News

August 2008

Message from the NUFO Steering Committee

The NUFO Steering Committee has been working on the foundations on which NUFO will operate since its meeting in April and its adoption of a charter. The Steering Committee meets monthly via teleconference and has agreed to meet in person twice each year, once at the annual meeting and once between annual meetings. The Committee has set an aggressive agenda for itself and much progress has been made over the summer. The following summarizes what has been accomplished and what is currently underway.

Task Force on the Future of American Innovation

Mike Lubell, Director of Public Affairs at the American Physical Society, and members of the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation, have asked for NUFO’s help in collecting user demographic data to support Task Force initiatives, as well as furnish users to participate in outreach initiatives. The Steering Committee agreed to provide data by January 1, 2009. Decisions on content and method of collection need to be finalized.

An Energy Innovation Infrastructure Meeting is planned for March 2009 in Washington DC, with the objective of demonstrating to the new Congress the connection between national user facilities, national laboratories, and constituents in their own districts. The message to be conveyed is that national laboratories and national user facilities are key to advancing the American Competitiveness Initiative and need appropriate funding. More information on the Task Force can be found at: http://www.futureofinnovation.org.

The Task Force meets weekly via telephone conference and members of the NUFO Steering Committee now participate in these conference calls. NUFO has asked to become a formal member of this group.

Outreach

An important component of NUFO’s mission is to provide a unified message at the national level on issues of resources for science, economic competitiveness, and education for the next-generation scientific workforce. With that in mind, the Steering Committee is currently putting together agenda of outreach efforts for the upcoming year. More details will be provided to the membership shortly.

NUFO Web Page

The NUFO web pages are continually being enhanced. Check it out at http://www.nufo.org.

2009 NUFO Annual Meeting

The next NUFO Annual Meeting will be held at Argonne National Laboratory on June 11-12, 2009. Mark your calendars. The Steering Committee has invited Pat Dehmer to give the keynote.

One-page Facility Flyers

One-page facility flyers will be available on the NUFO web page shortly. These can be used by individuals involved in outreach efforts.