Bipartisan report proposes changes to DOE national laboratories

Science : An unusual alliance of think tanks—the conservative Heritage Foundation, the liberal Center for American Progress, and the centrist Information Technology and Innovation Foundation—have jointly published a report with suggestions on how to improve the Department of Energy’s 17 national research labs. The goal of the report is to encourage more ties to industry and to reduce the amount of micromanagement of the labs, which are overseen by the DOE, Congress, and the Office of Management and Budget. The suggestions include using a single undersecretary to manage the 13 nonweapons labs; giving the labs more freedom to manage their internal research budgets and set prices for industry access to facilities; and changing the project evaluations to focus on results not process. Whether any of the suggestions will be adopted is uncertain, though they are welcomed by several of the labs’ directors. And newly sworn-in Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz has already talked about reviewing and reorganizing the agency’s management structure.