of this unique material can also be used for generators and transformers. Voltatex 4224 is based on a specially designed unsaturated Polyester resin, which is patent protected.
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Phononic’s F200 Merchandising Freezer
The Phononic F200 Merchandising Freezer disrupts the food & beverage category through the use of solid-state technology. Built on a small thermoelectric chip about the size of a thumbnail, Phononic’s solid-state cooling approach integrates the phases of pumping, moving, and controlling heat to create a powerful thermoelectric cooler (TEC) — known as the Phononic Thermal Engine — that is flexible, sustainable, and commercially viable. Notably, the Phononic F200 is unique among freezers in that heat is dispersed across the entire surface of the freezer unit as opposed to being focused at one point like traditional systems. This eliminates the excessive heat output common of today’s refrigerators and freezers, which rely on CFCs, hydrocarbons, and other toxic refrigerants to operate their compressors. By eliminating the use of these chemicals and leveraging a more sophisticated form of heat displacement, the Phononic F200 can be placed in locations never before considered for freezer units, such as right at checkout near temperature-sensitive goods, such as candy bars, gum, and other snacks.
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Thermally conductive and emissive PBT resin for heatsink applications
Crastin FR1301TC BK350 was developed by Dupont Transportation & Industrial as a thermally conductive resin to replace aluminum heatsink for lightweighting and high heat emissivity in highpower LED housing. Electric applications such as LED and ECU need both thermal management and light weighting broadly. Highly flowable thermally conductive resin, Crastin FR1301TC BK350, can expand the applicable range from small to large applications with injection molding across all industries. Furthermore, the feature of NMT compatibility can accelerate the light weighting in both existing and new applications based on the concept of thermally conductive resin. Crastin FR1301TC BK350 can drive a new design of every application and usage which has been limited by the increasing power of electronic devices.
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RAIBA — reconfigurable and regulatable battery array system RAIBA, developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), is a world-leading technology using AI to control electric discharge load of battery modules and integrate the storage system of new and old modules. This allows different battery modules to complement each other in the most efficient way, reduce energy waste, and extend system cycle life. For example, a set of heterogeneous 25-battery module, with a capacity ranging from 20 to 30 Ah, can supply energy for an average small family for one day. RAIBA can reduce system-level decay by 64% and extend system cycle life by 223%. Furthermore, it can increase battery system stability and reduce the cost by 45%. Currently, the technology is adopted by Chroma ATE, Fortune Electric, and businesses that transform gas stations into recharging stations. The objective is to facilitate the sustainable development of energy storage infrastructure and electric vehicles and create new business opportunities for renewable energy.
Grid Agents — IoT multiparameter sensor for cyber-physical security of the electric grid Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory designed Grid Agents to conform to the principles of the Internet of Things (IoT), by which discrete devices and appliances are equipped with sensors and other hardware that enable them to interact with each other over the internet. IoT sensors have been used to measure and communicate data for parameters such as temperature, irradiance, chemicals, radiofrequency signals, and physical intrusion. The Grid Agents can be equipped with devices to measure and transmit data for electrical parameters such as current, voltage, and phase angle as well as other specific parameters associated with electric grid elements, devices, and systems. The stationary and mobile devices act as “hardware/software” (HW/SW) agents (i.e., cyber-physical devices that perceive and react to their environment in a timely manner). In this context, they communicate with utility operators and between devices to provide real-time surveillance of the grid.
Unified Communications X: a lightweight exascale-ready communications framework High-performance computing (HPC) hardware and software is designed by institutions thousands of miles apart by researchers often unknown to each other. The massive undertaking of maximizing performance and compatibility between hardware and software tends to fall to individual HPC developers who have neither the time nor specialized skill to optimize every facet of a system. As machines march towards exascale computing power, every component needs the ability to seamlessly interface without compromising performance. To solve this problem, researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and several other companies and institutions have collaborated to create Unified Communication X (UCX), an HPC framework that is now deployed on a range of machines. UCX allows developers to bind together libraries, network architectures, programming models, and custom software and hardware interfaces into one package, channeling the diversity of the world’s HPC applications into one user-friendly research tool. UCX is essential for exascale computing and future generations of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and Internet of Things applications.
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Dual-Mode Imaging Receiver
The Dual-Mode Imaging Receiver (DMIR) integrates the previously disparate functions of high-frame-rate photon-counting imaging and singlephoton-sensitive communication into a single optical receiver, enabling the user to simultaneously view the source of transmission while receiving data. Digital logic behind each pixel can reliably detect the appearance of one or more optical communication signals in the field of view and simultaneously detect, track, and demodulate the signals from spatially diverse, nonsynchronized, transmitters. Because the angular motion of multiple independent communicators can be tracked on a focal plane, the DMIR eliminates the need for precise pointing and the associated SWaP burden imposed by the precision gimbals found in conventional optical receivers. Simultaneous with the detection and tracking of communication signals, the DMIR can form high-frame-rate images of the scene by counting individual photon arrivals. Multiple image frames can be added with no read-noise penalty to create high-dynamic images of the scene and thus provide context for the location and movement of the communicators.
DeltaFS — Rapidly searching big data to accelerate scientific discovery DeltaFS is an open-source, supercomputing file system that was created by researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Carnegie Mellon University as a solution for efficient indexing and niche querying. DeltaFS elegantly leverages idle computing resources to generate a useful file system that is familiar in look and feel to its users. Without the need for special hardware, DeltaFS reduces the time to scientific discovery by increasing the performance of highly selective queries. DeltaFS is helping to answer the critical questions of our time in a breadth of fields spanning from astrophysics to biology, from cloud computing to petroleum exploration, and everything in between. With DeltaFS, scientists can manage and search ever-growing data streams tens of thousands of times faster and more efficiently than ever before, and the future of research during the exascale era depends on it.
Lightweight Deployable Array Panels for Space Lightweight Deployable Array Panels for Space provide a cost-effective approach to space-based communications and remote sensing systems. Lincoln Laboratory’s patented weight-reduction technique for stacked patch antenna arrays along with an innovative packing system and an aggressive approach to weight reduction allow for the design to minimize weight and maximize stowed volume efficiency, which are both critical to keeping satellite launch costs to a minimum. The solution is greater than five times more compact and more than six times lighter than the competition. The lightweight deployable array panels are a vehicle for implementing active electronically steered antenna (AESA) technology for space-based applications, including satellite communication (SATCOM) links and remote sensing. Weight reduction and efficient use of stowed volume are very important when considering the high launch cost for a satellite into outer space.
Smartphone using CAAC-IGZO technology (AQUOS R2 series) Sharp AQUOS R2 and AQUOS R2 Compact are smartphones using an indium-gallium-zinc oxide liquid crystal display (IGZO LCD). The IGZO LCD adopts c-axis-aligned crystalline IGZO (CAAC-IGZO), an epoch-making novel material that will replace silicon. The material was discovered by Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co. (SEL) in 2009 and after that Sharp Corporation and SEL jointly developed the technology for mass production. Extremely low off-state current enables low-frequency driving of LCD displays, leading to low power consumption in smartphones. Furthermore, CAAC-IGZO based TFTs exhibit superior current drive capability and enable high-speed operation. The LCD displays used in the Sharp smartphones show images with a variable frame rate between 1 and 120 Hz and select a frequency suitable for an image to be displayed. For instance, a moving image is displayed with high frequency while a still image is displayed with low frequency, resulting in reduced power consumption.
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AF-369 VHF/UHF Terrestrial Direction-Finding Antenna Mitigating ongoing threats to national security requires timely intelligence data, including signal intelligence obtained through electronic surveillance. Modern signals intelligence (SIGINT) systems provide this information by monitoring electronic communications transmitted over the air. Direction finding (DF) is the measurement of the angle of arrival (AoA) of each of the observed communications signals, or a “bearing” to each of the transmitters. This AoA information provides critical spatial awareness to intelligence analysts when radios and their users move, or when unusual activity in a given geographic location may indicate an imminent threat. The AF-369 VHF/UHF Terrestrial Direction-Finding Antenna from Southwest Research Institute provides accurate DF capability across a wide bandwidth. Its novel sleeved electric dipoles boast 80% more useable bandwidth than conventional dipoles. The sleeved electric dipoles enable the product to have much greater sensitivity in a significant portion of its band. They also significantly reduce the overall cost and complexity of the antenna and the system that interoperates with the antenna.
Atomic Armor: Innovative nanomaterials designed to protect sensitive technologies with a one-atom-thick shield Atomic Armor, from Los Alamos National Laboratory, is a new type of device shielding that frees product designers from the typical shielding trade-offs in ruggedizing devices. Atomic Armor is thin (a single-atom layer), flexible (fully foldable), durable (no cracking or peeling), and selectively permeable. It permits light and electrons through the shield, which is critical for technologies like night vision goggles, while keeping out gases that could damage the device. Atomic Armor is the solution for modern technologies that need “tunable” shielding. The Materials by Design approach allows it to fill the void in technology advancement for many applications: photocathodes, organic solar cells, fuel cells, electrocatalysts, LEDs, etc. It is the first and only customizable shielding that can be tuned to meet the application demands for the technology of tomorrow.
Phased array antenna system for In-Band Full-Duplex With more than 17 billion wireless devices in the world today, more bandwidth with higher data rates is critical. Lincoln Laboratory’s breakthrough IBFD technology for the first time operates on phased array antennas, resulting in directional radiation. Directional radiation allows for increased numbers of devices supported, improved data rates, and increased communication range. These improvements were accomplished by uniquely combining adaptive digital beamforming that reduces coupling between transmit and receive antenna beams. Additionally, the added adaptive digital cancelling further removes residual self-interference. These techniques have been demonstrated to support 100 times more devices with 10 times higher data rates at 7.5 times the range as compared to the current 4G LTE system, and also offer significant improvements over the newly proposed 5G NR network. This novel IBFD phased array antenna system can easily be incorporated into base stations and handheld devices to implement the next-generation cellular system that will address the growing demands of wireless users.
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Wireless radio Frequency signal Identification and protocol Reverse Engineering
Mobility and Biomechanics Insert for Load Evaluation Lower leg injuries are common in the military and among athletes, especially with the heavy loads military personnel are required to carry. There is a need to collect lower leg biomechanics measurements in the field to measure gait changes and to warn of biomechanical limits and potential injury. MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s MoBILE system was built as a field measurement tool — essentially a biomechanics lab in a shoe. The inserts fit in any standard boot or running shoe and the ankle package is adjustable to any size leg. MoBILE uses a myriad of sensors to determine the user’s weight, gait pattern, and biomechanics information as they wear the system in real-world conditions. The data from the sensors can be combined to determine if the user’s gait is changing, if biomechanics measurements are above thresholds, and if the user has an increased potential for lower leg injury.
Idaho National Laboratory’s Wireless Radio Frequency signal Identification and protocol Reverse Engineering (WiFIRE) is based on the acknowledgement that you must know what is going on around you in order to protect your wireless communications activities. By performing signal classification and concurrent analysis of multiple signal types across different frequencies, WiFIRE gives users an unparalleled ability to monitor what is going on within their systems and the wireless environment beyond, allowing real-time detection and identification of wireless signals and the presence and location of rogue devices. The ability to monitor the wireless environment in real time for control system environments such as critical infrastructure (power plants, water treatment plants) and high-security environments such as military bases is crucial to safe, secure operation.
LCTWTA Model 2000HDA-A16, space-to-Earth Q-band high-power RF amplifier LCTWTA Model 2000HDA-A16 is a high-power RF amplifier designed specifically to exploit available Q-band frequency spectrum for satellite-toEarth data transmission. Making use of available Q-band frequency spectrum for satellite-to-hub data links enhances the performance of next generation High Throughput Satellites (HTS) by freeing up Ka-band spectrum for satelliteto-user transmission. This makes more bandwidth available for user data and also reduces the number of hubs required thus lowering the cost per bit to the user. Ultimately, the use of Q-band for direct-to-user applications such as 5G, 6G, and 7G cellular is inevitable as spectrum at Ka-band and lower frequencies becomes increasingly congested. In a similar fashion, Q-band communications enables the transmission of vastly more science and video data from NASA Earth Observation Satellites (EOS), the International Space Station (ISS), Moon and Mars missions and beyond.
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Safe and versatile aqueous lithium ion batteries
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory has developed a new electrolyte system for rechargeable Liion batteries that resolves the safety issues that plague these batteries — the risk of fire and explosion — without compromising performance. Safe Power makes use of a water-based, UV-cured, hydrogel electrolyte that is inherently highly conductive, safe, and nonflammable. The lack of flammability reduces the bulk and packaging requirements of the battery, typically added to protect users from the electrolyte and the associated fire risks, thereby reducing battery weight. The free-standing gel nature of the electrolytes enables the batteries to be constructed in almost any form factor, including flexible, roll-up geometries, with minimal packaging. The safety and robustness allow them to continue to function during and after abuse that is inconceivable for conventional battery technology.
The world’s fastest, smartest solar-integration solution Utilities are receiving an ever-growing number of installation requests for solar photovoltaics from their residential customers, requiring a solution to intelligently manage these new renewable energy assets. With no better options, they’re managing their systems conservatively to protect from over-voltages or doing nothing. In either approach, billions of dollars per year in energy savings and network upgrades are at stake for utilities and customers. The PRECISE software tool, developed by experts at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), offers a solution. PRECISE is easily integrated, customizing solar photovoltaics inverter settings for utilities. PRECISE was developed by experts at the NREL to incorporate more PV on the grid while maximizing both grid stability and customer savings. It is a must-have grid management tool to sustain the growth of solar worldwide.
Ghidra Ghidra is a software reverse engineering (SRE) framework developed by NSA’s Research Directorate. This framework includes a suite of full-featured, high-end software analysis tools that enable users to analyze compiled code on a variety of platforms including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Capabilities include disassembly, assembly, decompilation, graphing, and scripting, along with hundreds of other features. Ghidra supports a wide variety of processor instruction sets and executable formats and can be run in both user-interactive and automated modes. Users may also develop their own Ghidra plug-in components and/ or scripts using the exposed API. In support of NSA’s Cybersecurity and Foreign Intelligence missions, Ghidra was built to solve scaling and teaming problems on complex SRE efforts, and to provide a customizable and extensible SRE research platform. NSA has applied Ghidra SRE capabilities to a variety of problems including analyzing malicious code and generating deep insights for NSA analysts who seek a better understanding of potential vulnerabilities in networks and systems.
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Gas Mapping LiDAR
Bridger Photonics’ airborne Gas Mapping LiDAR (GML) data service improves operational efficiency and helps reduce methane emissions for oil, gas, and other industries. It remotely detects, locates, and quantifies methane leaks and infrastructure status, making oil and gas companies safer and more efficient. GML leverages recent innovations in LiDAR and semiconductor optical amplifiers to sensitively image gas plumes, identify the source locations of leaks, and quantify the leak rates so that owners and operators can determine and prioritize repairs before even visiting the site. These capabilities can yield more than 300-fold efficiency improvement and reduced liability, compared to foot-patrol monitoring. GML’s innovative technology enables size, weight, and power compatible with light aircraft platforms, including drones, and is ideally positioned for future transition to photonic integrated circuits.
CellSight — rapid, native single-cell mass spectrometry The CellSight system, developed by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, provides a new analytical capability to solve the problem of elucidating the broad chemical makeup of a single cell. Society and industry rely extensively on our chemical understanding of cells to diagnose disease and to develop new and more effective therapeutics. Industries such as medicine, pharmaceuticals, and environmental monitoring need to detect, target, and chemically characterize cellular subpopulations out of the collective whole. The CellSight system provides an elegant solution to this problem by enabling rapid, untargeted, quantitative, in situ molecular characterization of single cells. This capability is crucial for investigating disease progression, identification, and treatment at the cellular level without requiring molecular labeling or other sample preparation procedures that can influence the native state of the cell. The CellSight system’s collective features distinguish it from any other single-cell analysis capability on the market, opening the door to numerous applications requiring single-cell mass spectrometric chemical analysis.
