INTERFACES COOPERATION AND COLLABORATION ACROSS DISCIPLINES

Finding Computation and information technology provide a key enabling force for lowering barriers among the disciplines that comprise the chemical enterprise and closely related fields. 

Identification of mutual interests among disciplines and removal of the barriers to successful communication among constituencies are essential for increasing the overall effectiveness of the system. The processes of identification and removal are still in their infancy. 

Cooperation and collaboration across disciplines expand the intellectual freedom that people enjoy—the freedom to access the tools and capabilities to do one s work. The interface between information technology and the activities of chemists, chemical engineers, and allied disciplines is still in its infancy. The opportunity to build that architecture, which will revolutionize the future of the 

Research discoveries and innovative technological advances invariably accompany breakthroughs in computation and information technology. The advances to date in these areas make possible an even faster pace of discovery and innovation. Virtually every one of the discoveay and application opportunities mentioned in the previous chapter depeuds ou sustained advances in information technology. 

The opportunities at the chemical sdence-TT interface are enormous. Advances in each of the IT areas discussed here will benefit virtually all of the 

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Many additional examples of collaborative work were brought up during the workshop, and these are summarized in Appendix G (Interfaces). It is frequently difficult to identify the particular scientific accomplishment that have led to environmental improvements or enhanced environmental understanding, in large part because environmental studies are inherently multidisciplinary. Consequently, cooperation across disciplines—as described above and in Appendix G—will continue to be necessary to fully understand and solve environmental problems, so the list also represents research opportunities for the future. 

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