FY2010 - Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Introduction
To select the best and most strategic of the ideas submitted, the Deputy Director establishes committees
for each focus area to review the new proposals and associated ongoing projects. The committees are
staffed by senior technical managers and subject matter experts, including external members.
Proposals to the Director’s R&D Fund undergo two rounds of review. In the first round, the committees
evaluate preliminary proposals and select the most promising for development into full proposals. In the
second round, the committees review the new proposals and ongoing projects that are requesting secondor
third-year funding. After the reviews are completed, the committees provide funding recommendations
to the Deputy Director for Science and Technology, who develops an overall funding strategy and
presents it for approval to the Leadership Team, ORNL’s executive committee headed by the Laboratory
Director. All projects selected for funding must also receive concurrence from DOE.
In FY 2010, $33.8 million was allocated to the ORNL LDRD program to support 163 projects, 96 of
which were new starts (Table 2). About 80% of the fund’s annual allocation is awarded to projects at the
beginning of the fiscal year. The remainder, about 20%, is held in reserve primarily to support research
projects of new R&D staff members being recruited to address strategic Laboratory needs. The levels of
investment in each focus area are summarized in Fig. 1.
Table 2. ORNL LDRD by fund
Director’s R&D
Fund
Seed Money Fund
Wigner
Fellowship Fund
Weinberg
Fellowship
Fund
Costs $27,112,000 $4,868,000 $154,365 $106,813
Number of projects 100 58 2 3
Number of new starts 48 45 3
Continuing (2 nd & 3 rd year of funding) 52 13 2
Average total project budget (1–3 years) $619,937 $128,938 $225,549 $59,704
Average project duration 24 months 16 months 24 months 24 months
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