The National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is a Presidential research and development (R&D) initiative, originally proposed by President Clinton in 2000 and supported by Presidents Bush and Obama. Each year the NNI’s member agencies draft and submit an annual NNI Supplement to the President’s Budget, which includes funding requests for nanotechnology R&D across the NNI participating agencies. Congress then approves or modifies those requests through its Authorization and Appropriation process. Through this process, and over the course of more than a decade since the inception of the NNI, Federal nanotechnology R&D funding has grown from $464 million per year to almost $1.8 billion requested in FY 2013, and the number of participating agencies has grown from six to 26. Fifteen participating agencies currently have nanotechnology R&D budgets.
The NNI was officially created in 2003 when Congress passed, and President George. W. Bush signed into law, the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, (P.L. 108-153).
