Coordinating Research Council

The Coordinating Research Council (CRC) is a non-profit organization that directs, through committee action, engineering and environmental studies on the interaction between automotive/other mobility equipment and petroleum products. The Sustaining Members of CRC are the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a group of automobile manufacturer members (Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen). CRC research programs are managed by five technical committees (Advanced/Vehicle/Fuel/Lubricants, Atmospheric Impacts, Emissions, Performance, and Aviation.) Through CRC, personnel in the automotive equipment and other related mobility industries and in the energy industries can join together, and can join with Government, to work on mutual problems. CRC has no facilities for conducting direct research. There are two basic approaches to accomplishing the research objectives. One approach involves a pooling of efforts carried out in the laboratories of cooperating companies. The result is a large-scale research program that no one company would be willing to undertake. The second approach involves supporting research under contract to universities, industrial laboratories, and private research organizations. In this case, a small committee of technical experts develops the program, selects the research organization, and monitors the research to its conclusion. Funding for the contract research is largely provided by the American Petroleum Institute, the automobile manufacturers, the Government, and others. CRC is not involved in any way in regulation, which remains a governmental responsibility; nor is CRC involved in the development of hardware or petroleum products, which remains the responsibility of private industry. The formal objective of CRC is to encourage and promote the arts and sciences by directing scientific cooperative research to develop the best possible combinations of fuels, lubricants, and the equipment in which they are used, and to afford a means of cooperation with the Government on matters of national or international interest within this field.