MC-15 Portable Neutron Multiplicity Detector: Helping emergency response teams quickly identify and assess nuclear-based threats Developed by scientists at Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, and Sandia National Laboratories, the MC-15 Neutron Multiplicity Detector records neutrons to within 100-nanosecond resolution. The portable detector processes data in real time and can operate either from an easy-to-use onboard touchscreen or remotely from a computer connected to a local Ethernet. MC-15 is being used by highly trained teams at agencies such as the Departments of Energy and Justice to resolve radiological threats such as illegal nuclear development or nuclear material proliferation to nuclear terrorism attempts. MC-15 can also be used for research in nuclear data and radiation transport validation. Such research involves taking accurate measurements of subcritical assemblies that contain special nuclear material. The measurements contribute to the precision of nuclear constants, important to nuclear reactor design and modeling, and thus to their safe operation. With the MC-15, agencies can continue to ensure that the world remains a safer place. WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
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The world’s first phantom for patient-specific quality assurance in brain radiotherapy
Persistence Data Mining
RTsafe is a medical technology company that has developed a unique approach to quality assurance that significantly enhances the safety and accuracy of radiotherapy for cancer and other medical conditions. Using each patient’s CT scans and deploying highly accurate medical grade 3D-printing technology and the latest ‘3D-dosimetry,’ we can now create a unique patient phantom or ‘avatar’ that reacts to radiation in just the same way that human tissue does. So, each patient’s first treatment is performed on the RTsafe effigy. This ‘virtual patient’ can then be scanned and shows exactly where radiation has been applied. Treatment centers all over the world can now order patient avatars from RTsafe.
F71 and F41 Teslameters The F71 and F41 Teslameters with FP Series probes, developed by Lake Shore Cryotronics, offer a new level of precision, convenience, and dependability for users measuring magnetic fields in research or manufacturing environments. Featuring new TruZero technology which minimizes misalignment voltages, eliminating the need to re-zero a probe, and reducing flicker noise, meaning that readings are both more accurate and more precise. Never having to re-zero the Hall probes enhances user productivity, particularly in fast-paced magnet sorting or QC environments. And the 2Dex Hall sensor probes are more rugged, come in multiple package types to suit many different scenarios, and feature multiple performance improvements that make them superior to previous generation products.
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Persistence Data Mining (PDM), developed by Ohio Soybean Council, is advanced precision soil nutrient mapping technology, a non-intrusive remote survey system for large tracks of open farmland. The technology provides farmers with data about soil — specifically, variations in soil nutrients — in real time. Using this information allows farmers to place fertilizer precisely and proactively, rather than blindly treating all acreage with the same quantities of the same product. In traditional soil analysis, the farmer collects a random soil sample every few acres, bags the samples, takes them to a laboratory, and waits for results. PDM uses hyperspectral soil analysis, which takes place on site in near real time. A proprietary algorithm engine combines millions of data points from the field and external sources to derive results. Results are uploaded to the cloud and available the same day.
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Thermo Scientific Orbitrap ID-X Tribrid Mass Spectrometer system
Real-time intraoperative parathyroid identification A major challenge faced by surgeons during thyroid surgery is ascertaining the location of the parathyroid glands. These glands are roughly the size of a grain of rice and cannot be easily distinguished from surrounding tissues. Accidental removal or damage of a healthy parathyroid gland occurs in roughly 15% of these surgeries and can lead to serious consequences for the patient such as swollen limbs, altered bone metabolism, and cataracts. Unfortunately, existing parathyroid localization techniques are intended for preoperative use only and are limited in their sensitivity. Vanderbilt University and Ai Biomed have collaborated to develop a handheld system called PTeye that enables safe, rapid localization of parathyroid tissue intraoperatively using optical imaging techniques.
The Thermo Scientific Orbitrap ID-X Tribrid Mass Spectrometer system is designed to overcome the bottlenecks associated with small molecule identification and characterization. It increases the accuracy, efficiency, and productivity of drug impurity and metabolite identification, extractable and leachable analysis, and other related applications. Use of this mass spectrometer (MS) system enables scientists across a range of fields to profile complex samples in a rapid and efficient manner. Scientists can also collect meaningful spectra that are easier to interpret by automating MSn acquisition methods to attain a higher number of compounds with distinguishable fragmentation patterns, which can then be further analyzed.
Electronic Neutron Generator Calibration System The N-meter, developed by Idaho National Laboratory in collaboration with Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to serve as a vital national security technology, is an easyto-use, portable, and adaptable tool to ensure that electron neutron generators (ENGs) do not fail when their use is critical. The N-meter properly calibrates and tests ENGs, without regard to the origin of manufacture, so they can help protect the country from nuclear threats, improve natural resource exploration, create biomedical advances, and more. The N-meter also facilitates the expansion of ENG technology to new fields. By allowing technicians to ensure that ENGs are functioning properly, the N-meter confirms the accuracy of data and reduces the need for expensive retesting.
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SPLASH: Smart Platforms Leveraging Automated Sample Handling There are serious challenges that accompany the miniaturization of microfluidic devices, including diminished abilities to handle large pressures and flow resistances within channels. Oftentimes, researchers deploy large external modules to pump fluid through their tiny networks, effectively defeating the benefits of the smaller device. Sadly, the intended “lab-on-a-chip” is handcuffed to peripheral units, becoming a “chip-in-a-lab,” not at all useful for point-of-need applications. SPLASH, developed by researchers at Los Alamos Laboratory, solves this problem with its portable, affordable, disposable, highly configurable devices and electricity-free microfluidic operations. For the first time, complex sequences of fluidic experiments can be executed anywhere, anytime, as SPLASH effectively miniaturizes and automates liquid handling at a significantly lower cost than current methods. Deploying a suite of magnetically actuated micropumps and valves, SPLASH platforms wield the compact power necessary to overcome flow resistance without the bulk.
ZEISS Elyra 7 with Lattice SIM In the past, super resolution (SR) microscopy was attributed with many severe compromises for most Life Science researchers, such as low time resolution, a high photodamage and bleaching potential and limited 3D capabilities. With Elyra 7, Life Science researchers do not have to compromise anymore. Elyra 7 lifts structured illumination SR microscopy to the next level, as it now can be used for almost all imaging experiments with live and fixed specimen. In addition to its superior performance with structured illumination, Elyra 7 can be further extended with molecular localization precision, thereby spanning the full range of resolution needs in the life sciences. Elyra 7 breaks previous speed, 3D and photodamagelimitations of structured illumination SR and will allow researchers to make new discoveries in virtually all areas of the life sciences.
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IMPEDE Embolization Plug
The IMPEDE Embolization Plug is a novel self-expanding polymer scaffold used for preventing blood flow to diseased vessels. Developed by researchers at Shape Memory Medical collaborating with Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and Texas A&M University, the IMPEDE device combines the advantages of existing embolization technologies while addressing each of their shortcomings. IMPEDE offers greater surface area than current technologies to more effectively initiate clotting in the target vessel and divert blood flow away from the at-risk region. The expansile polymer scaffold effectively fills the implant volume with a supportive tissue matrix decreasing the number of devices required and the cost of treatment. Preclinical studies indicate increased filling with IMPEDE also leads to improved long-term healing compared to competitive devices, decreasing the risk of retreatment. It provides easy delivery and minimal risk of migration while utilizing current treatment methodologies. More than 80 patients have been successfully treated worldwide for conditions such as pulmonary AVMs, tumor resection, and pelvic congestion syndrome with no reported adverse effects.
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ArtGut One of the major obstacles to elucidating the many roles of the human microbiome is creating an environment that maintains the diversity and functionality of the hundreds of species that inhabit the gut. Current in vivo and in vitro commercial approaches such as mouse models and bioreactors are costly and do not provide an accurate enough model of the human gut to enable the next generation of microbiome research. With its unique ability to mimic the precise oxygen and mucosal gradient within the human intestine within a single device, the Artificial Gut (ArtGut) platform, from researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, provides a much better emulation of the gut microenvironment and achieves this at a fraction of the costs of current research models. ArtGut will enable fundamental microbiome research in clinics and public health laboratories with minimal microbiology resources. This research shows potential to change what we know about the human body and its gut’s relationship to health, development, mental illness, and disease.
bioDART biofouling monitor The bioDART, from NCH Corporation and Chem Aqua, is a new technology that can be used to monitor the potential for biofouling in water handling systems. Its high sensitivity to biofouling conditions coupled with its unique reporting features enables the operator to identify and address potential problems before they can cause system failures. This patent pending technology provides a low cost, highly robust real time biofilm monitoring system that has been shown to save customers money by maximizing system efficiency, minimizing equipment downtime, and preventing equipment failures. The bioDART technology has been evaluated by university researchers and has been presented at several prestigious biofilm conferences. The bioDART gives a snapshot of the overall health of the water-handling system and has provided insights into universal biofilm populations that has not been possible with other biomonitoring technologies.
The H-Genie: A smart high-pressure hydrogen generator for safer chemistry There is a continuing global trend of either removing potentially hazardous hydrogen cylinders from the lab or heavily restricting their use. However, hydrogenation reactions account for at least 5% of reactions in the chemical industry, so any restriction can severely hamper chemists. Current hydrogen generators are low pressure and designed mainly for combination with analytical equipment. The H-Genie, from ThalesNano Energy and the University of Szeged, is the only hydrogen generator designed specifically for use in chemistry laboratories. With a 1450-psi pressure capability, 10 times higher than competitors, coupled with intelligent functionality designed specifically for chemists, such as reaction monitoring, variable flow rate, batch and flow reactor capability, remote control operation, and reaction data export, no other hydrogen generator comes close in terms of capability and versatility to suit a chemists needs. Additionally, the ability of the H-Genie to generate hydrogen on demand from water eliminates cylinder storage and handling.
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High-Temperature Irradiation-Resistant Thermocouples
Xenon International Xenon International is an automated radioxenonmonitoring system that performs analysis of ultratrace quantities of xenon gas to detect evidence of nuclear explosions. The system collects, separates, purifies, and quantifies radioxenon isotopes in compliance with stringent national and international requirements, providing a state-of-the-art tool for international security monitoring. The system’s technology to collect and measure radioxenon isotopes revolutionizes how collection and detection is conducted in the field. It allows for high-sensitivity radioxenon measurements in a relatively small, lowpower instrument.
To operate modern marvels safely, engineers must have precise information about how materials perform under harsh conditions. Because of extreme heat and especially radiation, direct sensor readings have been impossible to obtain over extended periods and reactor temperature measurements have been only estimates. But, now the High-Temperature Irradiation-Resistant Thermocouples (HTIR-TC), from researchers at Idaho National Laboratory, can be attached to the fuel cladding or inserted directly into the fuel centerline to directly read fuel temperatures. HTIR-TC can operate reliably in the harshest conditions for months, even years. Such precise information provides confidence for nuclear reactor vendors that are working to validate Gen IV designs for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
Retrofittable stroboscopic solution for ultra-fast electron microscopy Euclid TechLabs delivers a brand-new technology of an ultrafast GHz electron beam buncher to convert conventional TEMs into powerful, time-resolved, imaging and spectroscopy tools. Applying the buncher to a TEM with any dc electron source, a GHz stroboscopic high-duty-cycle TEM can be realized. Unlike many recent UTEM developments that rely on a sophisticated and expensive pump-probe fs laser system, Euclid’s technology proposes a laserfree set-up. It reduces the price tag and operational cost of the whole UTEM system significantly, providing essential relief for electron microscopists who are not familiar with laser systems. Compatibility with conventional commercial TEM platforms is another advantage of the proposed technology.
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U.S. FDA approval: MAVENCLAD (cladribine) tablets MAVENCLAD, from EMD Serono, is a prescription medicine used to treat relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS). Because of its safety profile, MAVENCLAD is generally used in people who have tried another MS medicine that they could not tolerate or that has not worked well enough. It is the first and only FDA-approved treatment that provides two years of proven efficacy with a maximum of 20 days of oral treatment, during a two-year period. The heterogeneous nature of MS means there is no “onesize-fits-all” therapy for patients, and, despite a range of disease-modifying drugs (DMD) available, up to 43% of people do not use them. Many MS patients try multiple therapies before finding one that works for them, which is why it’s critical to have options. At least one-quarter of RRMS patients discontinue treatment within one year citing efficacy and tolerability. Mavenclad is believed to work by reducing the number of T and B cells so that there are fewer cells attacking nerves.
High-Performance Nanoantenna-Enabled Detectors The Sandia-developed High-Performance Nanoantenna-EnabledDetector (NED) offers a method to reduce image noise not by a few percent, but by factors of 10 to 100. Moreover, commercial long-wave infrared detectors only “see” around 25% of the thermal radiation that hits them. NEDs improves this to well over 50%. Thus, the signal-to-noise ratio of a camera based on these detectors would gain 2 to 3X on signal while simultaneously reducing noise by 10 to 100X, allowing much clearer pictures. In addition to this technology dramatically improving image quality, the architecture allows for entirely new detector concepts to be developed that aren’t possible with existing technology. As an example, with nanoantennae it’s possible to exquisitely control the spectral or polarization response at the pixel level, which can dramatically expand the amount of information acquired in the image.
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Mass photometry — weighing molecules with light Mass photometry, the unique and revolutionary technology implemented for the first time in Refeyn OneMP, from Rafeyn, allows the mass of single biomolecules to be measured directly in solution, thereby providing unprecedented analytical detail on every component. These measurements take seconds and require only microlitre volumes, overcoming the limitations of existing technologies, which are either slow, expensive, or have poor resolution. Mass photometry provides a unique opportunity to revolutionize how 30,000+ protein research labs worldwide analyze their samples. The Refeyn OneMP brings mass photometry into everyday laboratory life, permitting molecular measurements with unprecedented accuracy, sensitivity, speed, and simplicity. This transformative measurement technology holds significant implications for life sciences research, especially pertaining to biomolecular research, drug-discovery, therapeutics development, and healthcare in general.
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LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
• 2019 •
Solving National Security Challenges through Scientific Excellence
FINALIST
R&D 100 Award Winners and Special Recognition Medalists
Autonomous, Low-cost, Fast Leak Detection System (ALFa LDS) Joint entry with Aeris Technologies and Rice University
Atomic Armor DeltaFS: Rapidly Searching Big Data to Accelerate Scientific Discovery Joint entry with Carnegie Mellon University
Fast, Easy, Accurate and Robust Continuum Engineering (FEARCE) MC-15 Portable Neutron Multiplicity Detector
Joint entry with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories
Rapid, Easy Tools for Responding to Outbreaks and Re-Emergence Events (RETRO Rx)
Joint entry with the University of California – Santa Barbara, University of New Mexico, University of Virginia, and Specifica Inc.
Severe Contingency Solver for Electric Power Transmission Analysis SimCCS2.0
Joint entry with Indiana University and Montana State University
Smart Platforms Leveraging Automated Sample Handling (SPLASH) Unified Communications X
Joint entry with Advanced Micro Devices, Argonne National Laboratory, Arm Ltd, Google, Mellanox Technologies, NVIDIA, Stony Brook University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Rice University
For more information on scientific partnership and licensing opportunities, contact the Los Alamos National Laboratory Richard P. Feynman Center for Innovation www.lanl.gov/feynmancenter (505) 665-9090 P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM 87545•505-667-5061•www.lanl.gov. An Equal Opportunity Employer/Operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC for DOE and NNSA.
Unleashing Innovation from Los Alamos National Laboratory Advanced Materials
Developing advanced materials for applications such as 2-D coatings protecting sensitive devices from harsh environments, next generation high performance explosives, and rare earth starting materials to improve processing under mild conditions.
Data Analytics
Creating novel platforms to tackle everything from computational protein and enzyme design, to epidemiological forecasting and vaccine development, and the use of neural networks and machine learning for the detection of natural gas leaks.
Infrastructure
Advancing important capabilities needed for infrastructure that has a major impact on national security, such as resiliency of the electric power grid and planning pipeline networks for carbon dioxide transport and sequestration.
Sensors
Producing technologies ranging from microfluidics, miniature flow viscosity sensors, to the detection of neutron multiplication in support of nuclear threat detection, to structural health monitoring of bridges.
Software
Providing a distributed file system to alleviate the metadata bottleneck and accelerate highly selective computer queries, deliver high performance computing infrastructure to simplify deployment of research tools, and modeling and simulation of physical processes. Los Alamos has identified a broad range of technologies that have the potential to enhance an existing product, define a new product, or launch a start-up. Our technologies can give organizations a competitive edge. Los Alamos Technology Snapshots identify technologies that are at different stages of development, some ready to license and others looking for a partner to help mature into a disruptive application. Visit our website www.lanl.gov/feynmancenter to explore the wide variety of technologies available.
www.lanl.gov/feynmancenter (505) 665-9090 Los Alamos National Laboratory is proud to be a part of the R&D 100 Innovation Network.
LA-UR-20-20539
ANALYTICAL/TEST S
Portable Radiation Imaging, Spectroscopy, and Mapping
Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy monitoring tool
The Portable Radiation Imaging, Spectroscopic and Mapping (PRISM) system from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is a new type of imaging device for search, location, identification, and characterization of radioactive materials in support of countering nuclear threats and mitigating human exposure to radioactivity. This device provides 2D and 3D maps of radioactive nuclear materials by being freely carried through the environment by a human or robotic operator. As compared to existing radiation detection systems, PRISM provides a unique guidance modality to users for search applications, by providing direction towards suspected sources throughout the scanning process, leading to faster, more sensitive and effective searches.
