Panel Charge and Rationale

Before addressing questions of how chemistry must shift to meet future needs, it is imperative to understand its current health and international standing. At the request of the Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division, and the National Science Foundation Chemistry Division, the National Academies Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology performed an international benchmark- 

Some Competitiveness Indicators of Relevance to the Chemical Sciences as Noted in the Executive Summary of Rising Above the Gathering Storm 

SOURCE National Research Council, 2007, Rising Above the Gathering Storm Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, National Academies Press, Washington, D.C. 

The field of chemistry was benchmarked by an ad hoc panel consisting of 13 members, 12 from the United States and one from Switzerland, with expertise across the 11 selected areas covered in the report (to be discussed in Chapter 2), which are analytical, atmospheric, biological, chemical education, inorganic, macromolecules, materials and nanomaterials and nanoscience, nuclear/radiochemistry, organic, physical, and theory/computation. The panel was charged with addressing three specific questions  

The quantitative and qualitative measures employed to compare U.S. chemistry with that in other nations included analysis of journal publications (numbers of papers, citations of papers, most cited papers, most cited authors, most accessed papers), utilizing such sources as Thompson ISI Essential Science Indicators and data provided by the American Chemical Society Publications Division. In addition, the panel asked leading experts from the United States and abroad to identify the best of the best whom they would invite to an international conference in their subfield. The 

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