Ineel, Universities Focus On Forging Ties Collaboration Could Draw Substantial Research Money, Fund Faculty Positions

Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory managers began a two-month tour of seven universities in the region this week.

The meetings Thursday and Friday at Washington State University and the University of Idaho mark the beginning of one of the region’s biggest private-public partnerships.

“We can have a much bigger impact together on the national scene,” INEEL Laboratory Director and Deputy General Manager Bill Shipp told gathered university professors and administrators.

“We want you to get close enough to us that you are part of our staff,” Shipp said.

The agreement between the seven universities and the company that now manages the national lab in Idaho Falls is expected to attract millions in research money, support hundreds of faculty positions, and boost graduate education in science and engineering.

More than 50 nuclear reactors were built at the Department of Energy’s INEEL site, and nuclear waste storage left extensive contamination underground. INEEL still houses one of the nation’s two operating test reactors, and has been designated as a lead agency for nuclear energy and spent nuclear fuel in the U.S.

“Our largest scientific problem is mass transport of materials under the ground,” Shipp said. “Understanding how contaminants move in the subsurface is a very difficult problem.”

INEEL needs scientists. The UI, the University of Montana, and WSU, Boise State, Idaho State, Montana State and Utah State universities have formed the Inland Northwest Research Alliance (INRA) for a heightened role in the lab’s research.

INEEL employs 6,200 people, but only 11 percent of the work force have doctoral degrees, the lowest percentage of all the national labs. With the help of the alliance, INEEL may be able to boost that number.

The lab has a $622.8 million budget, $231.4 million of which is targeted for research and development. With the cleanup budget declining, INEEL and Idaho officials are trying to expand the lab’s research role to keep it economically viable.

The focus is shifting toward the basic environmental science questions such as how contaminants move through the ground, as well as nuclear reactor technology, national security and research into alternative energies such as biofuels.

INEEL and Hanford are among the nine multipurpose national labs, most of which have some connection to a research university.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is operated through an agreement between Battelle and State University of New York, Stony Brook, for example. And Berkeley National Laboratory is operated by the University of California system.

The alliance is unique because seven regional public universities set up a private nonprofit corporation that actually helped bid on, and now owns a 10 percent share of, the INEEL management contract. With that comes a share of the contract’s risks, responsibilities and rewards. UI officials say in-house attorneys and a specialized legal consultant reviewed the liability to make sure universities were protected in case something were to go awry.

“Great care has been taken to assure that a clear distinction exists between the member universities as public entities and INRA, as a private nonprofit corporation,” said James Stout, the retired DOE attorney from Albuquerque, N.M., who is consulting as the alliance’s corporate secretary.

The UI refused to release copies of the contract between the alliance and Bechtel BWXT Idaho Inc., because of their “proprietary nature.”

The universities set up the alliance last spring to become part of a limited liability company with Bechtel BWXT Idaho Inc., and bid on DOE’s contract for managing the lab, formerly held by Lockheed Martin.

The marriage of industry and academia is intended to benefit both, with the universities gaining research dollars and opportunities for students and INEEL benefiting from researchers’ expertise. Faculty are encouraged to work for INEEL “on loan” or through university-negotiated sabbaticals or leaves.

“We are going to be in each other’s labs and workplaces to make this a long term, lasting relationship,” said Richard Jacobsen, former UI engineering dean who is now deputy lab director and chief scientist at INEEL under the agreement.

There will also be political benefits from the alliance, now that the seven universities are financially intertwined with the lab. The link gives congressional delegations from four states a reason to lobby for more federal research money at INEEL.

Two Washington senators, Patty Murray and Slade Gorton, Montana Sen. Conrad Burns, Utah Sen. Robert Bennett and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig all sit on the Senate Appropriations Committee, for example, and two Washington congressmen, George Nethercutt and Norm Dicks, sit on the House Appropriations Committee.

The alliance is expected to receive a $2 million share of the fee that DOE pays Bechtel BWXT Idaho to manage the lab. Half of that will be reinvested in alliance research and educational activities related to INEEL, under the agreement.

In addition, the deal designates several INEEL positions as jobs reserved for alliance staff. Those positions will be staffed by university faculty whose salaries and benefits will be reimbursed with money from INEEL’s operating contract. The reimbursement comes in “recognition of the fact that the staff members involved will be performing duties at INEEL in direct support of the INEEL mission,” according to INRA Corporate Secretary Jim Stout.

Jacobsen is currently on loan to INEEL for $160,014 under such an arrangement, as is Fred Gunnerson, director of the UI’s Idaho Falls Center, who is now acting director of the INEEL Institute. Their salary levels are approved by the State Board of Education then the university is reimbursed for salary and benefits.

Also as a part of the deal, the universities are expected to furnish qualified experts at INEEL’s request for technical support.

The Thursday and Friday meetings were intended to introduce university officials and researchers to INEEL personnel.

AT A GLANCE INEEL scientists INEEL employs 6,200 people, but only 11 percent of the work force have doctoral degrees, the lowest percentage of all the national labs. The Inland Northwest Research Alliance may be able to help the lab boost that number.