Everyone needs clean, safe drinking water, and whether the water comes from underground wells or municipal sources, the LIBS subsurface monitoring tool can easily and cost-effectively analyze samples and provide valuable information about what elements are present. This product uses a miniaturized high-peak power laser to make sparks in water samples. The light from the sparks is then collected and analyzed for elements of interest. For those who live near oil and gas operations, monitoring their water supply is crucial to assuring that their water sources remain unaffected, but sampling before, during, and after operations is costly. The LIBS tool can be left underground and provide intermittent testing without the need to remove the sample each time and send to an offsite lab.
Next generation microscopy & analysis KMLabs’ QM Quantum Microscope advanced imaging and analysis solution is a commercially engineered system that comprises a high-powered laser amplifier source, EUV or VUV wavelength conversion, a high-efficiency beamline tailored to the user’s experiment, and imaging or other analysis end stations that can effectively cover the microscopy/spectroscopy landscape for nano-to-quantum materials. With this expansion of the spectrum in a commercialized, or engineered, platform, filling a gap in the correlative microscopy suite, there is a great potential to accelerate research of advanced materials by enabling a wider community of researchers to address these challenges and opportunities.
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Breakthrough in short-range standoff Raman for chemical identification Pendar X10, from Pendar Technologies, brings several breakthrough capabilities to the market, including standoff measurement and the ability to safely and rapidly measure dark, sensitive, and highly fluorescent materials with a Raman sensor. This is a game changer for the spectroscopic chemical analysis market and is achieved by employing proprietary technological advances, packaged within tight size, weight, and power constraints using best engineering practices. The product will have life-saving benefits for first-responder and EOD personnel called to locations with unknown chemicals onsite. Currently, personnel are putting themselves at significant risk due to the need to closely approach or even sample potentially hazardous substances. Pendar X10 enables users to identify chemical threats at a distance allowing them to rapidly and safely make informed decisions when engaged in field operations. In the area of incoming inspection, Pendar X10 offers the breakthrough ability to rapidly inspect materials deep into containers without contact.
MailSecur mmWave full motion non-invasive imaging system MailSecur delivers a breakthrough in low-cost terahertz imaging, providing the world’s first desktop-size 3-D scanner capable of noninvasively seeing inside objects in real-time. The system 300 times more sensitive than x-ray to detect small quantities of hazardous powders and liquids in the mail, significantly enhancing public safety. The inherent safety of mmWave imaging and the simplicity of the approach will position the technology to be as widespread as copiers and printers in nearly every office. The societal impact of the technology is significant, providing benefits to public health and safety, in addition to job creation for highly trained EOD veterans. These benefits would not be possible without the multidisciplinary collaboration between the INO, a Canadian government laboratory, and RaySecur, a US-based startup. The hardware is supported by the company’s artificial intelligence analytics platform and backed by on-demand (24/7) support, employing expert military explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) veterans to provide remote analysis of suspicious items as needed.
Fully automatic heart function measurement system using real-time 3D ultrasound imaging technology The Hitachi LISENDO 880 is a medical ultrasound diagnostic system for echocardiography that provides advanced diagnoses of heart failures. The advanced architecture of the system offers state of the art probe technology for 2D and 3D imaging, a high-performance OLED display, premium image optimization parameters such as eFocus and Pure Symphonic Architecture to capture the subtlest of changes and produce the highest quality “sound.” The LISENDO 880 was designed to provide maximum scanning comfort, along with state-ofthe-art technology to help complete exams more easily. The systems flexible positioning — including an adjustable panel height and a four-point articulating arm — support comfortable operation while the operation panel enables ergonomic function adjustment as a part of our intuitive user interface. The Smart Cardiac Measurements provide automated analysis to enhance examination efficiency.
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Multi-mode elpasolite scintillator — CLLBC High-performance neutron and gamma-ray detectors are essential for the search and identification of SNMs (Special Nuclear Materials). However, current techniques and instruments used for neutron and gamma-ray detection and spectroscopy are often expensive and difficult to handle, or do not offer much needed neutron/gamma PSD. CLLBC, multi-mode elpasolite scintillator, from Radiation Monitoring Devices, combines the advantage of state-of-the-art gamma-ray spectroscopy with thermal and fast neutron detection to produce a first of its kind technology capable of identifying SNMs by both their neutron and gammaray signature. Apart from nuclear nonproliferation and security, other potential applications include high-energy particle physics research, well-logging, nuclear waste characterization, industrial nondestructive evaluation, biological and materials research, astronomy, and health physics.
Manufacturing process for extracting high-quality cellulose nanocrystals from biomass Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs), which come from renewable resources, have many promising applications in materials synthesis, green catalysis, biosensing and more. However, the high cost of producing CNCs at a large scale, and the relatively poor quality of the product impede commercial development. University of Chicago researchers discovered a way to extract CNCs from grass pulp and investigated superior properties of the material. The initial process performed on a bench lab scale was not suitable for large-scale manufacturing. Building on the work of the University of Chicago, Argonne scientists invented an optimized process and have scaled it up to an economical manufacturing level. The process, known as Bio2Nano, converts noninvasive, abundant elephant grass into high-quality CNCs by combining the generation of a bleaching agent, bleaching and hydrolysis into a single step.
Targeted Acoustic Laser Communication Using a laser tuned to interact with water vapor in the air, TALC (Targeted Acoustic Laser Communication) creates sounds in a localized spot near a listener’s ear that are loud enough to be picked up by human hearing. Developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the principal application of the technology is to direct audio to specific, targeted individuals who lack any receivers other than their ears. Possible uses of the TALC system include allowing an individual to listen to a television show without disturbing a reader sitting nearby. Different audio streams could be directed to different passengers in a vehicle. The laser can also be aimed at infants or others who struggle with earphones. Similar concepts are enabled within the entertainment industry or for national security applications, such as in hail and warn systems in which a targeting laser is used to warn an individual not to enter or leave a restricted area.
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Revolutionary relaxation process for sweater manufacturing Relaxation is a major procedure in sweater manufacturing to restore fabric properties and performance. Conventional washing and tumble drying (WTD) is time consuming, involves much water and energy consumption, and creates wasterwater discharge. It also adversely affects the surface texture of the product. A low-pressure relaxation (LPR) chamber and a new LPR process developed by The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel replaces conventional WTD for sweater relaxation. The new process is much more efficient, cost effective, environmentally friendly, and able to improve product’s properties in terms of dimensional stability, fabric appearance, and hand feel.
Sliding Plating Process
Unlike simple liquid immersion, the Sliding Plating Process, from Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, is a new plating process in which areas requiring plating are contacted with a rotating anode and deposited while sliding. Compared to conventional plating, it has low cost and low environment load, and can perform plating with high speed and high quality. The practical use of this process has reduced the amount of plating solution used to 1/10 and significantly reduced the environmental impact, enabling technological innovation in consideration of the environment. Mitsubishi commercialized a new technology to improve the productivity of the plating process, which has become a production bottleneck in many businesses.
SOFTWARE/SERVICES Tactical Microgrid Standard Open Architecture When soldiers set up remote bases, they need reliable power grids to run everything from general appliances to sensing, weapons, and communications equipment. Fuel convoys are frequently attacked, taking a high toll in human lives, and raising fuel costs up to $200 per gallon. Then, when the fuel and equipment arrive at the remote location, soldiers must set up and operate these power grids with little previous training and under harsh conditions. MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Tactical Microgrid Standard (TMS) Open Architecture encapsulates significant advances from previously available microgrid capabilities and helps to solve these problems going forward. Through a unique combination of cutting-edge ideas and technologies from academia and industry, TMS makes it possible to connect a family of interoperable microgrid devices, accommodating multiple manufacturers and legacy equipment, and improving both acquisitions and field operations. WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
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EverBatt: Argonne’s novel closed-loop battery recycling model A closed-loop battery life-cycle model, EverBatt, developed at Argonne National Laboratory, helps address the growing national need for responsibly and sustainably handling the rising number of spent batteries. The model helps stakeholders better understand the cost and environmental impacts of battery recycling and accelerates the development of a more sustainable battery supply chain, which is critical to America’s energy security. In addition to comparing different recycling scenarios, EverBatt identifies cost and environmental hotspots throughout the life cycle of a battery. It also helps to direct and validate battery recycling research and development efforts and overcome potential barriers to process commercialization. Though this model only currently serves as a tool to the battery sector, its framework can, and will, be used for other products on the market. The methodology is the same for every product.
Offshore Risk Modeling (ORM) Suite
The Offshore Risk Modeling (ORM) Suite developed by National Energy Technology Laboratory, is a set of eight innovative, science, and data-driven computational tools and models that span the full offshore system. The suite is designed to improve the prediction and evaluation of offshore systems. Tools and models of the suite address key knowledge and technology gaps to improve upon conventional oil spill prevention methods. Using petabytes of data, the suite applies novel and efficient methods to cross-examine data across space and time to support predictive analyses for safer, more prudent future efforts and rapidresponse, real-time assessments. Over six years, the ORM suite has been validated and adopted for use by domestic and international regulators, researchers, academia, and industry. They have been used independently and synergistically to meet different end-user needs. The ORM suite has been utilized to assess geohazard and subsurface resources, support worst-case oil spill planning, predict a spill’s socioeconomic impact, and characterize offshore infrastructure lifespan.
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ALFa LDS: Autonomous, lowcost, fast leak-detection system ALFa LDS, developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is an affordable, robust, autonomous system for the detection of natural gas leaks. It operates 24/7/365 to locate natural gas leaks early, enabling fast repair. The detector distinguishes natural gas leaks from biogenic sources of methane. Methane and ethane sensor data and atmospheric wind measurements are fed from two compact instruments into a simulation-trained artificial neural network that is then able to detect, locate, and even quantify a leak. The featherweight platform is small enough to be deployed on a drone but powerful and intelligent enough to minimize fugitive leaks across the entire network of natural gas extraction, production, and consumption. This system outperforms competing leak detection technologies at a fraction of the cost. Elements of this gas leak detection technology have broad applications for other criteria pollutants — enabling portable, autonomous atmospheric surveys for a variety of contaminants.
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Open Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization (OpenMDAO) framework
SAM reactor system analysis code
OpenMDAO is an opensource framework developed at NASA Glenn Research Center that allows users to solve the complex multidisciplinary analysis designoptimization problems. It can be used to streamline design processes for extremely complex systems, from experimental aircraft to wind turbines to space missions, saving significant cost and time. No other software tool makes the invaluable techniques involving analytic derivatives so broadly available to so many users, both expert and non-expert. Its increased efficiency removes the barriers of time, expense, and resources to facilitate the democratization of design optimization. OpenMDAO has made this unsurpassed computing power available for the first time to dozens of disciplines through a remarkably flexible and versatile framework interface. Together with its unique support for parallel as well as serial computing, this flexibility enables a distributed supercomputer capability that can’t be matched by any other commercially available MDAO tools.
Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have developed the SAM code modern system analysis tool for advanced nuclear reactor safety analysis. It provides fast-running, wholeplant transient analysis capability with advances in physical modeling, numerical methods, and software engineering. SAM expands beyond the traditional system analysis code to enable multidimensional flow, containment, and source term analysis, either through reduced-order modeling in SAM or via coupling with other simulation tools. It is able to model the integrated response of nuclear fuel, reactor, the coolant system, the engineered safeguards, the balance of plant operator actions, and all of the possible interactions among these elements to obtain a best-estimate simulation that includes both validation and uncertainty quantification. SAM provides accurate and efficient, state-of-the-art computation. The U.S.NRC has selected SAM as the primary system analysis tool for advanced reactor, design-basis accident analysis.
Open-source software for designing CO2 capture, transport, and storage infrastructure SimCCS2.0 is an open-source software package, from Los Alamos National Laboratory, that industry, researchers, and government can use to design carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage infrastructure that optimally links CO2 sources (such as power plants) with CO2 sinks (such as saline aquifers and depleted oil fields) to reduce industry carbon footprints and maximize revenues. Through SimCCS2.0-designed CCS infrastructure, energy and economic security can be maximized through a combination of tax credits for CO2 capture and CO2enhanced energy production at the same time that industrial carbon footprints are minimized. SimCCS2.0 is user friendly and easily accessed through GitHUB, allowing a wide range of users, stakeholders, and decision makers to understand the potential of CCS. BP, Southern Company, Archer Daniels Midland, Battelle, the Department of Energy, Stanford University, and many others have already learned that SimCCS2.0 could transform how the world addresses the CCS grand challenge.
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MIRaGE — Multiscale Inverse Rapid GroupTheory for Engineered Metamaterials Sandia’s MIRaGE is an inverse design software that relates desired properties to groups of molecular symmetries that possess those properties. Using those symmetries to predict behavior, a metamaterial can be designed that is guaranteed to exhibit the desired properties. MIRaGE allows the researcher to explore various configurations, simulate the system, and validate the behavior. It provides a powerful tool to allow the designer to optimize the design by tuning it precisely to the requirements without guesswork. MIRaGE retains its speed across a variety of platforms, and it offers support at various levels of design proficiency. Metamaterials designed with MIRaGE will serve in a variety of specialized optics, such as advanced lasers, cloaking materials, and thin, flat lenses. MIRaGE is truly an all-in-one tool for the future of metamaterials research.
ResStock — A 21st-century tool for energy-efficiency modeling with unparalleled granularity
Visibility Estimation through Image Analytics (VEIA)
Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have developed ResStock to bring energy efficiency modeling into the 21st century. A new level of detail captures potential upgrades that other approaches overlook while giving stakeholders the information they need to encourage these energy-and money-saving upgrades. This information helps save homeowners money and reduces energy consumption, alleviating strain on the grid. ResStock has identified upgrades worth $49 billion in annual energy bill savings, potentially reducing total U.S. residential energy use by 22%. It’s being used to pave the way for major energy initiatives in various cities and states, including the city of Los Angeles. The biggest impact of ResStock may eventually be its ability to reveal which upgrades pair best with variable generation, reducing peak load and enabling a 21st-century electric grid built on renewable energy. The Visibility Estimation through Image Analytics (VEIA) technology, from MIT Lincoln Laboratory, provides an inexpensive and robust way to extract meteorological visibility from cameras — transforming weather cameras into weather sensors. With the proliferation of web-based camera imagery for monitoring conditions near airports and other remote locations, there is an opportunity to significantly expand the density of visibility observations, especially in areas where low visibility can have dire consequences. The VEIA algorithm uses the presence and strength of edges in an image to provide an estimation of the meteorological visibility within the scene. The algorithm compares the overall edge strength of the current image to those on a clear day to generate an edge strength ratio. The ratio is then converted to visibility in miles using a linear correlation coefficient. VEIA uses a multiple day composite of clear day images for the comparison to ensure that only permanent edges are considered (i.e. the horizon, roadways, buildings, etc.).
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Neurodata Without Borders: Neurophysiology
Commercial Building Energy Saver (CBES)
Neuroscientists and scientific software engineers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory collaborated on NWB:N to fill a critical gap in the neuroscience research community by providing not only a data standard but a rich software ecosystem surrounding the standard. NWB:N enables the re-use of data, facilitates collaboration across laboratories, and makes high-performance computing easily accessible to neuroscientific research. Unlike other data formats, NWB:N is open source, free to use, supports the full scope of neurophysiology experiments, and is optimized for storing and analyzing the increasingly large datasets being generated in the field today.
Small and medium-sized U.S. commercial buildings consume 47% of the building sector’s primary energy. However, retrofitting these buildings poses a significant challenge for owners because they usually lack the resources of large organizations, and don’t have low-cost access to tools that can be used to identify cost-effective, energy-efficient retrofits. The Commercial Building Energy Saver (CBES), developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, bridges this gap by providing an easy-touse, powerful retrofit analysis tool tailored specifically for this subsector. CBES enables users to benchmark their building’s energy performance and identify and evaluate retrofit measures in terms of energy and cost savings, carbon emission reduction, IEQ, and investment payback, considering incentives and rebates. CBES serves a broad audience with various backgrounds and levels of data availability.
Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew Requests traffic aware planner Traffic Aware Strategic Aircrew Requests (TASAR), from NASA Langley Research Center, features a cockpit automation system that monitors for potential flight trajectory improvements and displays them to the pilot. These wind-optimized flight trajectory changes are precleared of potential conflicts with other known airplane traffic, weather hazards, and airspace restrictions. The objective of TASAR is to improve the process in which pilots request flight path and altitude modifications due to changing flight conditions. Changes may be made to reduce flight time, increase fuel efficiency, or improve some other flight attribute desired by the operator. Currently pilots make such requests to ATC with limited awareness of what is happening around them. Consequently, some of these requests will be denied resulting in no flight improvements and an unnecessary workload increase for both pilots and air traffic control.
