The Department of Energy awarded a new five-year contract for
management of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to the
University of California on Tuesday in the first competition for
management of the lab since its founding in 1931.
The contract, which includes $469 million in annual funding from
the DOE’s Office of Science, will begin June 1, 2005 and last
through May 31, 2010.
Though Berkeley has not suffered the same security breaches that
plagued Los Alamos in recent years, the DOE decided to put it up
for bid along with the other UC labs when their contracts expired
this year.
The DOE began the open bidding process in January, but only the
UC submitted a proposal, said Michael Waldron, spokesperson for the
DOE.
But Lynn Yarris, spokesperson for the Lawrence Berkeley Lab,
said the UC competed for the contract as if there were
challengers.
“We went all out; we competed strongly,” Yarris
said, adding that the UC did not know whether it had competition at
the time it submitted its proposal.
Unlike the other labs the UC manages ““ Los Alamos and
Livermore ““ the Berkeley lab does not do nuclear research.
Current research at the Berkeley lab encompasses various fields,
including biology, nanoscience, energy technologies, homeland
security and computing.
The lab was founded by Ernest O. Lawrence, who won a Nobel Prize
in 1939 for his invention of the cyclotron. The lab’s
researchers have won a total of 10 Nobel Prizes and 12 national
medals of science in its 64-year history.
Chris Harrington, UC spokesperson for the labs, said the new
contract contains some changes, like an external advisory board to
make sure that strong business practices are in place. But he said
the lab will continue to have UC employees who will continue to
receive pensions and benefits.
George Blumenthal, chair of the UC Academic Senate and faculty
representative to the UC Regents said he was relieved that the UC
retained management of the Berkeley lab but added that the win was
expected.”I am not surprised in some way that there were no
serious competitors,” Blumenthal said. “If they had
awarded the lab to some other corporation I would have some doubts
about the sanity of the people at the Department of
Energy.”
Blumenthal said he was very relieved that the pension plans of
the lab’s employees will remain intact under UC
management.