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Remarks
by
Dr. Raymond L. Orbach
Director, Office of Science
U.S. Department of Energy
Convocation
on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research
National Academy of Sciences
January 29, 2004
Washington, D.C.
Good morning.
I am pleased to
add my perspective to this convocation’s
examination of interdisciplinary research.
I note that one of the charges to the Committee
on Facilitating Interdisciplinary Research
is to review proposed definitions of interdisciplinary
research including similarities and differences
from research characterized as cross-disciplinary,
intra-disciplinary, and multi-disciplinary
and develop measures to determine whether
research is interdisciplinary or not. I would
like to add an additional concept to that
search for a definition which is important
to a mission agency like the Department of
Energy. That concept is R&D Integration.
I would like to
use my time with you this morning to provide
a definition of R&D integration, what
we have found to be best practices to encourage
it, and some examples to illustrate R&D
integration at DOE laboratories and facilities.
Definition of R&D Integration
R&D integration
in the Department of Energy is defined as
the effective collaboration between basic
research programs and technology development
programs in the planning, budgeting, and management
of research and development activities. R&D
integration includes:
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sharing of
materials, information, and facilities;
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productive
incorporation of computing, including the
establishment of virtual centers linking
disparate sites; and
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development
of multidisciplinary partnerships involving
research performers, users, regulators,
stakeholders, and industry.
Successful R&D
integration results in the concurrent application
of scientific and engineering knowledge and
insight from all parts of the R&D cycle
and a variety of disciplines. This helps to
stimulate creativity, leverage existing resources,
reduce costs, and accelerate progress toward
meeting R&D goals. R&D integration
means involving multiple parts of the organization
in coordinated research efforts and breaking
down barriers that inhibit communication and
cooperation between differently managed parts
of the organization.
Best Practices
Best practices
of R&D integration include:
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Co-planning,
co-funding, and co-locating basic and applied
research activities are highly conducive
to integrated research. Even small amounts
of “glue funding” can provide
the needed incentive for coordination and
integration. Co-location of work at the
DOE laboratories allows different types
of researchers to be in proximity to one
other, to interact with one another on a
regular basis, and to leverage expertise.
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Integration
of “bottoms-up and top-down”
approaches with clear systematic channels
of communication among senior technical,
programmatic, and management personnel is
required. Formal DOE-wide coordination committees
with clear expectations for participation,
activities, and outcomes maintain a continuing
focus on and forum for integration and ensure
broad participation. Sharing or exchanging
personnel to manage programs with common
interests is also effective.
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Joint workshops
with both applied and basic researchers
are good mechanisms to unearth common high-priority
research needs, and such workshops can be
useful in catalyzing integrated research.
“At-the-bench researchers” need
to be key players in such workshops.
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Enthusiastic
support of all DOE program offices is essential.
No single program can be a forcing function.
Creativity, good research, good ideas, and
research questions are not owned by a single
program.
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Dedicated program
champions at both the DOE headquarters and
at the laboratories are critical because
integration needs leadership.
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Universities
and industries are natural partners in many
successful integrated R&D programs.
Some Examples of R&D Integration
In October, 2002,
the Basic Energy Sciences Advisory Committee
sponsored a workshop, Basic Research Needs
to Assure a Secure Energy Future. This workshop
and report illustrate many of the best practices
for R&D integration. Over 100 scientists
and engineers participated in the workshop.
Representatives of the DOE applied energy
program offices -- Fossil Energy, Energy Efficiency
and Renewable Energy, and Nuclear Energy --
participated as discussion panel members,
leaders, or as presenters of the research
needs and issues for their applied programs.
They joined Office of Science program managers
and national laboratory, university and industry
participants.
The workshop was
organized into nine panels: fossil energy;
renewable and solar energy; fusion energy;
distributed energy fuel cells and hydrogen;
transportation energy consumption; residential,
commercial and industrial energy consumption;
cross-cutting research and education; and
energy biosciences research.
Each panel prepared
a set of proposed research directions, or
PRDs. In all, 37 PRDs were identified. They
were regrouped into ten general interdisciplinary
research areas: materials science to transcend
energy barriers; energy biosciences; basic
research towards the hydrogen economy; innovative
energy storage; novel membrane assemblies;
heterogeneous catalysis; fundamental approaches
to energy conversion; basic research for energy
utilization efficiency; actinide chemistry
and nuclear fuel cycles; and geosciences.
The report confirmed
that basic research will continue to make
an important contribution to solving the challenge
of assuring the nation’s energy security.
It will do this by providing the basis for
new technological approaches in DOE’s
applied energy programs, and by leading the
discovery of new concepts. The report recommended
that BES review its research activities and
user facilities to make sure they are optimized
for the energy challenge, and develop a strategy
for a much more aggressive program in the
future.
This report has
been widely circulated. I personally have
distributed this report to colleagues in Europe,
Australia, and other countries and multilateral
organizations around the world. I am convinced
that its influence will be significant.
Last May, I participated
in a conference with DOE’s Office of Fossil
Energy on Carbon Sequestration. The Office of
Science now supports carbon sequestration research
in four major areas:
1) geologic sequestration,
2) terrestrial sequestration,
3) ocean sequestration, and
4) advanced biological and biotechnical
approaches based on advances in genomic
research, including research on the genome
of plants and microorganisms.
In describing the
research conducted by the Office of Science,
I noted that assuring that carbon dioxide
sequestered in geologic formations is permanent
is very important and will require significant
fundamental research advances.