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Digital Twin Solutions for Smart Farming
Artificial Diversity and Defense Security The Sandia-developed Artificial Diversity and Defense Security (ADDSec) technology automatically detects and responds to threats within critical infrastructure environments in real-time. With ADDSec, ICS environments have increased resiliency against attacks by automatically detecting and responding to threats in the first phase of an attack. The ADDSec solution can be retrofitted into existing networks using commercial or open source software that is freely available. Compatibility with legacy and modern hardware switches is especially important for ICS systems because they typically do not replace existing hardware for decades at a time to reduce costs and maintain high levels of availability. The ADDSec technology is a scalable solution and has been tested and evaluated with more than 300 end devices.
DTSSF (Digital Twin Solution for Smart Farming), an innovative Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence digital twin service platform, aims to sustain experienced farming knowledge for digital workforce transformation and increase overall production performance in agriculture and aquaculture industries. DTSSF helps farmers to extract implicit knowledge from data and provides more precise and comprehensive insights of the production process and asset status, which leads to better decision making and operation strategies. With Institute for Information Industry’s (III’s) DTSSF, small to medium-size farming companies or farmers are able to receive intelligent, adaptive and dynamic facility management and farming decision-making suggestions via analyses, modeling, and learning.
Severe Contingency Solver: Electric Power Transmission Analysis Severe Contingency Solver for Electric Power Transmission (SCS-EPT) systems, developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is the only open-source software that reliably computes a solution for severely damaged power networks. By supporting multiple platforms and performing complex calculations, SCS-EPT removes the need for human intervention when analyzing damaged power networks — a game changer in this field. The software is license-free and cross-platform, which are necessary features for enabling powerful cluster computing. SCS-EPT guarantees a solution for power networks with hundreds to thousands of damaged components, which current commercial tools cannot offer. Without the need for human intervention, this customizable software quickly and reliably computes the impacts of component damage in complex extreme event analysis workflows.
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Accelerating resilience and I/O for supercomputing applications
CHIRP: Cloud hypervisorforensics and Incident Response Platform A secure Cloud presence demands the ability to confirm unauthorized access, gauge the nature of the attack and its goals, gather and preserve evidence towards eventual prosecution, and monitor the location for any further intrusion. CHIRP, developed at Sandia National Laboratory, gives cyber defenders these abilities. CHIRP uses custom Virtual Monitor Introspection (VMI) via a Cloud hypervisor to provide digital-forensic capabilities — a first of its kind. Forensic artifacts are extracted from VMs in real-time without detection, allowing the defender to stealthily eavesdrop and capture adversary intentions, actions, and tools. CHIRP works with a diverse set of hypervisors and operating systems and is quickly deployed in on and off-premises Clouds with the click of a mouse.
Lawrence Livermore and Argonne National Laboratories collaborated on the Scalable Checkpoint/Restart Framework 2.0 (SCR) enabling high-performance computing (HPC) simulations to take advantage of hierarchical storage systems, without complex code modifications. It utilizes fast storage tiers on HPC supercomputers to quickly cache application and resilience data so that applications can perform I/O operations orders of magnitude more quickly than with traditional methods and produce their results in less time. SCR has several features that support I/O and resilience for HPC applications that put it far above existing competitive products, including requiring few code modifications, providing full-featured support for checkpoint/ restart, and managing general application data in addition to checkpoint data.
Package manager for HPC Systems Spack, from researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, automates the process of building and installing scientific software on laptops, high-performance clusters, and supercomputers. Modern scientific software combines libraries written in many programming languages and is deployed on diverse computing architectures. To achieve the best performance in these environments, developers build software directly from source code. Spack automates the build workflow without sacrificing software performance or flexibility. It reduces deployment time for large software stacks from weeks to hours, and it enables end users and developers to install software without the aid of specialized staff.
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Consequence-driven Cyberinformed Engineering Consequence-driven Cyber-informed Engineering (CCE), from Idaho National Laboratory, offers one of the best pathways to sustaining operations of the nation’s critical infrastructure systems. These systems control and deliver essential services such as electricity, clean water, and medical care so their disruption or failure can be catastrophic. By re-engineering key processes while armed with an understanding of attackers’ tactics and options, critical infrastructure stakeholders are provided with CCE tools to remove the highest consequence targets from the table. Proven through pilot tests, CCE achieved its goal of identifying processes and functions that must not fail, then selectively reducing or eliminating digital pathways attackers could reach and affect. The methodology outlines steps organizations must take to transform their understanding of security risks to the most important processes, so critical infrastructure owners and operators can evaluate and secure valuable equipment and safeguard critical processes.
MLSTONES: Bio-inspired malicious software detection and analysis
MLSTONES is a one-of-a-kind malware detection tool, created by computer scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, that protects national infrastructures and defends against large-scale attacks with the potential to debilitate a nation by doing something that other tools do not — identifying malware that has never been seen before. Available detection products typically require prior knowledge of the malware at hand, oftentimes not recognizing malware that has been modified to bypass detection tools. By dissecting code to a granular level, MLSTONES can see through obfuscation techniques and identify similarities in the basic building blocks of malware. Not only does this approach make it difficult for attackers to evolve malware in a way that evades detection, it also gives cyber analysts a head start in understanding the intent of the malware.
Rapid Convective Growth Detector Rapid Convective Growth Detector (RCGD) technology, from MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the Federal Aviation Administration, enables national-scale detection of hazardous storm growth at a rate 10 times faster than comparable weather systems. The system uses tilt-by-tilt radar processing, storm tracking and motion compensation, time alignment, trending analysis, and mosaicking to generate specific hazard avoidance regions updated every 30 seconds. Data from RGCD is generated at a pace sufficient to support short-term tactical warnings to air traffic controllers and flight crews to enable them to avoid rapidly growing storms that may not yet be visible to weather radars onboard aircraft. The technology has been validated through a series of test exercises using extensive actual and synthetically generated weather data and will be included as part of the FAA’s NextGen Weather System, which will be operational in 2021.
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OTHER S
Magnetic microparticles with tailorable sizes and shapes
Martin Bionics Socketless Socket The Socket-less Socket represents a paradigm shift in how a prosthetic limb attaches to a patient’s body. This NASA-inspired device incorporates light-weight, conforming materials and user adjustability to achieve enhanced patient comfort, heat dissipation to avoid skin irritation and breakdown, and real-time adaptation to changes in activity levels and volume. Patent pending SwingBrim technology perfectly conforms to the user just like a hammock, providing a soft floating cushioned seat on every step. Now 40% lighter than the original Socket-less Socket. The lightweight design and materials are only a fraction of what conventional sockets weigh, with a typical weight reduction of over 2 pounds. The Socketless Socket can be micro-adjusted for a comfortable fit every time the prosthesis is worn.
To tackle the global threat of cancer, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) developed the world’s only bionic, knobby, magnetic beads manufacturing technology iKNOBEADS. The unique knobby magnetic beads can strengthen and reactivate T-cells to fight cancer cells, as proven in tests done at National Taiwan University Hospital. Inspired by nature, iKNOBEADS are the world’s first micrometer-sized magnetic particles with tailorable knobby shapes. The uniformity of particle size provides batchto-batch reproducibility and the unique knobby shape creates a larger surface area for interaction. The magnetic property allows for the ease of separation and suitability for automation. All these advantages make it perfectly suited for ex vivo activation and expansion of human T cells.
SPECIAL RECOGNITION Corporate Social Responsibility
Green Tech
Market Disruptor - Services
Market Disruptor — Products
Gold
Gold
SiC-Based Monolithic TransistorRectifier Semiconductor Switch
Gold
Gold
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
nanomaterials designed to protect sensitive technologies with a one-atom-thick shield Los Alamos National Laboratory
RETRO Rx: Rapid, Easy Tools for Responding to Outbreaks and Re-emergence Events
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Sandia National Laboratories GeneSic Semiconductor Inc. U.S. Department of Energy Office of Electricity Energy Storage Program
Silver
Silver
SimCCS2.0: Open-source software for designing CO2 capture, transport, and storage infrastructure
Los Alamos National Laboratory Montana State University Indiana University
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
R&D 100 - R&D 2-20_V7ME.indd 41
Ducted Fuel Injection
Sandia National Laboratories Bronze
Zero Waste Compact Water Dispenser
Nanofibrous Water Filter Providing RO Performance with Excellent Flow Rate Nano and Advanced Materials Institute Mind Body (Asia) Limited
VaporID
Silver
Spack: A Package Manager for HPC Systems
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory; Columbia University; École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; Iowa State University; Kitware, Inc.; NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Center for Climate Systems Research; National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center; Perimeter Institute; University of Hamburg; University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign; University of Iowa
ATOMIC ARMOR: Innovative
Silver
Riptide MkII Micro-Unmanned Undersea Vehicle
BAE Systems, FAST Labs Bronze
Stable Nanocrystalline Metal Alloy Coatings with Ultra-Low Wear
Sandia National Laboratories
R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
41
2/14/20 10:57 AM
WINNERS Ai Biomed............................................................... 23
NASA Langley Research Center............................. 37
Argonne National Laboratory. ............... 6, 32, 34, 39
National Energy Technology Laboratory................ 34
Axalta Coating Systems.......................................... 14
National Renewable Energy Laboratory................. 36
Bridger Photonics, Inc............................................ 21
National Security Agency (NSA)............................. 20
Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH................................. 24
NCH Corporation................................................... 25
Carnegie Mellon University ................................... 17
North Carolina State University, Centennial Campus...8
Chem Aqua............................................................ 25
Oak Ridge National Laboratory ............... 7, 8, 16, 21
Defense Adanced Research Projects Agency
Ohio Soybean Council........................................... 22
(DARPA) ................................................................. 23
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory ............ 26, 40
Dow, Inc............................................................ 10, 14
Pendar Technologies, LLC...................................... 31
Dow Performance Silicones.............................. 13, 25
Phononic ................................................................ 14
DuPont................................................................... 10
Polartec.................................................................. 13
DuPont Transportation & Industrial............................ 15
PPG........................................................................... 9
EMD Serono, the biopharmaceutical
Q-Carbon, LLC......................................................... 8
business of Merck KGaA.......................................... 27
Radiation Monitoring Devices, Inc.............................. 32
Engi-Mat Co........................................................... 12
RaySecur, Inc.......................................................... 31
Euclid TechLabs, LLC.............................................. 26
Refeyn, Ltd............................................................. 27
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)................... 40
RTsafe..................................................................... 22
General Motors...................................................... 12
Sandia National Laboratories ........... 21, 27, 36, 38, 39
Hitachi, Ltd............................................................. 31
Semiconductor Energy Laboratory Co., Ltd........... 17
The Hong Kong Research Institute
Shape Memory Medical, Inc................................... 24
of Textiles and Apparel............................................ 33
Sharp Corporation ................................................. 17
HRL Laboratories, LLC.............................................. 9
SolarEdge Technologies, Ltd.................................. 10
Idaho National Laboratory ........................ 23, 26, 40
Southwest Research Institute ............................. 9, 18
Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) ... 16, 41
Taiwan Textile Research Institute............................ 11
Institute for Information Industry............................ 38
Texas A&M University ............................................ 24
The John Hopkins University
ThalesNano Energy................................................ 25
Applied Physics Laboratory.................................... 20
Thermo Fisher Scientific......................................... 23
KMLabs, Inc............................................................ 30
Toyota Boshoku Corporation.................................. 12
L3 Technologies Electron Devices, Inc. ................. 19
University of Chicago ............................................ 32
Lake Shore Cryotronics, Inc.................................... 22
University of Szeged .............................................. 25
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory ............ 30, 37
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ........ 21, 24, 39
Technology Laboratory........................................... 34
Los Alamos National Laboratory .... 8, 16, 21, 24, 34,
Vanderbilt University............................................... 23
35, 38, 39
VUTS, a.s. .............................................................. 11
Martin Bionics, LLC................................................. 41 Metal Industrial Research & Development Centre... 11 Microvast, Inc........................................................... 6 Milliken & Company .......................................... 7, 12 MilliporeSigma....................................................... 11 MIT Lincoln Laboratory .................17, 19, 25, 32, 33, 36, 40 Mitsubishi Electric Corporation Manufacturing Engineering Center...............................33 Nano and Advanced Materials Institute (NAMI)........ 13 NASA Glenn Research Center................................ 35
42
R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
R&D 100 Index - R&D 2-20_v3.indd 42
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM 
2/14/20 11:00 AM
CALL FOR NOMINATIONS:
THE 2020 R&D 100 AWARDS What is the R&D 100 awards program? Established in 1962, the R&D 100 Awards is the only S&T (science and technology) awards competition that recognizes new commercial products, technologies and materials for their technological significance that are available for sale or license. There are six categories in the R&D 100, listed below. There are also four special recognition categories, which follow. A given innovation can be entered in both a regular category and any of the special recognition categories — but please note that a separate entry fee is required for each nomination. Special recognition categories are awarded separately from the 100 winners that comprise the R&D 100. In addition, the judging panel will award finalist designations to selected top nominations. This announcement of finalists is made first, followed by the actual R&D 100 winners several weeks later. This allows all finalists and winners plenty of time to make arrangements to attend the awards banquet and/or conference.
Submissions open: March 2, 2020 Deadline for submissions ($450/entry): May 1, 2020 Late deadline for submissions ($550/entry): June 1, 2020 To be eligible for R&D 100 Awards consideration, your product or service must have been made available to the marketplace between January 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020.
THE R&D 100 AWARD WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED ON OR ABOUT SEPTEMBER 15, 2020
Categories include: Analytical/Test
• IT/Electrical • Mechanical/Materials • Process/Prototyping • Software/Services • Other
Special Recognitions: Corporate Social Responsibility
• Green Tech • Market Disruptor – Products • Market Disruptor – Service
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO SUBMIT, GO TO:
WWW.RD100CONFERENCE.COM/SUBMISSIONS-FOR-2020 RD100Nominations-FullPgAd.indd 1
2/3/20 12:36 PM
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Global R&D investments unabated in spending growth WITH THIS REPORT, R&D Magazine
SHARE OF TOTAL GLOBAL R&D SPENDING
presents — for the 61st time — its annual global
2018 GERD
R&D Share
2019 GERD
R&D Share
2020 GERD
R&D Share
Top Ten Countries
$1,781.5
75.1%
$1,857.5
78.4%
$1,909.8
78.5%
North America
$612.8
26.8%
$644.5
27.2%
$658.4
27.0%
industries, universities and governments and
South America
$52.8
2.3%
$51.8
2.2%
$52.6
2.2%
innumerable technologies. The world and the
Europe
$486.3
21.3%
$492.0
20.8%
$499.7
20.5%
Africa
$20.2
0.9%
$20.6
0.9%
$21.2
0.9%
Middle East
$56.8
2.5%
$56.3
2.4%
$57.9
2.4%
1959 (in R&D Magazine’s first issue). And those
Russia/CIS
$64.4
2.8%
$64.5
2.7%
$65.8
2.7%
technology and economic changes continue to
Asia
$995.6
43.5%
$1,041.1
43.9%
$1,078.8
44.3%
$2,288.9
100.0%
$2,370.8
100.0%
$2,434.3
100.0%
2018 GERD
Global Share
2019 GERD
Global Share
2020 GERD
Global Share
U.S.
$565.8
24.7%
$596.6
25.2%
$609.7
25.0%
China
$499.6
21.8%
$532.8
22.5%
$563.7
23.2%
Japan
$189.5
8.3%
$190.6
8.0%
$191.0
7.8%
Germany
$126.6
5.5%
$128.3
5.4%
$130.0
5.3%
India
$89.2
3.9%
$95.8
4.0%
$96.5
4.0%
South Korea
$89.5
3.9%
$90.3
3.8%
$92.2
3.8%
$1,560.2
68.2%
$1,634.4
68.9%
$1,683.1
69.1%
R&D funding forecast. This forecast presents unique data on the cumulative resources expected to be invested over the next twelve months by more than 115 countries, numerous
science and technologies created in R&D labs have seen dramatic changes since our first $12 billion R&D forecast was created in January
amaze and astound our editors. For 2020, those changes are expected to result in the investment
All Countries
of more than $2.4 trillion in R&D on a global basis, a monetary increase of 2.7%, or $64 billion, over what was invested by those same organizations in 2019. The editors of R&D forecast current and future global spending trends by collecting data on global and industrial economies from a large number of sources; including the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) October 2019 World Economic Outlook, the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA’s) World Fact Book, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD’s) country databases, the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) and the World Bank’s
44
R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
Total
GERD (gross expenditures in R&D), billions USD
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
WORLD OF R&D 2020 Each country’s ball size (diameter) is volume-normalized to the U.S.’s total R&D spending.
