ABSTRACT
In response to recommendations by the National Research Council in the late 1990 s and early 2000s for critical research into understanding sources and formation mechanisms of PM2.5, EPA created multiple funding opportunities through the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program: "Measurement, Modeling, and Analysis Methods for Airborne Carbonaceous Fine Particulate Matter" (2003) and "Source Apportionment of Particulate Matter" (2004). The carbonaceous fine PM solicitation resulted in 16 different projects focusing on the measurement methods, source identification, and exploration of the chemical and physical processes important for PM2.5 carbon in the atmosphere. The source apportionment funding opportunity led to 11 projects improving tools and characterization of source-receptor relationships of PM2.5. Many funding mechanisms include a final synopsis of funded research and published manuscripts. Here, this evaluation is extended to include citations of research published as part of these solicitations. These solicitations resulted in 275 publications that included more than 850 unique authors in 37 different journals with a weighted average 2011 impact factor of 4.21. At the time of this assessment, these publications have been cited by 13,612 peer review journal articles with 31 (11%) of the manuscripts being cited over 100 times.
