Another look at our National Labs….

ScienceInsider has the report here. Money quote:

Yesterday, DOE announced the nine members of the latest outside commission to review the effectiveness of the national labs. The study will be led by Jared Cohon, a civil engineer and president emeritus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and T.J. Glauthier, an energy consultant and former deputy DOE secretary during the Clinton administration.
Reviewing the health and direction of the national labs is practically a cottage industry, and Glauthier admits that his panel’s challenge will be to “find something new to say.”

What about doing rather than saying?

I’ve blogged about the National Labs before here , here and here.

More on National Labs reform….

David Malakoff’s excellent news piece in Science, here. My take: these are huge organizations. My 30 years or so in Washington has taught me that the inertia of these places is pretty large even relative to the zeal of powerful reformers.

DOE and its relationship to the National Labs…

New Secretary of Energy, Ernest Moniz, is moving on reform, the story from ScienceInsider is here.

Managing the US National Labs: a bipartisan call for reform

ScienceInsider has the story, here. The actual report is here [pdf].

Money quote from the Executive Summary: “The federal government must reform the labs from their 20th century atomic-energy roots to create 21st century engines of innovation. This report aims to lay the groundwork for reformby proposing a more flexible lab-management model that strengthens the labs’ ability to address national needs and produce a consistent flow of innovative ideas and technologies. The underlying philosophy of this report is not to just tinker around the edges but to build policy reforms that re-envision the lab system.”