University Collaborative Research Program

Dear Colleagues:

I wanted to provide a fuller explanation of the issues facing the University Collaborative Research Program (UCRP). Funding for the UCRP historically has been obtained from the contract management fee. Annually, funds from the fee, that remain after the actual costs of management of the contracts are paid, are returned by the University of California to the directors of each of the three UC Laboratories. Our contracts reduce the funds available from the fee by the amount of any penalties resulting from failures in management of the laboratories, by the amount of any costs of expenses that are later found to be unallowable (eg., improperly billed to the government), and, more recently, by the costs required for the University to prepare competitive bids for the management of the Laboratories.

LLNL received no funding this year because of certain unallowable costs from issues dating to the mid-1990s. Normally, we expect to see $3M-$4M annually. We have maintained a reserve against the type of reductions seen in the past; however, that reserve is not sufficient to offset the complete loss of a year’s expected funding. Hence, we made the decision to offer a reduced program this year. We expect availability of funds to be questionable until our new management contract is negotiated and implemented.

We actively are exploring the possibility of defining a new university outreach program, which would be more stable over the coming years. We value the relationships enabled by the UCRP and would appreciate your thoughts about how to craft a program that can more effectively maximize the benefit of being associated with the best universities in the world.

Warm regards,

Laura R. Gilliom
Director, University Relations Program
LLNL

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