Many Livermore research and development activities are executed in
partnership with other laboratories, academic institutions, and industry. Partnerships
and collaborations help bring into Laboratory programs the best of international science
and technology. In addition, Livermore has a responsibility to move appropriate technologies
developed in the course of its work into the marketplace, where the advances lead to products
and processes that help the U.S. economy and contribute important national priorities such
as better health care.
Partnerships
with Other Laboratories. Lawrence Livermore
works with other national laboratories to coordinate
and integrate programmatic efforts to provide the
best scientific and technical capabilities for public
investments. Increasingly, collaborative activities
are in the form of integrated national programs,
such as NNSA’s Stockpile
Stewardship Program.
A
notable example of multi-laboratory efforts is the DOE
Joint Genome Institute (JGI), located in Walnut Creek, California.
The JGI was created in 1997 to unite the expertise
and resources in genome mapping, DNA sequencing, technology
development, and information sciences pioneered at
Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, and Los Alamos
national laboratories.
Livermore participates in many other
multi-laboratory efforts sponsored by the DOE
Office of Science, ranging from large high-energy
physics projects to the Genomics:GTL program.
Academic
Collaborations. As a national laboratory, Livermore
shoulders significant science-education responsibilities
and we engage in more than 500 academic collaborative
efforts to add special expertise to the Laboratory’s
science and technology base.
The Center for Accelerator
Mass Spectrometry is
emblematic of LLNL
collaborations with universities
Collaborations with universities
also benefit from NNSA’s Academic
Strategic Alliance Program (ASAP). ASAP focuses
on partnerships with universities to pursue advances
in the development of computational science, computer
systems, mathematical modeling, and numerical mathematics
important to NNSA’s Advanced Simulation and Computing
(ASC) program.
Major
Procurements. The Laboratory partners with
industry through major procurements that support
Livermore’s national security mission. For
example, Livermore’s long-standing ties with
computer industry to push the state-of-the-art
in scientific computing have recently led to development
of several of the world’s most powerful computers.
In addition, over 75% of the total funding for
construction of the National Ignition Facility
is going to U.S. companies, including high-technology
firms producing optical components.