Chancellor Loren Crabtree announced in March 2003 the formation of the International Materials Institute, a joint UT College of Engineering-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Neutron Institute to be headed by UT’s Dr. Peter Liaw. The core funding for the effort came from $3.6 million from the National Science Foundation. Of more than 70 proposals for international materials institute grants, the NSF awarded three: UT, Princeton, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The Spallation Neutron Source in Oak Ridge presented a unique resource for the application of neutron scattering in materials research. Additional funding for the institute came from UT’s Tennessee Advanced Materials Laboratory, the Center for Materials Processing, and the Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences. The NSF grant established the International Materials Institute at UT as part of an Advanced Neutron Scattering Network for Education and Research, or ANSWER.