The establishment of this major organizational experiment had its roots in suggestions from various quarters. Prominent among the formative influences was a group of industrial-research leaders from the major materials-consuming industries (General Electric, Bell Telephone Labs., etc.) who urged the government to upgrade the universities’ capabilities for conducting the very expensive and sophisticated materials research, as well as the associated graduate educational programs, which modern technology demanded. Meanwhile, within the government, the AEC’s Metallurgy and Materials Branch Advisory Panel recommended in December, 1955, that the AEC’s program of fundamental materials research be significantly expanded. In addition to other opinions, the Panel stated that the primary need was for additional laboratory and office space, particularly at universities. The Panel concluded that many universities had reached the limit of their facilities for training graduate students in the materials sciences and recommended that the AEC find ways of accelerating the construction of such research facilities. Early in 1956*, four universities submitted proposals for the formation of materials research institutes:

These proposals were considered but not funded because of such questions as federal involvement in education and whether it was appropriate for the federal government to construct buildings on university campuses.

The issue was revived during the summer of 1958 when AEC, NASA, DoD, and NSF representatives met to discuss what could be done to alleviate the shortage of scientific manpower and research capabilities in the universities. At its first meeting on March 24, 1959, the Federal Council on Science and Technology (FCST) created the Coordinating Committee on Materials Research and Development (CCMRD) to advise it on the nation’s materials problems. The Committee was composed of representatives from each of the national agencies concerned with materials.

In its first report presented at the April 28, 1959 meeting of the Federal Council on Science and Technology, the Committee stated that it found one of the major limitations to the nation’s materials research efforts to be

a shortage of technical manpower and the needed laboratory space and equipment. The Committee recommended, among other things, approval in principle of the establishment of interdisciplinary laboratories for materials research to be built on university campuses as a means of correcting the situation. The FCST accepted the Committee’s recommendations.

Subsequently the AEC, the DoD through its Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), and somewhat later NASA, initiated their programs of block support for materials centers at several universities.

The concept of block funding, with some degree of assurance of continuity, was new in the early 1960’s. It was believed this form of support would provide the following advantages: