laboratory-directed research and development

Laboratory-directed research and development

Laboratory (233)
Laboratory-directed research and development (42)

Synopsis: Laboratory: Laboratory-directed research and development:

ART7.pdf

Evaluation of Laboratory directed research and development investment areas at Sandia Kevin W. Boyack*,Nabeel Rahal Sandia National Laboratories, 1 P o box 5800, Albuquerque, NM 87185, United states

accepted 16 september 2004 Abstract Sandia National Laboratories conducts a variety of research projects each year under its Laboratory-directed research and development (LDRD) program.

Recently, information visualization techniques have been used with corporate data to map several LDRD investment areas for the purpose of understanding strategic overlaps and identifying potential opportunities for future development outside of our current technologies.

Laboratory-directed research and development; Investment; Sandia 1. Introduction The Laboratory-directed research and development (LDRD) program at Sandia National Laboratories conducts world-class research on a variety of subjects that are relevant to Sandia's missions and potentially useful to other national needs.

Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1122 1136 at Sandia has its roots in the LDRD program.

Sandia's LDRD program is divided into roughly a dozen different investment areas (IAS) including five that we focus on in this paper:

The LDRD process occurs annually at Sandia, starting early each spring. First, staff members submit short ideas answering written calls (i e.,

LDRD projects have a maximum duration of 3 years. Continuation proposals and an annual review are required for each existing project that has completed not its term.

we have embarked on a program to map our LDRD IAS. We have applied advanced information visualization tools to understand historical development

and sample analyses and validation activities associated with the mapping of Sandia's LDRD IAS. 2. Project plan The original plan associated with this assessment activity consisted of several steps,

and DOE LDRD maps and mapping between fields from different data sources Calls (RFP) New proposals Continuation proposals Project reports Publications U s. DOE LDRD data ID number ID

number ID number ID number ID number ID number IA IA IA IA IA Laboratory Title Title Title Title Title

The purpose of this set of visualizations, hereafter referred to as bdoe LDRD, Q was to place Sandia's IA activities within a broader context,

Both types of visualizations, the landscapes and the link analyses, were used for both the Sandiaspeccifi and DOE LDRD analyses,

for our analyses one for the Sandiaspeccifi visualizations and one for the DOE LDRD visualizations.

LDRD call text (i e.,, request for proposals), descriptive text for both new proposals and continuation proposals, report abstracts for funded projects,

To create the DOE LDRD visualizations, an additional 4300 LDRD records from the entire U s. DOE complex (e g.,

, including Los alamos National Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories) for FY2001 and FY2002 were added. FY2003 data were not yet available.

Fig. 3. Vxinsight map of five Sandia LDRD IAS. Each area (CIS ES, EP, MST,

In order to Fig. 4. Scatterplot of the five Sandia LDRD IAS using the same map coordinates as shown in the Vxinsight map of Fig. 3. Overlaps between the CIS IA

or complementary technology spaces that can be leveraged jointly in future LDRD calls. Fig. 5 is an example of the link analysis visualizations that were created

and MST work together to identify a collaborative approach for a portion of their future LDRD calls,

The result of the visualization pointed to specific technological efforts within an IA that could be combined to create a larger effort that could in turn attract future funding outside of the LDRD program.

compare, and leverage objective technological strengths to attract new external customers. 4. 3. Landscape mapping of DOE LDRD A map of the DOE LDRD data set was created using the same technique described previously

Fig. 6 shows the overall scatterplot comprising investment in LDRD by all of the U s. DOE's laboratories.

Fig. 7 shows a detailed Vxinsight view of the lower middle region of the DOE LDRD map.

Fig. 6. Scatterplot of the entire DOE LDRD space. The five Sandia IAS are shown using the same legend shapes as used in Fig. 4. Stars indicate Sandia LDRD projects in IAS other than the five specifically called out here.

Small filled circles indicate LDRD investments made by all other DOE laboratories. The area inside the dashed box is explored further in Fig. 7. K. W. Boyack, N. Rahal/Technological forecasting & Social Change 72 (2005) 1122 1136 1132 competencies,

and that are potential areas of future opportunity for the CIS IA, given its current portfolio and competency base.

which future opportunities to fund. 4. 4. Link analysis of DOE LDRD The Sandia-specific link analysis assisted in the understanding of the technologies within,

The first analysis in this section consisted of only using LDRD projects, in addition to Fig. 7. Vxinsight view of the dashed inset from Fig. 6 of the area comprising most of the CIS IA.

The data used for this analysis consisted of LDRD calls, proposals, and projects for the IAS,

and LDRD projects for the DOE complex. The link analysis visualization for the entire DOE complex is represented in Fig. 8

or to suggest potential collaborative opportunities between laboratories. 5. Future directions This is the first year that we have applied such analyses to our LDRD process.

We plan to start a similar process for the FY06 LDRD process, and carry it out much sooner in the annual process.

The current approach of applying information visualization tools to the analysis of the LDRD portfolio enables a comprehensive assessment of the technological development trends occurring within our IAS.

In the near future, we plan to expand our scope to include not only the LDRD information from DOE laboratories,

Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the LDRD Program, Sandia National Laboratories, U s. DOE under contract no.

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