Finland
RESEARCHERS PER MILLION POPULATION
North America
Denmark
Asia Singapore
Europe Middle East/Africa South America
Norway Canada United Kingdom
Spain
Russia Ireland
United States Australia Taiwan
France Belgium
South Korea
Sweden Japan
Austria Germany Switzerland
Netherlands
Czech Republic
Poland
Italy Malaysia
Portugal Turkey Iran Brazil Egypt Mexico Bangladesh South Africa Indonesia Pakistan Saudi India Arabia
Israel China Qatar
R&D AS A PERCENT OF GDP
economic databases among numerous other sources and reports (a full listing of resources and contact information is provided at the end of this report). Much of this forecast is based on global economies and in particular each country’s current gross domestic product (GDP) and past R&D spending trends. All country data has been normalized to purchasing power parity (PPP) values to establish a consistency between differing currencies. Data and trends included in this report also contains the results of multiple R&D World magazine reader surveys deployed from July to September 2019. This report is provided as a resource for R&D managers and senior researchers who are preparing/reviewing their 2020 R&D budgets to establish a baseline for their current and future analyses. Readers interested in specific budgeting trends may be interested in viewing the last section of this report on how to create an R&D budget. This data is mostly industrial and based primarily on the R&D Magazine reader survey results from more than 2,000 respondents. As shown in the tables in this section, R&D investments are distributed throughout the world with Asian countries continuing to grow market share due primarily to the escalating investments by China’s government, industries and universities. While U.S. organizations continue to lead in global spending, as they have for more than 50 years, China is inching ever closer to becoming the leading global R&D investor and is forecast to surpass total U.S. spending by no later than 2025 if current spending trends continue (see the International section of
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
this report for more details). Asia is now the largest R&D investing region in the world with more than 44% global R&D share. Asia is gaining about a half-percent share each year in global R&D share and at this rate could account for more than half of all R&D investments before 2030. China, in particular, continues to build its R&D infrastructure and manpower capabilities with no letup in spending, desire or long-term planning. Third-world countries including many in South America and Africa continue to languish in their R&D investments, and their economic growth languishes as a result. All of South America and Africa combined are only responsible for less than 5% of the total global R&D spent while they have more than 20% of the world’s population. As noted in the nearby table, the top six R&D spending countries (U.S., China, Japan, Germany, India and South Korea) are responsible for nearly 70% of all global R&D investments. In 2019, the U.S. and China invested nearly half of all global R&D monies. And the U.S. government (with its $163 billion in R&D funding) alone invests more R&D monies than all other individual countries except China and Japan.
THE SCIENCE OF R&D INVESTING The chart World of R&D 2020 provides a graphic of the overall relationship of R&D spending, resources and economic relationships between the top 40 R&D investing economies of the world. In this “ball chart” the size (diameter) of the ball relates to the overall amount of R&D invested by each of the top 40 R&D investing countries. Each country’s
R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
45
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
FORECAST GROSS EXPENDITURES ON R&D 2018 GFF Actual
2020 GFF Forecast
GDP
R&D
GERD
GDP
R&D
GERD
GDP
R&D
PPP
as % GDP
PPP
PPP
as % GDP
PPP
PPP
as % GDP
Bil, USD
Bil, USD
Bil, USD
Bil, USD
Bil, USD
GERD PPP
Bil, USD
1
United States
20,494.0
2.84%
565.76
21,006.4
2.84%
596.58
21,468.1
2.84%
609.69
2
China
25,362.0
1.97%
499.63
26,909.1
1.98%
532.80
28,469.8
1.98%
563.70
3
Japan
5,414.7
3.50%
189.51
5,447.2
3.50%
190.65
5,458.1
3.50%
191.03
4
Germany
4,456.1
2.84%
126.55
4,518.5
2.84%
128.32
4,577.2
2.84%
130.00
5
India
10,498.0
0.85%
89.23
11,138.4
0.86%
95.79
11,216.4
0.86%
96.46
6
South Korea
2,071.0
4.32%
89.47
2,075.1
4.35%
90.27
2,120.8
4.35%
92.25
7
France
3,037.0
2.25%
68.33
3,070.4
2.25%
69.08
3,110.3
2.25%
69.98
8
Russia
4,051.0
1.52%
61.58
4,095.6
1.50%
61.43
4,173.4
1.50%
62.60
9
United Kingdom
3,025.0
1.72%
52.03
3,073.4
1.73%
53.17
3,116.4
1.73%
53.91
10
Brazil
3,366.0
1.17%
39.38
3,396.3
1.16%
39.40
3,464.2
1.16%
40.18
11
Canada
1,783.0
1.80%
32.09
1,811.5
1.80%
32.61
1,840.5
1.80%
33.13
12
Australia
1,290.0
2.34%
30.19
1,311.9
2.35%
30.83
1,342.1
2.35%
31.54
12
Italy
2,516.0
1.27%
31.95
2,493.4
1.26%
31.42
2,503.4
1.26%
31.54
14
Taiwan
1,220.0
2.45%
29.89
1,244.4
2.46%
30.61
1,268.0
2.46%
31.19
15
Spain
1,865.0
1.26%
23.50
1,893.0
1.25%
23.66
1,921.4
1.25%
24.02
16
Turkey
2,296.0
0.90%
20.66
2,300.6
0.89%
20.48
2,369.6
0.89%
21.09
17
Netherlands
970.6
2.10%
20.38
988.1
2.10%
20.75
1,003.9
2.10%
21.08
18
Sweden
536.9
3.33%
17.88
541.7
3.28%
17.77
549.8
3.28%
18.03
19
Switzerland
579.9
2.98%
17.28
584.5
2.97%
17.36
592.1
2.97%
17.58
20
Singapore
571.5
2.62%
14.97
574.4
2.64%
15.16
580.1
2.64%
15.32
21
Israel
353.8
4.05%
14.33
364.8
4.04%
14.74
376.1
4.04%
15.19
22
Austria
491.1
3.00%
14.73
499.0
2.98%
14.87
507.5
2.98%
15.12
23
Malaysia
999.4
1.28%
12.79
1,044.4
1.29%
13.47
1,090.4
1.29%
14.07
24
Belgium
575.3
2.35%
13.52
582.2
2.35%
13.68
589.8
2.35%
13.86
25
Mexico
2,509.7
0.50%
12.55
2,519.7
0.51%
12.85
2,552.5
0.51%
13.02
26
Indonesia
3,494.8
0.31%
10.83
3,669.5
0.31%
11.38
3,856.6
0.31%
11.96
27
Poland
1,190.4
0.91%
10.83
1,238.0
0.92%
11.39
1,276.4
0.92%
11.74
28
Iran
1,613.6
0.78%
12.59
1,460.3
0.76%
11.10
1,460.3
0.76%
11.10
29
Denmark
319.5
3.00%
9.58
324.9
3.00%
9.75
331.1
3.00%
9.93
30
Finland
264.5
3.50%
9.26
267.7
3.50%
9.37
271.7
3.50%
9.51
31
Qatar
352.2
2.52%
8.88
359.2
2.50%
8.98
369.3
2.50%
9.23
32
Saudi Arabia
1,857.5
0.47%
8.73
1,861.2
0.48%
8.93
1,902.1
0.48%
9.13
33
Czech Republic
422.3
1.85%
7.81
432.8
1.85%
8.01
444.1
1.85%
8.21
34
Egypt
1,219.5
0.60%
7.32
1,286.6
0.59%
7.59
1,362.5
0.59%
8.04
35
Pakistan
1,176.5
0.63%
7.41
1,215.3
0.62%
7.54
1,244.5
0.62%
7.72
36
Ireland
403.8
1.75%
7.07
421.2
1.75%
7.37
435.9
1.75%
7.63
37
South Africa
793.3
0.88%
6.98
798.9
0.88%
7.03
807.7
0.88%
7.11
38
Norway
348.6
1.75%
6.10
355.2
1.74%
6.18
363.7
1.74%
6.33
39
Bangladesh
704.2
0.70%
4.93
748.6
0.70%
5.24
795.0
0.70%
5.57
40
Portugal
339.7
1.44%
4.89
346.2
1.40%
4.85
351.7
1.40%
4.92
$114,833.4
1.92%
$2,211.39
$118,269.6
1.94%
$2,292.46
$121,534.5
1.94%
$2,353.71
$19,161.1
0.40%
$77.46
$19,504.0
0.40%
$78.33
$20,121.3
0.40%
$80.63
$133,994.5
1.71%
$2,288.85
$137,773.6
1.72%
$2,370.79
$141,655.8
1.72%
$2,434.34
Top 40 Rest of World Total All Countries
46
2019 GFF Estimated
R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ISSUES WITH 2020 R&D BUDGETING
Source: R&D World magazine ball size (diameter) is volume-normalized to the U.S.’s total R&D spending. The location of the ball on the horizontal axis signifies the R&D invested by the country as a function of it gross domestic product (GDP). The location of the ball on vertical axis signifies the number of researchers within each country as a ratio of the country’s total population. For example, while the size of China’s ball is close to the size of the U.S.’s ball, it is lower on the vertical scale because of its large overall population and hence lower ratio of researchers to population. China actually graduates more new engineers annually than the total number of engineers in the U.S. China’s ratio of R&D as a percent of GDP also is lower than that of the U.S. but has been gaining over the past several years. China’s current five-year plan has a goal of continuing to increase this ratio. The two outliers in this chart — Finland with its high researcher/population ratio of more than 7,000 and Israel with its high R&D as a percent of GDP of 4.0 — are historically consistent and have not changed significantly over the past five years. The table titled Forecast Gross Expenditures on R&D lists the top 40 R&D spending countries with 2018 actual values
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
of GDP, R&D as a percent of GDP and GERD (gross expenditures on research and development), 2019 estimated values, and 2020 forecast values, for each top-40 country. The top 40 countries are ranked by 2020 GERD values. GDP and GERD values are listed in purchasing-power-parity billions of U.S. dollars. Each year’s totals for the rest of the world countries are shown at the bottom. Values for 116 total countries were calculated. These countries are shown in individual R&D investment tables in the international section of this report — they are merely totaled for this table. The top 10 rankings of this table have not changed significantly over the past 10 years. Some countries have shuffled slightly by one ranking number, but countries have maintained their relative positions. India, for example, has slowly moved up in the rankings and is No. 5 in 2020, while sitting at No. 8 in our 2014 Global R&D Funding Forecast. China rose from No. 3 in our 2010 Global R&D Funding Forecast to No. 2 in our 2011 R&D Funding Forecast, surpassing Japan by about $9 billion in R&D funding. While China has been growing its R&D by nearly 10% annually over the past 15 years, Japan has been
growing its R&D investments by less than 2% annually. (Some years actually had no growth.) It should be noted that R&D investments are a function of both GDP and a ratio of R&D investments as a function of GDP. Looking at the top 40 table, some countries may have a smaller GDP than other countries but still spend more on R&D because they spend a larger percentage of their GDP on R&D investments. This is what held up India’s ranking in this table for many years — i.e., it had a relatively large GDP of about $10 trillion, but its R&D as a percent of GDP was consistently less than 1.0%. Its recent R&D as a percent of GDP has only risen slightly, but its overall GDP has grown to more than $11 trillion. Therefore, its net R&D investment has grown to nearly $100 billion and raised its global ranking. The European economic malaise over the past ten years has also had an effect on its member states’ R&D investments with several of them, notably France and Italy falling in the global rankings, while other countries moved up as a result of an increased disposition for investing in R&D. Israel has consistently had an R&D as a percent of GDP in the 4% range and thus is listed relatively high in the overall rankings
R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
47
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
DISTRIBUTION OF R&D INVESTMENTS FOR 2020
Source: R&D World magazine
despite a relatively small GDP of slightly less than $400 billion. Mexico, on the other hand, has a GDP in the $2.5 trillion range, but only invests about 0.5% of this GDP in R&D and thus falls farther down the ranking list below Israel. Mexico invests about $3 billion less in overall R&D than Israel. In the overall country rankings, we made an effort to include all aspects of each country’s R&D. Much of these data are readily available in conventional publications and databases. Some, though, is harder to come by. This is particularly so for military and defense R&D efforts in countries which are historically secretive about this aspect of their R&D, as with Russia, Iran and China. Rough editorial estimations are made in these instances via the best data available. The worst of these instances are North Korea and Cuba, where little or no data are available except through historically established partial databases like those available at the World Bank.
THE TYPES OF R&D Research and development efforts have historically (since before World War II) been categorized into three sections — basic research, applied research, and development work. The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has been the caretaker of these statistical disciplines since WWII. The NSF was actually created as an offshoot of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) headed by Vannevar Bush in WWII.
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Data, definitions, sources and performance on the three aspects of R&D have historically been maintained by the NSF in various documents and reports, notably the National Patterns of R&D. A fourth aspect, Applied Development, which concerns specific efforts made to bring products to the marketplace, has been discussed with relatively little historical data. R&D World magazine has started building a database on Applied Development through its series of reader surveys deployed over the past several years. Applied Development is not mentioned specifically in the 2020 Global R&D Funding Forecast. Data outlined in the NSF’s National Patterns reports describe in detail the sources and performers of R&D and its basic research, applied research and development components. Both the sources and performers are further detailed into industry, government, FFRDC (federal funded R&D centers), non-profit organizations and academia. The NSF has the resources (it uses Department of Labor-supported survey mechanisms) to collect and tabulate this data on an annual basis. Most other countries do not have the resources to collect this level of data. The OECD attempts to collect as much data as is practical from its 30-odd member states, but even then, this is usually only partial data sets. &
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
U.S. R&D buoyed by economy and government support WE FORECAST THE U.S. will invest $609.7 billion in R&D in
The Fed considers the current monetary policy appropriate to support sustained growth. Strong labor market conditions 2020, an increase of 2.2% over the $596.6 billion invested in 2019. (unemployment) and inflation near the Fed’s 2.0% target are also U.S. industrial organizations will invest approximately $401.8 billion, a likely to continue throughout 2020 and into 2021 and 2022. All of this 65.9% share of the total investment. The U.S. government will invest implies that the current low-cost economic environment for supporting about $162.8 billion in R&D (a 26.7% share of the total) and we expect and financing R&D efforts is likely to continue without any significant changes for the next several years. academic organizations to invest $23.2 billion. We expect the strong general economy to support continued strong R&D investments buoyed by continuing technological The U.S. economy and its ability to support R&D investments continued improvements in industries such as automotive, ICT, aerospace, life to grow in 2019, despite a global economic slowdown and the science and advanced materials. As noted in previous years’ Global continuing imposition of tariffs between China and the U.S. The U.S. R&D Funding Forecasts, many R&D advances seen in 2019 and Federal Reserve forecasts this growth (GDP) rate to continue into 2020 at predicted for 2020 are driven by the inter-relationships of various about 2.0% which is only slightly less than the 2.2% growth rate seen in industries and technologies. ICT R&D-based improvements, for 2019. The Fed’s latest economic projections (December 2019) also see example, such as in artificial intelligence, sensing, computing and unemployment remaining at the current 3.5% to 3.6% rate throughout telecommunications, will drive many of the R&D-based improvements 2020 and the federal funds rate remaining at the current 1.5% to 1.75% in autonomous automotive vehicles and aerospace systems, along range for the foreseeable future. with ancillary improvements in the development of advanced materials and pharmaceutical compounds. Automation 2020 U.S. SOURCE-PERFORMER MATRIX and robotics, essential ICT components, Billions USD / Percent changes from 2019 are also expected to influence dramatic Federal govt Industry Academia FFRDC Non-profit Total system changes in other industries as well Federal $49.9 $41.0 $47.0 $17.4 $7.4 $162.7 in 2020. government Again, as in 2019, the top five 1.8% 5.1% 9.3% 4.8% 8.8% 14.0% technology companies in the world (by Industry $384.2 $10.0 $4.1 $2.6 $400.9 stock-valuation) are U.S.-based (Amazon, 6.3% 25.0% 5.1% 8.7% 6.7% Alphabet-Google, Microsoft, Apple and Intel). We expect these five to collectively Academia $22.9 $0.3 $23.2 invest more than $117 billion in R&D, 4.1% 0.0% 4.0% an 11.5% increase from their R&D investments in 2019 and 25.5% over Other $4.0 $4.0 government what they invested in 2018. This trend NA NA reflects on the global technology drivers which continue to be led by U.S.-based Non-profit $6.2 $0.3 $12.4 $18.9 companies. 3.3% 50.0% -16.8% -10.4% Total
$49.9
$425.2
$90.1
$22.1
$22.4
$609.7
1.8%
6.1%
4.5%
5.2%
-7.1%
2.2%
Top row indicates R&D performers Left column indicates R&D source
Source: R&D World magazine 2019 Reader Surveys, IMF, World Bank, CIA Fact Book, National Science Foundation WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
R&D STAFFING CONCERNS With the continuing low unemployment rate, it is becoming more difficult for R&D managers to find skilled personnel in the U.S. More than two thirds of the researchers surveyed by R&D World magazine in 2019 mentioned difficulties in
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2020
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FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
R&D PERFORMANCE 2016 TO 2019
Source: R&D World magazine recruiting new researchers for open lab positions. Less than 30% had no difficulties in finding skilled scientists and/or engineers. About a quarter of those surveyed had a current small R&D staffing shortage of up to 25 positions. About 8% of those surveyed were seeing a large R&D staffing shortage of more than 25 positions. R&D managers in our 2019 survey said that attracting, developing, and retaining research talent were among their primary concerns. Nearly two thirds of the survey respondents indicated these personnel issues had high importance. To offset these R&D staffing shortages, R&D managers utilize collaborations (40% of the survey respondents) and hire qualified consultants or consulting firms (42% of the survey respondents) to complete their R&D project requirements. About 35% of the R&D managers will outsource their R&D work where necessary when their own staff is incapable. Another 20% use computer-based resources, such as modeling and prototyping, to offset their R&D staffing shortages. Changes in the immigration laws, slowdowns in processing visa applications, and a general decline in foreign professionals looking to relocate to the U.S., have seriously reduced the number of immigrant researchers utilized by U.S. R&D-based firms.
