In 1988 a biomaterials industry panel was chartered by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering to address needs and opportunities in materials science and engineering as perceived by the biomaterials industry. This report was subsequently consolidated with similar reports from panels in the other materials science areas into a comprehensive National Research Council (NRC) report, Materials Science and Engineering for the 1990s: Maintaining Competitiveness in the Age of Materials, issued by the National Academy Press in late 1989.

After reading the NRC report, D. Alan Bromley, science adviser to President Bush, decided that materials science would be one of five priorities for research in the current aclministration. In a letter to Frank Press, January 1990, Bromley praised this report and encouraged the Academy to have regional meetings to stimulate action on the local level. It was felt that these regional meetings would offer materials scientists and engineers the opportunity to organize themselves and, cooperating with industry and federal laboratories, take the initiative to address the needs identified in the NRC report. Bromley encouraged structuring these meetings, to the extent possible, to produce items that could be considered for the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) agenda.