The Office of Science is a component of the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United States ...

(DOE). The Office of Science is the lead federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for energy and the Nation’s largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. The Office of Science portfolio has two principal thrusts: direct support of scientific research and direct support of the development, construction, and operation of unique, open-access scientific user facilities that are made available for use by external researchers. The Office of Science manages this research portfolio through six interdisciplinary scientific program offices: Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Basic Energy Sciences, Biological and Environmental Research, Fusion Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics. The Office of Science also has responsibility for 10 of the 17

United States Department of Energy National Laboratories The United States Department of Energy National Laboratories and Technology Centers is a system of facilities and laboratories overseen by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) for scientific and technological research. Sixteen of the sev ...

.About the Office of Science
DOE Office of Science website. Retrieved August 5, 2011. The office is the predominant

U.S. federal government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a f ...

sponsor for research in the

physical sciences Physical science is a branch of natural science that studies non-living systems, in contrast to life science. It in turn has many branches, each referred to as a "physical science", together called the "physical sciences". Definition Phy ...

, including

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemati ...

, materials science, nanoscience, and

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

, as well as

systems biology Systems biology is the computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological systems, using a holistic ...

and

environmental sciences Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physi ...

. The Office of Science makes extensive use of peer review and federal advisory committees to develop general directions for research investments, to identify priorities, and to determine the very best scientific proposals to support. The 10 Office of Science national laboratories are: Ames Laboratory,

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facility is located in Lemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and is the l ...

, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory,

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a U.S. multiprogram science and technology national laboratory sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and administered, managed, and operated by UT–Battelle as a federally funded research an ...

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of the United States Department of Energy national laboratories, managed by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Science. The main campus of the laboratory is in Richland, Washington. ...

, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and the

Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), commonly called Jefferson Lab or JLab, is a US National Laboratory located in Newport News, Virginia. Its stated mission is "to provide forefront scientific facilities, opportunities an ...

. The Office is currently led by Director Dr. Asmeret Berhe.

Program offices

The Office of Science includes six interdisciplinary science program offices: *Advanced Scientific Computing Research *Basic Energy Sciences *Biological and Environmental Research *Fusion Energy Sciences *High Energy Physics *Nuclear Physics.

Advanced Scientific Computing Research

The Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) supports research and development in

, and integrated network environments. The programs it supports represent the largest and most active computer science research effort within the U.S. federal government.About ASCR
, Office of Science website. Retrieved December 7, 2010.

Supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructio ...

facilities supported by ASCR include the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, and the Leadership Computing Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and

in Illinois. The ASCR supports the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), which interconnects more than 40 DOE sites at speeds up to 100

gigabit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented ...

s per second. ESnet is a successor to a network that the Office of Science created in 1974 to connect geographically dispersed researchers through a single network. In the 1980s the Office of Science collaborated with

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the A ...

, NSF and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

to convert the agencies' separate networks into a single integrated communications network that became the basis for the commercial

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

.Accomplishments and Awards
DOE Office of Science website. Retrieved December 7, 2010.

Biological and Environmental Research

The Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) supports research and scientific user facilities in the biological and environmental sciences to support DOE's missions in energy, environment, and basic research. BER initiated the

Human Genome Project The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both ...

in 1986 and has continued to support activity in

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

-based

and initiatives related to

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

applications. The Joint Genome Institute, formed in 1997, initially conducted sequencing of human DNA in support of the Human Genome Project. Its current focus is on sequencing the

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ...

s of

microbe A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in olde ...

microbial communities Microbial population biology is the application of the principles of population biology to microorganisms. Distinguishing from other biological disciplines Microbial population biology, in practice, is the application of population ecology and popu ...

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately fr ...

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae excl ...

s, and other organisms. Environmental efforts include research on the global carbon cycle and possible mitigation of the impacts of

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...

.Office of Biological & Environmental Research website
Retrieved December 7, 2010.
Office of Biological & Environmental Research website. Retrieved December 7, 2010. When it started in 1978, BER's Climate Change Research Program was the first U.S. research program to investigate the effects of

greenhouse gas A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), methane ...

es on climate and environment. The Office of Science climate change research program is now the third largest in the U.S.

Fusion Energy Sciences

The Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) organization supports efforts to expand the fundamental understanding of

plasma physics Plasma ()πλάσμα
, Henry George Liddell, R ...

and the knowledge needed to develop a fusion energy source. This organization supports U.S. participation in the

ITER ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy by replicating, on Ear ...

project through the U.S. ITER Project Office, a partnership of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.

Research funding

More than 90 percent of the Office of Science budget is allocated to research and scientific facilities.

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

AAAS R&D Funding Update on DOE R&D in FY 2009 Senate Appropriations – Senate Boosts DOE Science and Energy R&D
, retrieved from AAAS Science and Policy Programs website on December 12, 2010 The fundamental research areas in which the Office of Science has programs include physics and other basic energy sciences, biological and environmental sciences, and computational science. Support is provided for research activities in the national laboratories and universities. The office is the principal (or the single largest) source of U.S. federal government support for research in high-energy physics, nuclear physics, fusion energy, materials science, and chemical sciences. The Office of Science is estimated to provide 40 percent of the funding for basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. It is also a major source of funding for government-supported research in climate change, geophysics, genomics, life sciences, and science education. In

constant dollars Inflation accounting comprises a range of accounting models designed to correct problems arising from historical cost accounting in the presence of high inflation and hyperinflation. For example, in countries experiencing hyperinflation the Int ...

, Office of Science annual budgets for Basic Energy Science and Advanced Scientific Computing nearly doubled between

fiscal year A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...

s 1996 and 2009. Budgets for High Energy Physics and Biological and Energy Research remained relatively constant through that 14-year period. Nuclear Physics and Fusion Energy Sciences budgets were relatively static through most of the period, but had substantial increases in fiscal 2009. The increase in the Fusion budget reinstated the U.S. contribution to ITER, which was reduced significantly in the previous year.

History

DOE's Office of Energy Research was a predecessor to the Office of Science. In 2006, the Office of Science was placed under the oversight of the

Under Secretary of Energy for Science The Under Secretary for Science and Innovation, formerly the Under Secretary for Science and Energy, is a high-ranking position within the United States Department of Energy. The position was created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and the first ...

, a new position created by the

Energy Policy Act of 2005 The Energy Policy Act of 2005 () is a federal law signed by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005, at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The act, described by proponents as an attempt to combat growing energy probl ...

Accomplishments and awards

DOE lists 76

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

winners as having been associated with Office of Science programs or facilities under DOE and its predecessor agencies.DOE Nobel Laureates
, DOE Office of Science website. Retrieved December 7, 2010.

Organization

The Office of Science is led by a Presidentially-nominated, Senate-confirmed Director and three senior career federal Deputy Directors. The current director of the Office of Science is Asmeret Berhe. The current deputy directors are Principal Deputy Director Dr. J. Stephen Binkley, a longtime Energy Department scientist; Deputy Director for Science Programs Dr. Harriet Kung; and Deputy Director for Field Operations Juston Fontaine, a longtime Energy Department manager.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Science and technology in the United States United States Department of Energy agencies Government agencies with year of establishment missing Organizations established in the 20th century 20th-century establishments in the United States