CHANGES IN R&D ORGANIZATIONS According to our survey, organizations still overwhelmingly see R&D as more important now than it was even three years ago in 2017. About
R&D CHANGES SINCE 2017
Source: R&D World magazine
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40% of our survey respondents say it has a higher importance today, compared to only 7% who say it has become less important than it was three years ago. However, a majority of survey respondents don’t see much change in administrative support of R&D operations. About 13% of the respondents say they now have more administrative support for R&D than in 2017. Another 9% say they now have less administrative support for their R&D operations. About 20% of U.S. organization managers consider their R&D operations and projects to be more successful now than they were three years ago in 2017. This compared to about 6% of the respondents who say their R&D operations were now less successful than they were three years ago. Perhaps surprisingly, external macroeconomic issues appear to influence organizational support and operation of R&D in only minor ways. About one-quarter of survey respondents said the continuing rise in stock market values (the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a record high in February 2020, having risen nearly 23% in the previous year) helped boost R&D investments while about 16% of the survey respondents said the stock market impacted R&D investments negatively. About half of survey respondents also stated that the current Brexit (withdrawal of the U.K. from the European Union) discussions haven’t affected their global R&D investments, and 37% were unsure. Only 14% said Brexit discussions have negatively affected their global R&D investments.
FOREIGN COMPETITION The biggest threats to the future of U.S. R&D operations appear to be from competitors — and increasingly from foreign competitors, not just domestic U.S. firms. The U.S. harbors the largest set of R&D operations in the world, so it is only logical that about half of U.S. firms see domestic competitors as their largest threat. However, 44% of respondents see Chinese competitors as their largest threats. And 16% say non-Chinese Asian competitors are real threats. About 24% of those same respondents view European competitors as threats. This view is especially valid for European automotive firms that are valued more highly than their U.S. counterparts (i.e., Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes) and European pharmaceutical firms with global operations in the U.S. and China. A recent report by the Task Force on American Innovation, “Second
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
U.S. R&D FUNDING SOURCES Crowd funding External grants (Federal) External industrial or government contract Internal resources (in-house funds) Licensing of IP Philanthropic grants State government grants Other Source: R&D World magazine Place America? Increasing Challenges to U.S. Scientific Leadership,” advances this view as China and other countries boost investments in research and grow their STEM (science, technology, engineering and manufacturing) workforces. The report states that emerging economies, particularly China, are playing a greater role in scientific discovery and innovation and challenging established U.S. leadership in critical research fields. It states that China has overtaken the U.S. in total research publication output as of 2016 and is now the dominant producer in engineering, physics, chemistry, geosciences and mathematics. The report goes on to note that other countries continue to invest heavily in higher education, turning out more science and technology graduates. The U.S. also is noted as trailing the top eight countries in the EU as measured by the total number of bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering awarded since 2000.
R&D FUNDING SOURCES Funding for U.S. R&D operations appears to be healthy, especially in 2020 where the U.S. government FY2020 budget increases S/E spending to record levels (see the next section in this report for details on the federal investments). Overall, R&D funding sources are organized as follows, according to our survey results: Large R&D organizations increasingly share R&D funding, especially in areas like automotive development where there is a significant amount of fundamental research in electrically driven vehicle technology and autonomously/AI-driven control systems.
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7% The challenges in these areas are huge, making collaboration among multinational automotive 30% firms worthwhile. 61% For example, General Motors has established a joint venture 12% with LG Chem for production of automotive battery cells. Hyundai 8% and auto parts maker Aptiv 22% (the former Delphi operation) are working together in a joint 6% autonomous vehicle venture. Volkswagen and Ford are also working together in a joint autonomous vehicle startup, Argo AI. Ford and others are investing hundreds of millions in startup EV manufacturer Rivian. Daimler and BMW are jointly investing in mobility services. Other collaborations include Toyota-Suzuki, Ford-Mahindra & Mahindra, Honda-Hitachi, Fiat Chrysler-Peugeot and Toyota-Subaru. Those firms attempting to go it alone in this new automotive world will be at a huge disadvantage in short order. 34%
U.S. LOSSES AND GAINS U.S. R&D has seen both gains and losses to foreign competitors over the past several years. Responders see changes in U.S. technologies this way:
As shown, the biggest losses are in automotive and environmental technologies. This response is consistent with previous years’ results and consistent with technology leadership. Germany and Japan are big in automotive technologies. Germany, France and Japan are big in environmental technologies (see the International section of this report for individual country leaders for each technology). In overall R&D, China has gained the most in R&D capabilities (71%) over the past several years. However, U.S. organizations have also gained significant R&D capabilities (63%), just slightly less than China. For the U.S. to gain R&D capabilities when starting from a large advantage to begin with says a lot for the continuing quality of R&D being developed in the U.S. The next closest competitor country is Germany (40%). As also noted in the previous section, the extensive multinational collaborations in several industries (especially automotive and ICT) belies the specific national R&D advantages or leadership noted here since the technologies are being shared through corporate collaborations. &
PERCEIVED COMPETITIVE POSITION U.S. gained advantage
U.S. lost advantage
Advanced materials
47%
26%
Agriculture
33%
34%
Automotive
33%
39%
Aerospace
45%
30%
Computing
50%
24%
Energy
45%
31%
Environmental
31%
45%
ICT
49%
24%
Electronics
42%
26%
Life Science
49%
26%
Defense
56%
18%
Biotech
49%
20%
Source: R&D World magazine
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST
FEDERAL R&D
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Bumping up Federal R&D FACING A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN deadline at midnight on Dec. 20th, a Presidential impeachment vote (on Dec. 18th) with a highly polarized Congress, the U.S. Congress, Senate and Administration voted on and signed into law (just hours before the Dec. 20th shutdown deadline) its final appropriations package for FY2020. The package included the Consolidated Appropriations Act and the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The signed $1.4 trillion FY2020 omnibus spending bills extend the possibility of a government shutdown to the end of
will primarily take over activities carried out currently by the U.S. Air Force’s Space Command. Space Force R&D will primarily focus on a small portfolio of high-priority technology development projects for the DOD’s Space Development Agency (SDA). Other NDAA R&D will focus on development of a space-based missile defense, earth-observing satellites, support for a joint hypersonic transition office, development of low-yield nuclear weapons warhead, production of plutonium weapon cores, production of low enriched uranium for naval reactors, and the reestablishment of a commission to assess the threats from electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) produced during nuclear detonations.
FY2020 on September 30, 2020. The bills include substantial budget
CONTINUED RECOVERY FOR NIH
increases for several government agencies. These are comparable
In their FY2020 R&D budget, every one of the 27 National Institutes of Health (NIH) institutes and centers received at least a 3.3% increase above their FY2019 funding, and some received a lot more. The administration’s actual FY2020 proposal for the NIH was 12% less than actual FY2019 spending, but wound up being about 7% more at $41.684 billion. The strong NIH funding increase continued its recovery from sequestration-level funding in FY2013 and the (continued on page 54)
to the increases in Federal spending caps the Congress agreed to in the summer of 2019 with some science agencies now seeing even larger increases than were seen last summer.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEFENSE R&D
The DOD’s S&T budget is the largest research, development, test and evaluation budget in 70 years, according to David Norquist, the DOD’s deputy defense secretary. And FY2020 S&T APPROPRIATIONS (PARTIAL) Billions USD while the Congress reduced the overall DOD budget request, it increased R&D funding. Change from FY2019 FY2020 The signed NDAA includes the creation of a FY2019 Space Force, a Climate Security Advisory Council National Institutes of Health 39.306 41.862 6.5% and directs the Dept. of Defense’s research security Dept. of Energy, Renewables 2.379 2.790 17.3% efforts. The research security funding provides for both the collection of information relating to Dept. of Energy, Nuclear 1.326 1.493 12.6% U.S. citizens and foreign national in the U.S. who Dept. of Energy, Fossil 0.740 0.750 1.4% participate in defense R&D activities, and for NASA 21.500 22.629 5.3% maintaining the privacy of that information. It explains how the DOD should collaborate with academia to disseminate best practices on this data collection. It also directs researchers to collect and maintain lists of academic institutions in Russia, China and other countries that seem to pose research security risks. Another NDAA program establishes processes to ensure the DOD continuously updates policies relating to emerging technologies, including how they might bear on treaties. Examples of these emerging technologies include quantum computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, autonomous technologies, robotics, directed energy, hypersonics, and biotechnology. The creation of a Space Force is relatively modest budget item from an R&D standpoint. This organization
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National Science Foundation
8.075
8.278
2.5%
USDA, Ag Res Service
1.684
1.607
-4.6%
Dept. of Commerce, NIST
0.986
1.034
4.9%
Dept. of Homeland Security
0.820
0.737
-10.1%
US Geological Survey
1.161
1.271
9.5%
NOAA
0.566
0.590
4.3%
Environmental Protection Agency
0.706
0.716
1.4%
DOD, DARPA
3.427
3.458
0.9%
DOD, Basic Science
2.528
2.603
3.0%
Veterans Administration
0.779
0.800
2.7%
92.568
97.618
5.4%
Total
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
FEDERAL R&D
Foreign threats to U.S. research For years, there have been claims of foreign threats to U.S. research, from outright theft of government secrets to enticements of high-level researchers and plagiarism of product designs and concepts. Congress has created two panels to address these concerns as they apply to foreign researchers working or studying in the U.S. One of these panels is headed by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). This panel is expected to collect actions from multiple government agencies to protect federally funded research from cyber attacks, theft, and other foreign threats. The other panel will be a roundtable by the National Academy of Sciences on how to assess and mitigate potential threats from collaborations between foreign and U.S. researchers. A recent NAS panel cited the challenges posed by China’s efforts to build its industries around emerging technologies through its “Made in China 2025 Plan.” Mike Molnar, who leads NIST’s Office of Advanced Manufacturing, stated in the panel that China is on track to meet its goal of establishing 40 manufacturing innovation institutes by 2025, which are the basis for building up new industrial clusters. To support these new R&D centers, China has consistently been aggressively recruiting innovation talent throughout the U.S. by traveling to multiple universities hoping to entice researchers to move to China.
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A recent report requested by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and prepared by the MITRE Corp.’s Jason program, Fundamental Research Security – Dec. 2019, addresses research integrity in the U.S. and foreign influences on it. This report examined 1) the value and need for foreign scientific talent in the U.S.; 2) the impacts of placing restrictions on access to U.S. research; 3) the need to define research integrity to include disclosures of commitments and conflicts of interest and 4) the creation of a common understanding within research organizations on how to protect U.S. research interests, while continuing to compete globally. The Jason report found that problems of foreign influence can be addressed within a revised framework of research integrity. The benefits of research openness and the inclusion of foreign researchers outweigh measures of limiting access to fundamental research for security purposes. The report criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for assuming research theft in cases that actually appear to be the foreign researcher’s collegial sharing of their academic work. The report authors further state that a reinvigorated commitment to U.S. standards of research integrity and the tradition of open science by all stakeholders will continue to drive U.S. preeminence in science, engineering and technology by attracting and retaining the world’s best talent.
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST
FEDERAL R&D
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
DO FEDERAL SPENDING CHANGES AFFECT YOUR R&D? (continued from page 52) basically flat funding for the previous decade. The National Institute on Aging led the way in the NIH’s FY2020 funding with a 14.9% increase with research on Alzheimer’s research (again) prioritized. Funding of NIH facilities more than doubled over FY2019 funding to $425 million. The Congress also provided $500 million for opioid-related research, split between the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received a $600 million increase over its FY2019 spending. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) got a 5% increase to $6.440 billion. The National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering received 4% budget increase to $404 million.
MIXED ENERGY BAG In their initial budget proposal, the administration cut 16% in the Dept. of Energy’s Office of Science (OS) FY2020 budget from its $6.585 billion FY2019 budget. The final FY2020 approved and signed budget for the OS was $7.000 billion — a 6% actual increase over the OS’s FY2019 R&D spending. Actually, it was proposed that six of the OS component R&D budgets be reduced from their FY2019 levels by 2% to 30%. And each of the six had their budgets increased by 2% to 19% (i.e., Advanced Scientific Computing, +5%; Basic Energy Sciences, +2%; Fusion Energy Sciences, +19%; High Energy Physics, +7%; Nuclear Physics, +3%; and Biological and Environmental Research, +6%). Included in the fusion energy programs, the ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) being built in Southern France had its $132 million FY2019 budget nearly doubled to $242 million, but at the expense of other fusion research, which was cut by 4%. DOE-supported earth system science projects were protected from large administration-backed budget cuts, while nuclear physics research and operations were given a 7.3% R&D budget increase. Renewable energy programs within the DOE were also endorsed by the House and Senate legislators with a 13% increase for wind-based research and a 41% increase for
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Source: R&D World magazine water power research. Automotive battery and electrification R&D increased in the DOE budget by 7%, while photovoltaic (solar cells) R&D increased by 6% over FY2019 levels.
TO THE MOON AND BEYOND The final FY2020 R&D budget for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is close to the proposed budget initially submitted — $22.6 billion, or 5% more than its FY2019 budget. Many NASA line items are supported but funding for development of a lunar landing vehicle was only funded to $744 million, while the agency requested $1 billion for development of an Artemis landing system, which is targeted for a 2024 launch/lunar landing date. Budget wording for Artemis was also specific in making the lander flexible enough to be launched on any U.S. launch vehicle, commercial or otherwise, that is available for a lunar exploration mission — since no single vehicle is currently verified to satisfy the landing requirements. NASA’s Europa Clipper and lander program, designed to study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa in 2025-2026 or so, was also reduced from its FY2019 funding level by about 20% to $593 million.
OTHER AGENCIES The National Science Foundation also saw an overall increase in funding from $8.1 billion in FY2019 to $8.3 billion in FY2020, a 3% rise. Of that increase, research and related activities accounted for slightly more than 81% — $6.737 billion, a 3.33% increase over similar funding in the FY2019 R&D budget.
The National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Agency was one of the few science agencies to see a cut in its overall FY2020 R&D budget, to $5.352 billion from FY2019’s $5.425 billion — a 1.34% reduction. The biggest part of this cut came from NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data & Information Service which went from $1.7 billion funding in FY2019 to $1.514 billion in FY2020, a 10.9% reduction. Most other NOAA components actually saw budget increases in FY2020 from +0.5% to +13.1%. The Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology was another S/E agency to see a funding increase in FY2020 from $0.986 billion in FY2019 to $1.034 billion in FY2020 — a 5% increase. This funding was split between Scientific and Technical Research and Services, $0.754 billion (4% increase from FY2019), Industrial Technology Services, $0.162 billion (5% increase from FY2019) and Construction of Research Facilities, $0.118 billion (1% increase from FY2019). &
THIS SUMMARY OF THE GLOBAL R&D FUNDING FORECAST PRESENTS A FEW OF THE HIGHLIGHTS FOUND IN THE FULL GFF. THE FULL REPORT INCLUDES DATA ON INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES AND REGIONS AS WELL AS A MORE IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION OF TRENDS. YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO ACCESS IT AT RDWORLDONLINE.COM/GFF.
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST
ACADEMIC R&D
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Academic R&D continues its slow rise FOR 2020, U.S. academic researchers will have at their disposal about $90.1 billion-worth of research funds or about 14.8% of the total U.S. R&D expendature. Individual U.S. academic institutions will invest about $23.2 billion (or about 3.8% of the total U.S. R&D investment) of their own resources to support this R&D. Of the R&D that academia performs, about 64% is focused on basic research, 26% on applied research, and the remaining 10% on experimental development work. U.S. academia performs more R&D in total than all other countries except for China, Japan, Germany, India and South Korea. Academic R&D performance varies considerably from country to country. While U.S. academia performs about 15% of the total U.S. R&D, U.K. academia performs about 26% of that country’s R&D, Sweden’s academia performs about 13%, Russia’s only about 5%, Norway’s about 31% of their total, Japan’s about 12%, France’s about 20%, and Canada’s academic institutions perform about 35% of the nation’s total R&D. Federal funding accounts for about 52% of all U.S. academic R&D in 2020, with industrial funding providing 11% of the funds and other state sources providing 5%. The sources of funds for the countries noted above vary similarly as the performance values vary. Federal funds for U.S. academic R&D have risen for four consecutive years according to data from the NSF’s Higher Education R&D (HERD) survey. With the strong rise in federal R&D funding in the FY2020 budget, that trend is likely to continue in 2020. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) component of the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) has the largest federal government R&D budget, accounting for nearly 55% of all government R&D funding ($41.9 billion in FY2018). R&D expenditures funded by the universities’ own sources were about $20.4 billion in FY2018. This amount was 26% of the total HERD survey and about 55% of the total nonfederal academic R&D funding. Foreign sources of academic R&D funding are also captured in the HERD survey managed by the National Science Foundation (NSF). According to this survey, about $1.3 billion in foreign funds supported HERD in FY2018. These foreign sources consisted of $546 million WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
U.S. ACADEMIC SPENDING ON R&D Rank
Institution
2017
2018
(000 USD)
(000 USD)
1 Johns Hopkins University
2,562,000
2,661,000
2 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
1,530,000
1,601,000
3 University of California, San Francisco
1,409,000
1,596,000
4 University of Pennsylvania
1,374,000
1,442,000
5 University of Washington, Seattle
1,348,000
1,414,000
6 University of California, Los Angeles
1,077,000
1,318,000
7 University of California, San Diego
1,133,000
1,265,000
8 University of Wisconsin, Madison
1,193,000
1,206,000
9 Harvard University
1,123,000
1,173,000
10 Duke University
1,127,000
1,168,000
11 Stanford University
1,110,000
1,158,000
12 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
1,102,000
1,136,000
13 Cornell University
984,000
1,072,000
14 University of Pittsburgh
940,000
1,007,000
15 Yale University
951,000
990,000
16 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
952,000
964,000
17 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
922,000
955,000
18 Columbia University, New York City
893,000
948,000
19 University of Texas, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
888,000
930,000
20 Texas A&M, College Station
905,000
922,000
21 Pennsylvania State University, Univ. Park
855,000
909,000
22 Georgia Institute of Technology
804,000
892,000
23 University of Southern California
764,000
892,000
24 New York University
918,000
888,000
25 Ohio State University
864,000
875,000
26 University of Florida
801,000
865,000
27 Washington University, Saint Louis
754,000
816,000
28 Northwestern University
752,000
806,000
29 University of California, Berkeley
771,000
797,000
30 University of California, Davis All institutions
738,000 75,328,000
789,000 79,436,000
Source: NCSE Statistics, NSF (NSF 20-302)
R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST
ACADEMIC R&D
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
2020 WORLD UNIVERSITY RESEARCH RANKINGS from foreign industry, $273 million from foreign nonprofit organizations, $253 million from foreign governments, $118 million from foreign academia and $68 million from all other foreign sources. Higher Education R&D Expenditures, by type of cost (Source: NSF, FY2018) Direct Costs • Salaries, wages, benefits • Software purchases • Capitalized equipment • Subrecipient costs 8.0% • Other direct costs (travel, supplies, consultants)
76.9% 43.8% 0.2% 2.7%
Indirect costs • Recovered • Unrecovered
23.1% 16.1% 7.0%
TOP R&D UNIVERSITIES
22.2%
2020 Research Rank
2019 Research Rank
1
1
2
2
2020 Research Score
2020 Overall Rank *
University of Oxford, U.K.
99.6
1
University of Cambridge, U.K.
98.7
3
3
3
Harvard University, U.S.
98.6
7
4
4
California Institute of Technology, U.S.
97.9
2
5
5
Stanford University, U.S.
96.4
4
6
7
Princeton University, U.S.
96.3
6
7
8
Yale University, U.S.
94.8
8
8
6
Tsinghua University, China
94.0
23
9
11
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
92.8
13
10
9
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, U.S.
92.4
5
11
13
University of Chicago, U.S.
91.4
9
12
12
Johns Hopkins University, U.S.
91.4
12
13
10
University of California, Berkeley, U.S.
90.6
13
14
16
National University of Singapore, Singapore
90.4
25
15
15
University of Pennsylvania, U.S.
90.4
11
The top R&D spending universities shown on the 16 27 Peking University, China 90.0 24 nearby table accounted for about 42% of the total 17 19 The University of Tokyo, Japan 89.6 36 spent within the higher education sector in 2018 (in this situation, 2018 represents the school years 18 20 University of Toronto, Canada 89.5 18 starting on July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018. The 19 14 UCL, U.K. 88.7 15 data was collected for the NSF from a census of 915 20 17 University of California, Los Angeles, U.S. 88.6 17 universities that grant bachelors’ degrees or higher 21 18 Imperial College London, U.K. 87.6 10 and spent at least $150,000 in school year 2018. The amounts reported in this section include all R&D 22 21 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, U.S. 86.1 21 funds spent on activities specifically organized to 23 22 Cornell University, U.S. 86.0 19 produce research outcomes and sponsored by an 24 23 Northwestern University, U.S. 83.8 22 outside organization or by using institution funds. 25 25 London School of Economics and Political Science, U.K. 83.0 27 These do not include FFRDC (federally funded R&D centers). * Overall ranking is based on teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income. While the federal government continues as the Source: Times Higher Education largest provider of R&D funds to academia, its share of R&D funds has seen a slow decline over the past decade. In contrast, academia’s share of R&D spending has grown in recent U.S. academic infrastructure has taken a small hit over the past years to reach historically high share levels. several years. For one thing, the total research space in academia has Over the past 30 years, the distribution of academic R&D spending only risen slightly (1.4% from 2013 to 2015) the slowest growth rate in has shifted in favor of life sciences (i.e., NIH) and away from the physical 30 years. About 16% of the space needs renovation, and 4% needs to sciences (i.e., DOE, NIST). Engineering R&D, however, has grown faster be replaced. And equipment spending is only about 3.1% of the total over the past decade than has R&D in the life sciences but still only academic R&D budget, again the lowest rate in 30 years. accounts for about a third as much as federally supported life science R&D ($12.3 billion vs $45.8 billion). Non-science and engineering fields GLOBAL ACADEMIC R&D of R&D, such as education, business and humanities, account for less The Times Higher Education (THE) university rankings in 2020 evaluated than 6% of total R&D spending sponsored by the federal government. nearly 1,400 global universities from 92 countries. The rankings are Public universities rely more heavily than private universities on state based on surveys relating to the individual universities’ teaching (30%), and local government funding — 8% versus 1%. Public universities also rely research (30%), citations (30%), international outlook (7.5%) and industry slightly more heavily on their own funds for their R&D work — 27% versus income (2.5%). The numbers for each university are standardized and 21%. Private universities also receive a larger share of their R&D funding calculated with a cumulative probability function utilizing a version from the federal government (60% versus 51%) and also slightly more on of z-scoring. THE rankings have been created for 50 years and are business support (7% versus 5%) and nonprofit funding (8% versus 6%). utilized by university leaders, industry and governments to evaluate
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R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST
ACADEMIC R&D
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ACADEMIC R&D BY FEDERAL AGENCY SOURCE, 2019 MILLIONS OF USD
Source: National Science Foundation, NSF 20-302 their own performance. The results can be evaluated according to specific categories as noted in the nearby table listing the top 25 global universities ranked by research capabilities. THE also provides data on institutional income per academic with notable changes seen in individual countries. U.K. incomes have risen by 6.5% between 2016 and 2020, while German academia has risen 38%, China’s by 57.1%, and U.S. academic incomes rising by 12.5%. The income gains made by each country’s institutions are in part responsible for the gains or losses in THE rankings. As shown in the table, 14 of the top 25 research universities reside in the U.S., five are in the U.K., two are in China and one each resides in Japan, Switzerland, Singapore and Canada. Of the top 200 THE 2020 universities, 60 reside in the U.S., 28 in the U.K., 23 in Germany, 11 each in Australia and the Netherlands, seven each in Canada, China and Switzerland, six in South Korea and five each in France, Hong Kong and Sweden. For 2020, the U.K. dropped from 34 in THE 2019 rankings, Germany and Australia each gained three in the top 200 and China gained two. China continues to enhance and support its higher education system, and its position in the THE rankings continues to rise each year. The number of U.S. universities ranked has slowly declined over the past five years due primarily to the gains made by universities in other countries, rather than that capabilities of U.S. institutions are declining. The international higher education market has become increasingly competitive over the past several years. The trend pushes the non-U.S. universities harder to their programs are genuinely world class. &
2018 HERD SURVEY RESULTS 2018
% Change
Millions USD
2017-18
Computer and information sciences
2,401
9.5%
Geo/atmospheric/ocean sciences
3,162
0.3%
45,844
6.3%
753
7.4%
Physical sciences
5,238
3.7%
Psychology
1,263
1.8%
Social sciences
2,747
7.4%
Aerospace engineering
1,012
2.1%
Bio engineering
1,340
9.8%
934
-0.2%
Civil engineering
1,360
4.4%
Electrical engineering
2,847
4.4%
515
45.8%
1,629
6.0%
764
3.7%
4,618
7.6%
79,286
5.5%
Life sciences Mathematics/statistics
Chemical engineering
Manufacturing engineering Mechanical engineering Materials engineering Non-science/engineering All R&D fields
THIS SUMMARY OF THE GLOBAL R&D FUNDING FORECAST PRESENTS A FEW OF THE HIGHLIGHTS FOUND IN THE FULL GFF. THE FULL REPORT INCLUDES DATA ON INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES AND REGIONS AS WELL AS A MORE IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION OF TRENDS. YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO ACCESS IT AT RDWORLDONLINE.COM/GFF.
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Source: National Science Foundation, NSF 20-302
R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
INDUSTRIAL R&D
Innovation via industry IN THE U.S. about 66% of the R&D is performed by industrial organizations, 27% is performed by the federal government and the remaining 7% is performed by academia and non-profit organizations. In Mexico, those ratios are about 51% by industry, 19% by government and 27% by academia. In Sweden it’s 74% by industry, 13% by government and 13% by academia. And in Switzerland, it’s 74% by industry, 2% by government and 22% by academia. The remaining R&D is performed by non-profits and other government organizations. The global average for industryperformed R&D performance is 67.2%, which equates to $1.636 trillion of the global total of $2.434 trillion. R&D efforts are often related to the innovative capabilities of an organization or country. As such, there are a number of organizations that have developed global innovation indices for countries. These indices are employed to rank the countries according to their levels of innovation. The ranking organizations utilize a complex (and often proprietary) system of indicators to create their indices and then publish them on an annual basis. Organizations publishing these annual competitive ranking systems include: IMD World Competitiveness Rankings (formerly the International Institute for Management Development) is in Lausanne, Switzerland, and has published an annual World Competitive Yearbook since 1989. These rankings take into account unemployment, GDP, and government spending on health, along with social cohesion and globalization. The data fall into four categories: economic performance, government efficiency and business efficiency.
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The Global Competitiveness Report 2019 is published annually by the World Economic Forum, which is headquartered in Cologny, Switzerland. These reports have been published since 1979. This index maps the competitiveness of 141 economies through 103 indicators, which are organized into 12 themes. These themes include an enabling environment, human capital, markets, an innovation system and R&D. The Center for Global Innovation Studies at Toyo University in Japan, publishes a Global Innovation Index, which ranks the innovation performance for 60 countries. The rankings are based on the integration of 58 indexes from five fields: international cooperation, market trends, technological innovation, resourcefulness and relevant policies. The Bloomberg International Labour Organization, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, has published its Bloomberg Innovation Index for the past seven years. Individual country innovation rankings are calculated from scores of criteria using seven metrics, including R&D spending, manufacturing capabilities, concentration of high-tech companies, researcher concentration, patent activity and productivity. The Global Innovation Index 2019 (GII) is co-published annually by Cornell University, INSEAD (Institut Europeen d’Adminstration des Affaires, headquartered near Paris), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, an agency of the United Nations). GII country data are collected on institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, business sophistication, knowledge and technology inputs and creative inputs. The top 15 countries from these indices (based on WII as a starting point) are shown in the nerby table. The average top five innovation rankings include Switzerland, Singapore, the U.S., Sweden and the Netherlands. Looking at these rankings and competitive scores, it is clear that Asia-Pacific is the most competitive region in
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST
INDUSTRIAL R&D
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
GLOBAL INNOVATION INDICES, 2019 GII 2019 Rank
2019 GII
GII Index Score
Bloomberg Innovation 2019
Bloomberg 2019 Index Score
IMD World Compet. Ranking
Toyo Univ. Global Innov Index
Toyo Score
WEF Global Compet Index
WEF Score
Average Rank
1
Switzerland
67.24
4
85.49
4
3
57.5
5
82.3
3.2
2
Sweden
63.65
7
84.15
9
8
55.1
8
81.2
6.8
3
United States
61.73
8
83.21
3
9
54.9
2
83.7
5.0
4
Netherlands
61.44
15
79.54
6
12
54.5
4
82.4
8.2
5
United Kingdom
61.30
18
75.87
23
10
54.8
9
81.2
13.0
6
Finland
59.83
3
85.57
15
13
54.1
11
80.2
9.6
7
Denmark
58.44
11
81.66
8
11
54.6
10
81.2
9.4
8
Singapore
58.37
6
84.49
1
1
60.1
1
84.8
3.4
9
Germany
58.19
2
87.30
17
20
52.3
7
81.8
11.0
10
Israel
57.43
5
84.78
24
26
50.8
20
76.7
17.0
11
South Korea
56.55
1
87.38
28
29
50.2
13
79.6
16.4
12
Ireland
56.10
14
80.08
7
6
55.7
24
75.1
12.6
13
Hong Kong
55.54
38
58.90
2
NA
NA
3
83.1
14.0
14
China
54.82
16
78.35
14
15
53.4
28
73.9
17.4
15
Japan
54.68
9
81.96
30
32
49.2
6
82.3
18.4
Source: Global Innovation Index, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Bloomberg L.P., World Economic Forum, Toyo University the world, Nordic countries are among the world’s most technologically advanced, innovative and dynamic while also providing better living conditions and social protection. U.S. innovation rankings have rebounded in 2019 after falling slightly for several years over the past decade. Faster product cycles and intensifying competition are changing the ways managers have to work, according to a Pfizer Inc. presentation at a recent conference on health care. “Mediocre or incremental innovation is not going to be rewarded the way they used to be,” said Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO. “We need to make sure that we change the way that we operate so that we can remove bureaucratic processes. Innovation and bureaucracy, like water and oil, don’t mix well together.” China’s innovation scores are also improving as of late. China has strong patent activity based on the strength of R&D at Huawei Technologies Co., but as seen in these innovation rankings, that country still lags behind most other innovative countries in its overall productivity levels. According to R&D World magazine’s reader survey, more than half of survey respondents say
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their organizations have increased their innovation levels over the past three years (2017 to 2019). Less than 14% of respondents say their organization’s innovations declined over the same period. When asked what their innovation goals were in this reader survey, nearly 60% said the creation of more cost-effective products and processes was their biggest goal. Another 44% put the creation of new capabilities and more efficient products and processes at the top of their innovation goals. &
THIS SUMMARY OF THE GLOBAL R&D FUNDING FORECAST PRESENTS A FEW OF THE HIGHLIGHTS FOUND IN THE FULL GFF. THE FULL REPORT INCLUDES DATA ON INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES AND REGIONS AS WELL AS A MORE IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION OF TRENDS. YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO ACCESS IT AT RDWORLDONLINE.COM/GFF.
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE GLOBAL RESEARCHER
Current R&D challenges TECHNOLOGY GROWTH IN THE R&D ENVIRONMENT appears to be continuous and without much letup or increase in the rate of change. According to the respondents to R&D World magazine’s 2020 Global R&D Funding Forecast reader survey, performed in September 2019, most researchers have seen significant technology changes over the past year (September 2018 to September 2019). 89% of the survey respondents experienced technology growth in their industry, while only 6% saw a slowdown in their industry’s technology growth. The rate of technology change is likely accelerating, but the acceleration rate is remaining close to the same each year we collect data for our R&D Funding Forecasts.
