Planning — Current federal science and technology planning often employs a "road- mapping" activity. The name aptly describes the idea, which is to "map" out the territory separating a concept from its final realization. This exercise, a precursor to strategic planning, lays out various routes to achieving the goal and catalogs the existing and new resources required to travel along each possible road to success. The uncharted areas that need to be explored and the technological bridges that must be built before a given route can be traveled are laid out in the mapping stage. Advocates say that the ancillary benefits of the road-mapping process include building consensus among the participants and forming a constituency in support of the goal. Both of these benefits are particularly important for the Biorenewable Resources Consortium because its members have not worked together extensively in the past. Iowa State University Extension has already initiated a road-mapping exercise for agricultural industries in Iowa, and the BRC has teamed with this effort for its own biorenewables road-mapping activities.

Funding — The BRC is a prime example of a project that fits the Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Federal funds have been acquired to implement the memorandum. The Office of Industrial Technology, in the U.S. D.O.E.'s Energy Efficiency and Renewal Energy Network administers the BRC's funds. However, funds remain limited. Sufficient out-year resources must be secured to sustain the vital research projects of today and to build for the future.