With Recovery Act funds in hand and more on the way, labs continue their outreach.
To say that the outlook for government R&D laboratory executives is brighter for 2010 than 2009 would be a great understatement. At this time last year most laboratories were scrambling to adjust to a short-term financial upheaval brought about by an across-the-board freeze on budgets until March 2009. Additional question marks about the outcome of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and personnel changes associated with a change in federal administration put some laboratories in the position of retrenchment.
For 2010 there are still questions. But the prospects are far more certain, and the outlook has certainly taken a turn for the better, say participants in the 2009 R&D CEO Roundtable, an annual open forum discussion about the state of R&D at government labs hosted by R&D Magazine on Nov. 12, 2009, at the Renaissance Orlando Hotel at Sea World, Orlando, Fla. A change in administration, the appointment of Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and ARRA funding appear to have turned the tide.
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Thomas Ballard, director of Partnerships Directorate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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2010 budget breakdown
In contrast to 2008’s outlook for FY2009, participants were, in general, upbeat about the prospects for constructive and beneficial science being done at U.S. Department of Energy and NASA facilities. However, some worry whether the expiration of ARRA funds will put them back into a similar situation as at the end of 2008.
“As we expected last year, our budget grew dramatically, from just the normal appropriations, and we expect in FY2010 to see continued growth in virtually every budget line, except for the hydrogen and fuel cell program that the DOE has reprogrammed to be more focused on stationary fuel cells,” says Robert Hawsey, associate laboratory director for renewable electricity and end use systems at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Boulder, Colo. His lab has benefited from ARRA to the tune of $110 million. Of that amount, $10 million will go to doubling capacity at NREL’s wind turbine drive train dynamometer test facility.
Thomas Ballard, director of Partnerships Directorate, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tenn., has seen ARRA stimulus amounts of $175 million for the FY2010 budget so far. Counting that, he says, his budget is up about $200 million to about $1.65 million. In FY2009, funding for the fusion energy research at ORNL took major jump forward, more than tripling in size.
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, Ill., has a similar amount of ARRA requests in place—about $170 million—which has allowed the lab to remain on a doubling track through the current fiscal year. “FY '09 was a really strong year for us, both because of ARRA and because we were able to win some awards of various sorts. This year, we look for not another banner year, but a reasonable year of some growth in funding,” says Al Wagner, interim director, chemical science and engineering division, at ANL.
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Ramon Lugo, deputy director of NASA's Glenn Research Research Center
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The ARRA is not a immediate windfall for every lab.
Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LNNL), Livermore, Calif., for example, is not expecting any significant increases as a result of the recovery funding, and about $8 million in Recovery Act money has come to the laboratory this year to support basic science and applied energy research. According Anantha Krishnan, director of R&D for the Center for Micro- and Nano-Technology at LLNL, the lab has close to about $200 million in proposals pending, however.
Creighton Wirick, interim associate lab director for energy, environment, and national security at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, N.Y., says that ARRA funding increases have caused his lab to shift its focus to doing more applied research. “A lot of the ARRA funds ended up in Energy Efficiency and Renewal Energy (EERE), so it was kind of a new direction for us. We actually started forming partnerships with industries and other people. It really changed the culture at Brookhaven. Just in one year we’ve had tremendous changes,” says Wirick.
Ramon Lugo, deputy director of NASA Glenn Research Center (NASA GRC), in Cleveland, Ohio, says just a slight increase in overall funding has materialized from ARRA and of that money, most is going to site facility work. NASA GRC received about $57 million, of which most went to upgrades at the Icing Branch, which tests the behavior of ice formation in flight conditions.
According to Mary P. Neu, associate director for chemistry, life, and earth sciences at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, N.M., the greatest changes in her lab’s budget are from the new administration’s emphasis on increasing R&D related to energy and health. At LANL, that increase—about $40 million for solar, wind, and geothermal energy projects—is modest in comparison to a $200 million site revitalization project. Like several labs, major facility adjustments—including both upgrades and building removal—have demanded funding activity in recent years.
“I think it’s important to note that about 50% of the ARRA budgets have yet to be committed through the Applied Energy offices, so these areas may still increase in 2010," she says. Many executives view the ARRA as a one-time stimulus, even for funds that have not yet been appropriated, so investments are made carefully.
“Our shovel-ready activities allow us to take one-time dollars and make investments in the infrastructure that will allow us to be more successful with our mission long term. And then, as far as the programmatic dollars go, I think it is to build on our strengths, particularly by aligning ourselves with other partners for success over the long term,” says Ballard.
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Anantha Krishnan, director of R&D in the Center for Micro- and Nano-Technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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Beyond 2011, the Recovery Act benefits get murky. Neu believes that budgetary changes this far ahead will emphasize partnerships and rapid technology development and transfer. “ARRA and DOE are pushing entrepreneurs to quickly advance concepts through research to implementation. And much R&D and technology development is being done through partnerships,” she says.
Hawsey says “the last change that’s pretty exciting to us in NREL, at least, is the prospect of these energy innovation hubs that Secretary Chu would like to see happen.” These are the so-called Baby Bell Lablets. About eight are planned, and a few are in FY2010’s budget.
A thaw in hiring
The ARRA funding helped create or continue projects, but executives in general don't believe it was directed at job creation. Some, like ORNL, have been successfully relying on social networks to attract younger scientific talent. Others, like LANL, are very careful in their hiring, emphasizing post-doctoral positions and specialized skill sets. On the negative side, the ailing national housing market and opportunities for trailing spouses have been issues that have impacted recruitment.
