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Statement by the President Announcing a Contract for a Materials Research Laboratory at the University of North Carolina.

October 12, 1961

RESULTS of more specialized materials research in recent years have indeed had a revolutionary impact in a number of existing non-military technologies, that of the communications industry being a prime example. Application of new materials and processes has contributed greatly to the explosive growth of such vital new industries as electronic data processing and computers. They have also made feasible the development of essential hardware for unprecedented technical advances under extreme environmental conditions such as space exploration and new rocket components.

Recognizing that critical qualities of national programs in defense and space exploration would depend on strong reinforcement of national capabilities for materials research and development, the Defense Department, acting on the advice of the Federal Council for Science and Technology and the President's Science Advisory Committee, has already established eight interdisciplinary laboratories at universities. These new ventures in which the universities have undertaken to assemble faculties and students and to create advanced facilities, will for the first time combine modern progress in solid state physics, chemistry, metallurgy, mechanics, applied mathematics and other related fields. Accordingly, the programs will also train unprecedented numbers and kinds of materials specialists who have previously been offered higher education only specifically as metallurgists, solid state physicists, inorganic chemists, or experts in ceramics. Each of these new generations of students produced by the interdisciplinary laboratories will correspondingly have a broader competency in the challenging materials problems of the missile and space age than ever before.

Three important additions are now being made to the eight laboratories previously established. The University of North Carolina, along with the University of Maryland and Purdue University, comprise these latest three. The University of North Carolina was one of the first in its geographical region and one of the first State universities to qualify for this new national strengthening of science, technology and education. A particular feature of the interdisciplinary materials research laboratory program is its full observance of the long-term qualities of basic research. Accordingly, the University of North Carolina has received, along with the others, a novel four year support commitment so that full values of the continuing nature of research and education can be properly combined in this new venture.

Note: The statement was part of a White House release announcing a $1 million contract between the University of North Carolina and the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense. The release also recorded the President as saying that the contract had been awarded to the university "In recognition of its notable faculty and student body. The State of North Carolina can well be proud of the accomplishments of this great university, the first State University in the land."

John F. Kennedy, Statement by the President Announcing a Contract for a Materials Research Laboratory at the University of North Carolina. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/235758

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