Similarly, the
long-term effectiveness and potential environmental
consequences of ocean sequestration are unknown.
The Office of Science is working with the
Office of Fossil Energy to sponsor researchers
at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute,
in California, to conduct experiments at more
than 3000 meters below the sea surface to
determine the effects of CO2 injection on
deep-sea organisms.
The Office of Science
is also sponsoring advanced biological research
to explore using the emerging tools of genomics
to understand and enhance carbon sequestration.
Perhaps one day it will be possible to develop
strains of trees, or marine phytoplankton
that can enhance carbon sequestration. Or,
perhaps in the future it will be possible
to clean up power plant exhaust by bubbling
the exhaust through ponds containing microbes
that convert the carbon dioxide to biomass.
Or perhaps enzymes produced by organisms outside
the cell will be combined with nano materials
to separate and convert carbon dioxide to
some stable non degradable form. Finally,
the computer modeling sponsored by the Office
of Science is essential to understanding both
ocean sequestration and terrestrial sequestration.
While I present
these activities as examples of R&D integration
at the Department of Energy, they also represent
interdisciplinary research. Providing mechanisms
or incentives for biologists, chemical engineers,
chemists, and computer modelers to work together
is not only facilitating accomplishing the
Department of Energy missions, but also helping
to solve the world’s pressing problems.
DOE’s National Laboratories
– Natural Integrators of Research
The DOE National Laboratories are places where
many of the DOE offices sponsor research –
both applied and basic. This provides a natural
setting for interdisciplinary research, as
well as research integration. Also at the
national labs, when research sponsored by
a DOE program is leveraged with LDRD (Laboratory
Director’s Research and Development)
funding, there is an additional element of
research integration. And a further element
of research integration takes place at DOE’s
user facilities at the national labs. Representative
facilities which are strong foci for research
integration are the Sandia Combustion Research
Facility, in Livermore, California, and the
High Temperature Materials Laboratory, at
the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the
Advanced Photon Source, at Argonne National
Laboratory.
Examples of research
integration at these facilities include:
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A study, “Time-resolved
Laser-induced Incandescence of Soot: the
Influence of Experimental Factors and Microphysical
Mechanisms,” sponsored at the Sandia
Combustion Research Facility by the Division
of Chemical Science, Geosciences, and Biosciences,
Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and Sandia
Laboratory LDRD funding.
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At Argonne
National Laboratory, the Advanced Photon
Source (APS) provided a unique place for
a team researchers from Arizona State University
investigating carbon dioxide sequestration
to learn more about the chemical reactions.
Sponsored by the Office of Fossil Energy,
this team is investigating CO2 sequestration
via mineral carbonation. This is a chemical
reaction (or a set of chemical reactions)
that uses magnesite, a mineral of magnesium,
and silicon to react with CO2 to form magnesium
carbonate. The carbonate is geologically
stable and environmentally benign. The opportunity
to use the APS also resulted in the invention
of a microreactor cell that could be put
in the beam line and would be capable of
withstanding reaction conditions: up to
250oC and 200 atmospheres pressure. In addition
to use in the APS, the microreactor is expected
to be used by other study teams carrying
out x-ray, optical and spectroscopic in-situ
investigations of chemical reactions.
These are examples
from just two of the user facilities located
at the Department of Energy’s national
laboratories. Each year, these facilities
are used by more than 18,000 researchers from
universities, other government agencies, private
industry and foreign nations. Many of these
state-of-the-art facilities, including the
world’s first linear collider, synchrotron
light sources, the superconducting Tevatron
high-energy particle accelerator, the Relativistic
Heavy Ion Collider, neutron scattering facilities,
a Tokamak fusion test reactor, supercomputers,
and high speed computer networks are found
nowhere else.
DOE’s Advanced
High Performance Computing Research Program
I want to elaborate
here just a bit about the Department of Energy’s
program in High Performance Computing Research
because it is so essential to all fields of
science and technology. The Office of Science
supports fundamental research in applied mathematics,
computer science, and networking, and provides
world-class, high performance computational
networking tools that enable DOE to succeed
in all its missions: in science, energy, environmental
remediation and national security. But more
than just supporting the DOE missions, DOE’s
high performance computing resources provide
research opportunities each year for more
than 2,400 scientists in universities, Federal
agencies, and U.S. companies. And we plan
to continue to make these facilities available
to outside users. We have just selected three
proposals to use the high performance computing
facilities at our NERSC (National Energy Research
Scientific Computing Center) facility, at
the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
that together will make use of 10 percent
of the great computational power of that facility.
Additionally, the
Office of Science annually funds high performance
computing research at about 65 academic institutions
and ten national labs. We also maintain extensive
partnerships with other Federal agencies and
the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA). Examples include: participating in
the program review team for the DARPA High
Productivity Computing Systems program; serving
on the planning group for the Congressionally
mandated DOD plan for high performance computing
to serve the national security mission; serving
on the OSTP High End Computing Revitalization
Task Force; and extensive collaboration with
NNSA-Advanced Simulation Computing.
As a final thought,
I’d like to note that while most of
the Department of Energy’s user facilities
were justified and built to serve one scientific
field in the physical sciences, many have
made significant contributions to knowledge
and technology in many other fields, including
biology and medicine. These facilities have
been the hallmark of our ability to encourage
research integration and interdisciplinary
research at the Department of Energy.
I hope that these
thoughts and examples of R&D integration
at the Department of Energy will help you
in your examination of interdisciplinary research.
Thank you for your
interest in DOE’s R&D programs.
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