Generation Space Telescope in 1996 and as a replacement for the NASA/ESA developed Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST was originally scheduled to launch in 2007. JWST is billed as one of the most technically complex satellites ever and will be situated at the Earth’s Lagrangian point (L2) 1.5 million miles from its surface. Following 14 years of multiple technical delays, the telescope now is scheduled to launch in March 2021 following a 2018 official project review. It’s estimated final cost is now close to $10 billion, 25 times more than its original estimate. Other R&D challenges brought out by R&D World magazine’s surveys include: funding sources, the rapid pace of technological change, new technologies and sociological issues, technical staffing shortages, aging infrastructures, inflation and its effects on increasing costs, global competition, economic disruptions and corporate pressures to improve performance. R&D managers say it is more difficult to find skilled R&D staff than it was even 12 months ago. In 2019, about 65% of survey respondents found it difficult to find skilled R&D staff. In 2020, that figure has risen to 71%. Part of the issue is that the overall U.S. unemployment rate in August 2018 was 3.9%. In August 2019, when the latest Funding Forecast survey deployed, the
To collect data on the trends in R&D performance for this report, the editors of R&D World magazine create and deploy annual electronic reader surveys. Responses for last year’s 2019 R&D Funding Forecast resembled survey results collected for this report — within 1% of each other. To create these reports, three surveys are deployed annually, generally with about two to three weeks separating them. Each survey has about twenty distinctive TECHNOLOGY CHANGES questions. For the 2020 Funding Forecast, the editors received more than 2,100 responses, which is definitely statistically significant, and the results are considered reliable. A review of the responses from R&D World magazine’s reader surveys reveals respondents’ over-riding concerns with costs. Operating costs, capital costs, materials costs, production costs, staffing costs — but always costs. It is clear that reliable cost prediction and reduction are both important. If an R&D project is late, costs will be larger as well. A classic, but extreme, example concerns one of the largest R&D projects ever created — the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) being developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Originally designed as the Next Source: R&D World magazine
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SEEN IN THE PAST YEAR
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE GLOBAL RESEARCHER
DIFFICULT TO FIND SKILLED STAFF?
unemployment rate had dropped to 3.5%, where it still remains and is forecast to continue for the foreseeable future. Part of the staffing shortage relief in the past for R&D managers was the ability to hire skilled immigrants. MS and PhD-qualified personnel could be hired on as interns in many high-technology positions, especially in U.S. government labs. That option has been diminished on several fronts, as immigration laws have become more restrictive, especially for selective countries in the Middle East and South East Asia. And while the rules are increasingly restrictive on who can enter the U.S., the actual process for those immigrants has become more complex and time-consuming. The overall approval process has lengthened from several months to now often more than a year. The complexity of it all discourages potential immigrants, some of whom decide not to pursue a position in the U.S. and either apply to enter another country or just stay where they are. In particular, many Asian students studying in U.S. universities have historically found positions within the U.S. This scenario has also changed. Many now retrun to their homeland following graduation where they are well received. Additionally,
Source: R&D World magazine foreign students increasingly find that their own country’s academic institutions have improved substantially over the past five to ten years to a point where they are now competitive with U.S. academic institutions. And there are jobs for them at home when they finish. Chinese academia is also actively recruiting professor-level teachers and researchers from U.S. academic institutions along with substantial incentives to move. In China, these U.S. professionals can teach, perform research (with much less work to get funded than in the U.S.) and become more and faster recognized for their scientific accomplishments.
EXPECTED R&D STAFF CHANGES IN 2020
Source: R&D World magazine
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Net, U.S. R&D managers have an increasingly smaller skilled R&D worker pool to draw from than they have in the past. The forecast also is not dramatically positive for the foreseeable future. These statistical trends also show up in the expectations that U.S. research managers see in their immediate R&D plans. The overall U.S. economy has been surprisingly strong for more than 10 years and is expected to continue expanding into 2020. This expansion contrasts with the rest of the world where economic growth is slowing and even stalling. China’s automotive sector, for example, has shrunk over the past six months with some Chinese companies, including automotive dealerships, now threatened with closure because of reduced demand. Foreign automotive companies in China, such as General Motors and Ford Motor Co., are not immune to these events and their sales as well have declined. The continuing U.S.-China trade disputes throughout 2019 has only exacerbated this situation with little “light seen at the end of the tunnel.” And a smaller or shrinking economy also has the effect of smaller or shrinking R&D budgets as well. Nevertheless, with a growing U.S. economy and despite the specter of a shrinking U.S. job force, R&D managers continue to be optimistic. They expect to grow their R&D staffs in 2020. In 2019,
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FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE GLOBAL RESEARCHER
IS CREATING A NEW R&D BUDGET MORE/LESS DIFFICULT?
Source: R&D World magazine
about 45% of the survey respondents expected to add personnel while 10% expected to make cuts. But 50% of R&D managers now expect to increase their R&D staffs in 2020 while less than 8% expect to cut them. One of the 2020 Global R&D Funding Forecast survey questions queried researchers about the difficulty of creating a 2020 R&D budget. Some 52% of the respondents said budgeting was more difficult in 2020 than in 2017. Only 13% of respondents felt budgeting was easier now than three years ago. We found the same sentiment in responses submitted in last year’s (2019) R&D Funding Forecast. The factors making R&D budgets more difficult to create than in the past include accounting for expected R&D staffing shortages which, as noted earlier, is likely to be slightly more severe in 2020 than it was in 2019. Continuing high technology advances also complicate the creation of budgets. Artificial intelligence technologies continue to be more complex, as do autonomous implementations. This is especially true in the automotive industry and in other transportation modes, include aircraft. Autonomous aircraft, however, are even further down the road than driverless automotive and trucking systems. Interestingly, there has been no discussion of AI-assisted R&D budget creation in the literature but likely could be a future topic.
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R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
Further complicating the creation of R&D budgets for 2020 is the continuing slowdown of the overall global economy. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) October global economic forecast pegs the U.S. economy to grow by about 2.2%, slower than 2018’s 2.5% growth. This deacceleration creates more caution in committing to numerous R&D investments. &
THIS SUMMARY OF THE GLOBAL R&D FUNDING FORECAST PRESENTS A FEW OF THE HIGHLIGHTS FOUND IN THE FULL GFF. THE FULL REPORT INCLUDES DATA ON INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES AND REGIONS AS WELL AS A MORE IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION OF TRENDS. YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO ACCESS IT AT RDWORLDONLINE.COM/GFF.
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE GLOBAL RESEARCHER
Creating an R&D Budget THE ASSEMBLY OF an R&D budget is a
FACTORS IN CREATING THE 2020 R&D BUDGET
complicated process, often involving inputs from multiple organizations and/or departments. It also involves getting approvals from supervisors, from supervisors’ supervisors, and from other people with whom you may not work outside budgeting times. There are multiple factors involved in creating an R&D budget, from revenue growth to operating costs to capital requirements and—not least of all— administrative support. Most components in an R&D budget require input from other areas where people have specific expertise. That expertise is essential for obtaining accurate data that will hold up to final “down the road” analyses and management approval. Guesswork and rough estimates will not work in the creation of a detailed R&D budget, no matter the size of the organization or the bottom-line final budget. A starting point for an R&D budget is an evaluation of previous R&D budget submissions, an investigation of the comments provided at the time, and the final results and analysis. There is no need to recreate the wheel--previous budgets are an excellent place to start. A secondary area to evaluate is a breakdown of the overall
CONCERNS WITH 2020 R&D
Source: R&D World magazine
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Source: R&D World magazine
components. The capital requirements, for example, are often created by specific divisions within the overall organization. These divisions will have details on how monies for specific capital are obtained, which often depends on the amount of the allocation required. They will also know how the capital is itemized and labeled for legal and tax purposes. A whole new research lab BUDGET is entirely different than a magnetic resonance imaging instrument, yet both are large capital items that require extensive manufacturing and research engineering support. Some organizations are more capital intensive than others and often the capital budget will be written separately from the R&D budget. Except for specific situations, such as instrumentation, what is capitalized and what is not capitalized should be left to those who are supremely experienced in it, as the rules and regulations can change annually. Capital also is defined differently between organizations, but it is generally one of the three factors of production, the other two being labor and land. Other mostly independent financial factors in the R&D budget--such as revenue growth, operating costs, inflation, and the general economy’s effects on the R&D budget--are often delegated or heavily supported by
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FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE GLOBAL RESEARCHER
WHAT AFFECTS R&D FUNDING?
Source: R&D World magazine
the organization’s financial and accounting divisions. The organization’s R&D budget is often an interactive “live” document which requires extensive discussions between all parties, especially among R&D personnel who most-often have “corporate” ownership of the document and budget. Manufacturing, for example, is often responsible for pilot production of a new device or process. Yet, that function will rely on technical R&D personnel to provide detailed information on new materials, energy requirements, safety issues, regulatory concerns, sustainability potential, and legal ownership, among many other items that the manufacturing personnel (or most other organizational divisions) will not understand or be able to accurately address.
2020 R&D CONCERNS When it comes to technology concerns, insufficient time, money and staff for R&D are still relevant, only more so. Items of concern in 2020 that are either new or substantially greater than in previous years include increased sustainability requirements, dramatically increased environmental and potential health issues — both short-
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R&D WORLD | FEBRUARY 2020
and long-term; and the continuing and increasingly restrictive skilled staffing shortages. Entire countries and governments are committing to environmental energy and materials usage requirements that, up to now, had not even been discussed. And the deadlines for these changes is increasingly short-term, with some regions targeting 2030 as a deadline for becoming carbon-neutral. Always a concern for R&D is the shortening life cycles of technologies. R&D organizations have consistently been accused of taking the shorter route to new development because this path is easier and requires fewer resources. This premise may be valid, but the alternative — working on technologies that are more complex — has the disadvantage that once developed, they may be out-of-date technologically and no longer competitive. The “half-life” of new technologies shortening and researchers must factor that reality into their research plans. Another concerning facet of new technological development is that new technology, once fully developed and put into production, may have unforeseen negative effects or failure-modes. Researchers are notorious for
pushing the limits of materials and stretching design capabilities. Aging infrastructures are another R&D concern, and here economics often rears its ugly head. Often failures result from a lack of maintenance and inspections, as in bridge structures.
R&D FUNDING EFFECTS Surely, technology issues can affect R&D funding, especially when the technology development is not completed on time or within expected limits. According to the 2020 Global R&D Funding Forecast reader surveys, new technologies are the biggest issue that could affect R&D funding. Close behind are the organization’s R&D strategy and overall growth. All three, individually or in concert, could work to boost R&D funding. When preparing an R&D budget, contingency plans or budget allocations should be provided for losses of R&D funding resources that were not expected or planned. A failed piece of essential equipment, the closure of a valued supplier, or the disruption of a needed facility can all be expensive-toremedy losses for the R&D work flow. &
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2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE GLOBAL RESEARCHER
The R&D Budget R&D BUDGET CHANGES IN 2020 ABOUT HALF OF THE RESPONDENTS to the 2020 Global R&D Funding Forecast survey expect their 2020 R&D budgets to rise. More than a third also expect to see their capital budgets increase and their organization’s participation in alliances grow as well. Only 16% of the respondents expect to see their acquisition of outside intellectual property (IP) increase and less than 15% expect to boost their IP licensing operations. These survey results are quite similar to those in the 2019 survey. Changes in an R&D budget can have varying effects on the different budget components. Most components — capital (18% of the overall budget), materials (18%), salaries (20%), supplies (15%), outsourcing (15%) and overhead (14%) — are calculated at mostly fixed rates for the year (except for salaries) and only change due to inflation rates or multi-year contractual agreements. But changes in the R&D budget are still bound to appear. Some organizations now rebudget quarterly or even monthly so they can make real-time adjustments in a changing economic environment. Regularly changing budgets are more difficult to track. But they make it easier to ensure R&D projects stay focused and on schedule. Regularly changing R&D budgets can also more quickly expose out-of-control expenses that are in jeopardy of creating program delays. Regularly changing R&D budgets are also more volatile than
CHANGES IN R&D TYPES
Source: R&D World magazine annual budget protocols and may be too complex for organizations with foreign operations. An organization’s foreign R&D operations may choose to create and track their own budgeted R&D operations to avoid issues with currency inequalities or conversions. The changes in an organization’s R&D budget can also vary from year to year depending on the specific type of R&D perform or budgeted. A large technology acquisition or merger may bring extensive variations in the resulting new R&D organization. The purchase of a basic research operation by a mostly development of production-based operation could easily result in an operation with a mixture of basic research and development operations (and budgets) It also could have some new applied research operations as well to bridge the technology gap between basic research and product development. According to the respondents to the 2020 funding forecast survey, all types of R&D are expected to see substantial funding increases in 2020. 43% of the respondents expect funding for their basic research operations to increase in 2020, for applied research this ratio jumps to 54% and for product development this ratio jumps once again to 62%. & Source: R&D World magazine
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THE GLOBAL RESEARCHER
The future of R&D ONE CAN ALMOST SEE the future of R&D in current biopharmaceutical research labs: There are often no researchers in attendance. Yet the instrumentation is humming away, and automated loading and unloading systems are quietly and smoothly shuffling sample trays. Data is detected, collected and automatically loaded into digital files which are available immediately in real-time to remote researchers (in the same building or possibly even in another country). On visits to these types of facilities, the only researchers visible are in meeting or lecture
rooms. Even the primary investigator’s offices often are either empty or off site. These types of labs can and often do run at least two shifts; peak periods can see three shifts and personnel working weekends. Researchers can load samples and consumables on a Friday afternoon and collect results Sunday night or Monday morning from tests running unattended all weekend. This setup was designed for evaluating large numbers of small biological or environmental samples. This process can also be evolved to test autonomous vehicles on a test track, the charge and discharge cycles of electrified vehicles, rates of environmental exposure-related
FUTURE R&D THREATS
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degradation, and photovoltaic operation and life tests. The next level of testing and experimentation of physical samples is also underway in the creation of software-based physical modeling systems which are getting ever closer to real-life physical testing. The 2020 Global R&D Funding Forecast queried readers about what they saw as the technologies likely to be important three years from now (2023). The only technologies with a small number of responses (space technologies (9%), quantum computing (11%), hybrid processing (12%) and bionanotechnology (15%)) are those in the early stages of development or in narrow fields of high complexity. Major technologies seen as rising in importance include artificial intelligence (AI), 40%, and information technology (IT), 39%. These areas have both garnered large responses in multiple surveys over the past several years. AI development is still within its early formative stages. Today, AI constitutes only a crude and basic form of intelligence. It does not yet make what we could call intelligent decisions. Many of the AI systems portrayed in movies are further advanced than what the current technology provides, but things are improving. Robotic eye surgery for cataracts in Russia has been in place since 1985 and does an excellent job, but it’s not really an AI system as Source: R&D World magazine
WWW.RDWORLDONLINE.COM
2020
GLOBAL R&D
FUNDING FORECAST EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE GLOBAL RESEARCHER
FORECAST OF MOST IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGIES IN 2023
Source: R&D World magazine much as an assembly line. The Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL)-developed Mars rovers have more built-in intelligent capabilities, but again are primarily expert systems rather than AI-assisted systems. AI is being targeted for healthcare support systems, and robotic delivery systems are being developed and used. Amazon is developing similar AI-assisted systems for its massive warehousing and delivery systems, as is Walmart. AI will continue to evolve. The largest threats to future R&D efforts will involve competition from domestic competitors (50% of the responses from the funding forecast survey) and Chinese competitors (44% of the responses). European and non-China Asian competitors (i.e., Japan, South Korea and Singapore) are not considered major R&D threat by survey responders. &
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THIS SUMMARY OF THE GLOBAL R&D FUNDING FORECAST PRESENTS A FEW OF THE HIGHLIGHTS FOUND IN THE FULL GFF. THE FULL REPORT INCLUDES DATA ON INDIVIDUAL COUNTRIES AND REGIONS AS WELL AS A MORE IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION OF TRENDS. YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO ACCESS IT AT RDWORLDONLINE.COM/GFF.
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SwRI’s R&D 100 Award Winners Advance Science The two 2019 R&D 100 Award-winning technologies developed by teams at Southwest Research Institute are having significant impacts on national security and in offshore oil and gas production. The AF-369 VHF/UHF Terrestrial Direction-Finding Antenna’s novel sleeved electric dipoles boast 80% more usable bandwidth and provide 10 times the sensitivity of other commercially available DF antennas, significantly reducing cost and complexity. The Lotus Superhydrophobic Compositions and Coating Process (LotusFlo™) creates a glass-like coating to repel substances that clog piping in offshore oil wells. In a vacuum, accelerated ionized molecules attach themselves to interior walls of linked sections of pipe to produce the slippery surface.
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