National Laboratories and Universities: Building New Ways to Work Together: Report of a Workshop (2005)
Federal laboratories and the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nine contractor-managed, multiprogram national laboratories, in particular, have a long history of productive collaboration with universities. Traditional collaborative mechanisms have included joint proposals and programs, personnel exchanges, and utilization of laboratory facilities by university researchers. Several national laboratories are managed by universities, while others are managed by partnership organizations with university participation. Many have evolved close links with one or more universities in a range of research areas, often due to geographical proximity. The laboratories play a strong role in education, providing training and research opportunities for students through DOE and other funding sources. During the 1990s, the role of the national laboratories in the nation’s post-Cold War science and engineering enterprise was scrutinized and reexamined, most notably by a task force chaired by former Motorola Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Robert Galvin. While a consensus emerged that the labs should continue to focus on their core missions, several initiatives were launched to link research at the labs more closely to commercial activity, such as expanded utilization of Cooperative Research and Development Agreements. Today, several of the laboratories are reexamining their relationships with universities and developing new approaches to collaboration. One example is the joint research institutes, in partnership with the University of Washington and the University of Maryland, launched by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. These institutes, housed at the universities, provide a number of benefits for each party. However, new approaches to collaboration between the national laboratories and universities bring with them a number of challenges. Included among them are cultural and management differences, as well as differences in procurement rules, human resource policies, and intellectual property policies, which can complicate the process of setting up and running joint research centers. Numerous workshops and reports by the National Academies and other groups have examined research collaboration between industry and universities. The technology transfer activities of government laboratories have also been studied extensively. However, national laboratory university ties have not been reviewed from a national perspective. On July 10-11, 2003, the National Academies held a workshop in Berkeley, California to address best practices and remaining challenges with respect to national laboratory-university collaborations. Managers, scientists, engineers, and other experts in the field were invited to exchange views on how to structure university-laboratory collaborations in order to maximize benefits to their institutions and the U.S. research enterprise. The workshop covered a wide range of collaborative practices, from individual investigator-level collaborations; to joint centers; to laboratory-run, university-populated user facilities. The report that follows is a summary of the views expressed in that workshop.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1376281
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-128256
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Out Brief for the Structural Reliability Partnership Workshop
Computing for Finance