ORNL, Ballard reports, has been adding 100 to 150 new jobs per year and adding an average of one computer scientist a week. NASA GRC is also adding people: Lugo reports that a request had been made to hire 600 new engineers and technologists, and about 300 have been funded.
“That wasn’t from new money because the ARRA funds were really to go to create jobs in industry and academia, not in the civil service workforce,” says Lugo.
Interestingly, NREL had no such issue with staffing in 2008, when Hawsey surprised last year’s group by anticipating a growth rate of about 20%. NREL did, in fact, add more than 400 people in the past year. That growth, Hawsey believes, was precipitated not by Recovery Act dollars but by the commitment of the new administration to the goal of solving heightening energy problems. In the last year, NREL hired one degreed scientist, engineer, or technician every work day.
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Mary P. Neu, associate director for chemistry, life, and earth sciences, Los Alamos National Laboratory
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At LLNL, strong growth was seen in the photon and optical science programs, cyber security, and climate programs. With a staff of about 6,500, LLNL anticipates hiring 5% of that number in 2010. Finding experienced mid-career people, however, is a continuing challenge, says Krishnan.
Stimulus has worked for collaborations
Though the Recovery Act hasn't stimulated hiring, it has certainly contributed to the healthy atmosphere for collaborations between labs and industry. This appears to be true for both programmatic partnerships—core universities and industry partners—and entirely new ventures with industry, whether domestic or international. To cite just one example of many, NASA GRC's green aviation efforts have led to multiple partnerships with aerospace and airframe engineering companies.
In addition to its work with fusion research partners, ORNL attracts an international clientele to its Spallation Neutron Source, one of the world’s most powerful x-ray beamlines. But the big story at ORNL, Ballard says, is that it is literally “slammed” with interest from industry. “I’ve only been at Oak Ridge for 5½ years, but the amount of interest has never been this high, according to those who have been there a lot longer than I have been. I characterize it as a lot of companies seeing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow at national labs because of ARRA funding,” Ballard says. Their high-profile potential partners include Volkswagen, which is building its first new manufacturing plant in the U.S. since closing its only one 20 years ago.
Industrial collaborations at LANL center on its strength in areas of materials and information science, such as the Los Alamos Neutron Science. A newer area at LANL is testing, evaluation, and analysis, but longstanding efforts with big industry players such as Proctor and Gamble, Exxon, and Chevron are also important.
Energy-related collaborations are growing at NREL, which has ramped up its work with the Japanese in the area of solar photovoltaics. And NREL Director Dan Arvizu has visited France recently to discuss smart grid and solar energy technologies.
“Industry partnerships are a target-rich environment for NREL,” says Hawsey, who pointed to recent success story involving an R&D 100 Award-winning technology based on inverted metamorphic solar cells. After seeing the technology work, semiconductor maker RF Micro Devices approached NREL to form a partnership.
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Robert Hawsey, associate laboratory director for renewable electricity and end use systems, NREL
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“I don’t know any governor in the United States that doesn’t want to create clean energy jobs in his or her state. And we’re responding to that in a big way,” says Hawsey.
A new international collaboration that has emerged in the last year at LLNL has been with China in the area of carbon capture and sequestration. Recently, lab scientists co-authored a joint report with Chinese government agencies, as well as Chinese companies, on that topic, and collaborations are expected to follow. Meanwhile, LANL works with partners in the UK and France on large international research programs such as advanced fusion energy. Also, says Neu, Japan is investing $20 million in New Mexico for a smart grid demonstration project.
Some laboratories that have traditionally been more insular have seen increased interest from corporations. Krishnan says that a $100 million ultraviolet lithography project helped jumpstart interest from companies like IBM and Intel, which have in the last four months approached the lab to collaborate on materials and chemistry projects.
“It took the size of something like that to bring the lab to collaborate with many companies in the Bay Area. What’s changed in the recent past has been an understanding that we really should be taking advantage of our location in terms of establishing new relationships,” he says.
One factor that has helped alter LLNL’s culture is the transition in management from the Univ. of California (UC) to Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC (LLNS), which, says Krishnan, has renewed emphasis on how to deal with technology licensing and intellectual property management.
The role of core universities has also been strengthening. LANL has contracts with 50 major universities, ORNL has established a Volkswagen scholar program through the lab’s management institutes, and NREL, which allies with five core universities, has launched a chemical engineering practice school with MIT. And strong ties still exist between LLNL and UC: the school is now a partner in LLNS.
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Creighton Wirick, interim associated lab director for energy, environment, and national security, Brookhaven National Laboratory
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Upbeat about the future
Executives clearly see an opportunity in the economy as it recovers, but the challenge is in living up to the expectation that the government labs can impact society in that way that Bell Labs did. Successful strategies in technology transfer will aid the process, but executives agree that sustained funding is crucial. There is a question as to whether Recovery Act funding is an indicator of sustained support.
“I think probably our biggest concern is when ARRA runs out, what is FY2011 going to look like? That remains a source of uncertainty,” says Wagner.
Ballard points out that Recovery Act money has helped many agencies, not just the labs. “Recovery Act money has had an impact. I think it will continue to have an impact, and the challenge is to make sure those investments are used wisely so that they can sustain things longer term.”
Lugo doesn’t necessarily believe the funding picture offered by ARRA is necessarily bright, however.
“I think the administration has spent more time dealing with the recession and trying to rebuild the banking industry and the auto industry. The ARRA funds are obviously an injection, and people look to it as an R&D effort. But I would tell you that that’s not a sustainable model.”
Published in R & D magazine: Vol. 51, No. 7, December, 2009, pp.16-18.
