Industrial Research Institute Roundtable

National Alliance for Science and Technology:
Challenges and Changes to Industry,
Government and Academic Relationships

S. S. Hecker
Director
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Presentation at the
Industrial Research Institute (IRI)
Roundtable on "America's Science and
Technology Future -- Vision and Policy"
Washington, D.C.

February 21, 1996

  • I will speak from the perspective of national laboratories (drawing upon my experience as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory).

  • We have plenty of changes and challenges facing alliances among industry, government and academia.

  • I believe that such alliances are critical in today's world. In fact, such alliances are crucial for the Los Alamos National Laboratory where we apply first-class science to key technological problems facing the nation.

  • For us at Los Alamos it follows that to do great science you must stay associated with universities. That is natural at Los Alamos because of our association with the University of California since the Manhattan Project. And, to do world-class technology you must work with industry. That is not so natural. Although we have worked closely with the defense industry in the past, general work with industry is relatively recent for us -- approximately the last five years.

  • Now, both of these alliances are threatened by changes in the nation's financial situation and by political forces.

  • The challenge is how to encourage such alliances during these changing times.

    Industry-Laboratory partnerships

  • Significant progress has been made in developing partnerships between industry and the DOE laboratories over the past five years.

  • In the late 1980s such partnerships were encouraged in the spirit of getting the greatest leverage from the federal investment in R&D for the benefit of the U.S. economy.

  • DOE defense programs reprogrammed significant funds (over $200 million in 1995) to encourage such partnerships. At Los Alamos alone we have over 200 cooperative industrial agreements. Sandia and Livermore also exceed 200.

  • Jointly, we have made great progress in working with industry. Clearly, industry is interested. I believe that industry has gained significantly and we, the laboratories, have learned a lot.

  • However, the political climate has shifted as you heard from Representative Sensenbrenner earlier. Government-industry partnerships are being questioned. The new Congress has called for the elimination of a number of the existing programs.

  • Hence, we must restructure industry-laboratory partnerships to meet these challenges.

  • First and foremost, the laboratories must have compelling national missions that allow them to stay at the leading edge of science and technology. The partnerships must then be designed for benefits to flow both ways Ü to industry and to the laboratories.

  • For partnerships to be sustainable through changing political landscapes, they should do more than just extend industry's financial reach. I believe they should be designed to offer entirely new capabilities or approaches to industry Ü that is, to significantly extend the risk and time horizon of industry R&D.

  • Cooperative R&D between industry and the DOE laboratories offer the best prospects for providing industry with new capabilities, leveraging the significant federal investment made in these laboratories for their government missions.

  • Congress made it clear that it will insist that partnerships with industry have a strong mission focus for the laboratories. In addition, the funding for partnerships was cut severely for this fiscal year.

  • Our nuclear weapons mission will require science-based stockpile stewardship in the absence of underground nuclear testing. In addition, with no new weapons systems on the drawing board, we will have to assure the safety and reliability of the weapons stockpile essentially indefinitely. This will require an ability to integrate the R&D effort with enhanced surveillance and the ability to remanufacture critical component. Hence, we will place greater emphasis for partnerships in areas such as high-performance computing, modeling and simulation, and agile manufacturing.

  • Industry benefits from the federal investment at the laboratories in staying at the forefront of areas such as computing, while the laboratories benefit from industry's experience in advanced manufacturing.

  • Our experience to date suggests that such industry-government partnerships should not only by highly successful, but sustainable over the long term.

    • University-Laboratory partnerships

  • Federal funding cutbacks, especially the grim outlook for civilian R&D, are pitting members of the nation's science and technology family against each other, instead of promoting stronger alliances.

  • The funding squeeze is especially tough for universities, without which none of the rest of us could prosper.

  • I applaud industry's defense of a strong university research system, especially the letter to President Clinton from 21 CEOs of major American corporations.

  • We in the federal sector must do the same.

  • I make the following specific suggestions:

  • We should strengthen the fundamental research component of mission-oriented research and involve universities to a greater extent.

  • The DOE defense laboratories should involve universities more to achieve their new mission of science-based stockpile stewardship. The opportunities are especially great in the following areas:

  • High-performance computing, modeling, simulation and information science.

  • New tools or diagnostics to explore physical regimes of weapons interest, such as the large lasers at Livermore, neutrons and protons at Los Alamos, and the large pulsed-power machines at Sandia and Los Alamos.

  • Materials, especially properties that affect long-term reliability and aging, as well as the dynamic behavior of materials.

  • In addition, the environmental management program at DOE must try to stimulate greater university research interest in the environmental sciences, including chemistry, bioscience and materials.

    • In closing, let me reiterate that alliances with universities and industry are essential for the DOE laboratories to effectively carry out their federal missions. In turn, they allow leveraging the federal investment in these laboratories to help U.S. industry to extend the time and risk horizon of its research, while also helping universities cope with the decline in federal support for defense and civilian R&D.