Chemical engineering is mainly funded through the technology offices: energy efficiency, fossil energy, science (formerly the Office of Energy Research), and nuclear energy. There is also a technical programme through the office of environmental management, which is concerned with cleaning up defence and nuclear materials.

The Science office has five main themes:

The typical grant is for three years at $100-120K p.a. inclusive of institution overheads. There are mechanisms to inform the community of calls for proposals, and to disseminate information. This is often done through workshops which will flesh-out potential research projects.

Long term support may be given to individual Principal Investigators for seven years. Some top-flight chemists have been given funding for much longer periods than that. The DoE gives subject ‘Stewardships’ for a particular area. This is often because of the very specific nature of the science (therefore an acknowledged expert should be "in charge"), or because of a highly specialised piece of equipment.

The balance of intra/extra mural research work funded is in theory decided by peer review selection. In practice 96% of research in the bio area is university-based, and only 4% is internal. In the chemical area 60% of the research finding is internal and 40% external. The DoE sometimes requires matching industrial funds.

The DoE tend to think long term in its funding decisions. Funding levels are $300-400k for the biological area and $20-27m to chemical engineering proposals. The biological area funds plant development work and some plant genetics (it is not involved in the human genome project).

The DoE funds major scientific centres in electron microscopy, collision physics etc, and this accounts for a third of the $650m annual budget. The construction of national facilities is also a major cost to the DoE. There is no cost recovery for these, as time on the machines is free to the users if the results are to be published. These areas are where the DoE has given stewardship of some big science facilities. There are no steward areas in chemical engineering. The DoE also provides some funding for use of machines overseas if the facilities are not available in USA e.g. The Daresbury Laboratory (UK).

The DoE do not tend to give multidisciplinary work to universities because they consider the interpersonal/departmental communications to be poor. Such work is done ‘in-house’ at one of the 24 national laboratories. This success of the national labs is believed to be due to the way that they have to work in teams, and are appraised as teams (not as individuals). The national labs are managed in a way to foster a multidisciplinary culture. There is a more hierarchical nature of management compared with universities (where the hierarchy is not as strong).

This whole approach to management of a national lab, being geared towards multidisciplinary work, is very important. The way the NSF supports multidisciplinary work is by funding ‘centres of excellence’ where there is a concerted effort (and critical mass) of people all working on the same area (constantly), whereas what the DoE needs is groups to pick up and do problems and projects on an occasional basis.

The DoE used to have strong education programmes, but these were reduced by congress, though the DoE does still produce excellent schools literature, and run the ‘National Science Bowl’ competition.

A recent important development has been the introduction of the ‘Energy Research Undergraduate Laboratory Fellowship (ERULF) programme’. The Fellowships are designed to provide educational training and research experiences at DoE laboratories for undergraduate students. Appointments are available during the spring, summer, and autumn terms, and affords research and training to complement academic programmes.

The programme has reached a diverse, nation-wide pool of about 1,100 undergraduate students since its inception in March 1998. About 350 colleges and universities have been represented, and students from all 50 states have taken part.

Greg Dilworth (Division of Energy and Biosciences), and Bill Millman (Director of Chemical Sciences).

The DoE website address is: