The Berkeley Lab

Annual Plan

LAB Research strategies

Colleagues,

Responsible stewardship of our laboratory requires that we have a plan in place to achieve the greatest scientific impact with the people, assets, and funding entrusted to us. To achieve this impact, it is important that everyone at the Lab understand how their own work supports the Lab’s strategy. Here you will find the planning documents that outline this strategy.

The core of our strategic planning effort is the Annual Lab Plan, or ALP. Every year, Berkeley Lab and the other Office of Science labs submit their respective ALPs to the Department of Energy. Our plan includes both our research and operations strategies. Berkeley Lab leadership arrives at these strategies through an annual cycle of meetings, starting with a strategic retreat with the Lab Director, the Deputy Lab Directors, and the Associate Lab Directors in the Fall, and then with all of the Division Directors in the Spring. (Our Advisory Board also meets twice a year and offers their advice on our strategy.) This process overlaps and intertwines with the 2-year LDRD planning cycle. The Lab-wide plan is built on the foundational strategic plans of the scientific areas, user facilities, and operations. We submit our written plan to DOE in late April. Each June, senior leaders from all the Labs travel to Washington, D.C., to present their plans to Office of Science leadership and receive their feedback on how the Labs are supporting DOE’s long-term vision.

You can use our ALP in a number of ways. If you are putting together a research proposal, for example, and you want to know how it might fit into the Lab’s strategic research initiatives, the best place to start is Section Four, “Science Strategy for the Future.” This section offers an overview of each Lab-wide strategic initiative, and then walks through how each area participates in these and other initiatives. If you’re wondering about the Lab’s infrastructure plan, Section Six offers a comprehensive campus strategy, including a look ahead to plans for building the Lab of the future. Our ALP includes plans for nearly every Lab activity, from tech transfer to human resources to strategic partnerships.

Also on this site you’ll find the slides used by the Lab Director and the Deputy Lab Director for Operations during their ALP presentation to the Office of Science leadership, as well as the Strategic Plans for most of our scientific research areas and user facilities. We’ve also provided frequently used contacts that will help you execute your work in accordance with the Lab’s processes and support teams.

Whether you do science or support science, every one of us plays a critical role in our scientific mission. My hope is you will use this site to connect your own activities to the long-term vision of the Lab and of the federal government so that everything we do is of the greatest possible value to the nation and to the world research community.

Mike Witherell