Re: The National Labs

["Tom Savin" <lexicon@hotbot.com>]

 I was at Oak Ridge National Lab from 1977-80 and then again 1988-92.  I worked in the Biology Division.  There was a rapid decline even 77-80.  In 88-92 there was about 25% remaining and half of them were in the "mouse house".  The mouse population declined from its peak of about 1 million to less than 100,000 (est).
In the mid 90's the division ceased to exist and was absorbed by the Health and Safty Division.

This is representative of the fate of numerous divisions in all the national labs, sad but true.  Many of them were formed by the old AEC.  In my case, 
when ERDA/DOE took over they thought that most of the radiation effect studies were done, the money was gone and the scientist were forced to compete with everyone else for NIH, NSF, etc.... Grants. Numerous top notch scientist were forced to either leave when the leaving was good or work in other divisions (which still had sufficient funding) on projects that were surficially related to their work.

The main reason for this was increased OVERHEAD!!!!! Back in 88 there was 104% overhead charge on everything.  One of my mouse cages (even if it had one mouse) was $36/per month/cage.  How could one compete to get grants with sufficient funding?  The facilities themselves were falling apart along with the lack of good logistical and technical support.  J. Carter tried
to utilize the national labs and did inject some "energy", but that seem to fade away. 


--

On Wed, 3 May 2000 07:34:50    ruth_weiner wrote:
>Buried in John's post is
>
>>I've seen it but I can't stand to read it.  It is a step-by-step
>>documentation of the dying quiver of our once-great national labs
>>grasping in the dark for a mission, any mission.  I don't like
>>grieving and what is going on in the national labs now makes me
>>grieve.
>>
>
>He has pinpointed what is going to be a national tragedy for science.  I
>have just retired from Sandia to take a position with a consulting company
>and I have seen at first hand that:
>
>DOE treats the national labs like consulting companies only does not allow
>them to compete (we couldn't respond to RFPs in the CBD)
>
>DOE has gone to a "project-oriented" funding system which means there is no
>continuity.
>
>Many labs have large and expensive facilities to maintain which DOE funds
>only reluctantly and inadequately.
>
>The labs are forced to compete rather than collaborate.
>
>I could go on and on.  Does anyone have any ideas about this?
>
>Ruth 


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