# Presentation: 223692

## Review of DOE Climate Change Research DivisionApril 25-27, 2007Report of Findings and Recommendations

**Committee of Visitors**
**Don Wuebbles, Chair **
** **
**May 14, 2007**

## Charge to COV

**DOE Under Secretary for Science, Dr. Orbach, charged BERAC with assembling a COV to assess the research program management processes in the CCRD.**
- COV should provide an assessment of the processes used to solicit, review, and recommend proposal funding actions for FY 2004-2006.
- COV should assess the processes used to manage ongoing CCRD research programs, especially the decision-making process.

## Charge to COV (cont.)

- Specifically, the COV panel should consider and provide evaluation of the following:
- For both DOE laboratory and university grants, assess the efficacy, fairness, and quality of processes used to:
- Solicit, review, recommend, and document proposal funding actions.
- Monitor active projects and programs for progress and outcome.
- Assess the efficacy and quality of processes used to manage ongoing programs.

## Charge to COV (cont.)

- As part of the review, the request is for the panel to specifically address the following questions:
- Is the proposal review process rigorous and fair?
- Are funding decisions adequately documented and justified?
- Does the solicitation process for proposals provide sufficient and useful guidance to prospective applicants?
- Are the progress and outcomes of multi-year projects adequately monitored and evaluated to justify decisions about continued funding?
- Does the process consider the depth and balance in a research portfolio?
- Does the process solicit and encourage a reasonable amount of exploratory, high-risk research?
- Does the process link the research to mission needs of DOE and its programmatic goals and objectives?
- Does the process enable the support of coherent suites of projects that are integrated and collectively of added scientific value to the program?
- Does the process ensure a reasonable and appropriate turnover of funded investigators to enable and foster the support of new projects and scientists by programs?
- Does the process result in a portfolio of research elements and programs that have national and international scientific standing?

## The COV

**Don Wuebbles (Chair)**
**ARM:**** Paul Houser, Charles Miller, Warren Washington**
**ASP:**** Kea Duckenfield, Anne-Marie Schmoltener, Roddy Rogers**
**Terrestrial Carbon Cycle:**** Ray Desjardins, George Koch**
**Climate Modeling:**** Bill Dannevik, Don Anderson, Walt Robinson**
**Ecosystems:**** Steve Hildebrand, Michael Ryan**
**Carbon Sequestration:**** Patricia Jellison, Rattan Lai**
**Information / Integration, Integrated Assessment, Education:**** Margaret Leinen**

## Format of the Review

**For each of the ten active programs, COV divided into subgroups**
**Each subgroup wrote its report:**
**Summary of the program**
**General comments**
**Responses to the ten questions**
**Other considerations**
**Cross-cutting findings and special recommendations**
**Briefing to Dr. Elwood**
**Preparation of report (you should have the current draft)**

## CCRD

- The COV felt it important first of all to acknowledge that the research programs within the CCRD are well recognized nationally and internationally for the important contributions being made to understanding of the climate system and for reducing key uncertainties that are helping policymakers to better determine potential responses to the concerns about global warming.
- Several of the programs are particularly unique in their addressing of key issues

## Progress Since Previous COV

- There has been significant progress since the last COV review and clear indication that the comments and recommendations made by that COV have been taken seriously.
- Solicitations are more specific and have greater clarity, and there appears to be a modest increase in the number and diversity of reviewers.
- Selection statements for lab projects were implemented.
- Overall there is a more balanced treatment of labs and universities.
- Contents of project jackets (files), while still needing attention, are more complete than they were at the time of the previous review.
- Program Managers are taking a strong and active role in activities of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).

## Program Support

- The COV found that insufficient resources (personnel and budgetary support, in CCRD collectively place at risk the ability of the Program Managers to effectively manage and maintain oversight of the programs for which they have responsibility.
- Staffing at both the Program Manager and support staff levels appear to be insufficient for adequate review, oversight, and management of programs.
- travel budget per Program Manager of ~$6K/year is grossly inadequate for proper oversight of funded projects.
**The COV recommends that additional resources be made available to CCRD to enhance achievement of Division and programmatic goals, to reduce risk in the management and oversight of significant national research components, and to ensure that DOE has a continued and appropriate presence in national and interagency initiatives.**

## Proposal Solicitation and Review Process

- The COV confirmed their support for maintaining competitive solicitations for the national laboratories as well as for universities.
-  There was COV consensus that preapplications should be encouraged for major proposal solicitations.
- Would better allow Program Managers to ensure balance among projects to meet agency and program goals,
-  Would reduce the size of reviewer pools needed for the actual solicitation.
- In general, CCRD makes effective use of panels and mail reviews.
- We encourage the Programs to continue efforts to expand the diversity and turnover of reviewers
- We recommend that the Division develop an integrated electronic database of reviewers to ensure balance, eliminate potential conflicts of interest, and to ensure that the number and diversity of proposals that reviewers see is appropriate.

## Proposal Solicitation / Review Process (cont.)

**Chief Scientist:** We recommend that the role of the Chief Scientists be clarified and optimized to make best use of these individuals while eliminating the potential for real or perceived conflict of interest.
**Clearer Instructions to Reviewers:** The COV feels that these tailored instructions are essential and recommends that Program Managers routinely supplement the standard Office of Science instructions to reviewers to focus the reviews and ensure useful reviews. Copies of this letter should be added to project jackets to document what guidance is given to reviewers.
**Guidance Regarding Funding Decisions:** there apparently is no formal mechanism to document communication with PIs when reviewers identify substantive issues regarding specific projects, other than the PI receiving the original review comments. We recommend that Program Managers for all programs include their suggestions to address these comments to successful proposers in either the funding letter (if written) or as a memorandum for the record (if guidance was given verbally).

## Project Management and Oversight

- Overall the COV feels that Program Managers are doing an excellent job of maintaining project oversight.
- There are a few areas in which improvement would result in a stronger, more focused program with better understanding of the value and long-term outcomes and deliverables of particular types of projects.
**Uncompeted Projects:** Uncompeted projects may be needed to maintain core competencies at labs and other institutions. When this is the case, periodic scheduled reviews and proactive management (and documentation of progress against project goals) are essential. The COV also recommends justification to management levels above the Program Manager should be required for projects expected to continue in uncompeted status.
**Very large projects **are sometimes necessary to achieve large, multidisciplinary, and integrated goals. It is important that the programs ensure consistent periodic reporting and external review at frequencies commensurate with the level of investment. There is an attendant danger -- very large projects that receive multiple continuations without review or timelines have a way of becoming considered to be perpetual. Because of the resource implications for such projects, better clarity, rigorous review, and clear timelines are needed on the projects themselves, and on the process for deciding continuations beyond the initial funding period.

## Project Management and Oversight (cont.)

- We recommend that final reports be required of all projects, both at universities and at DOE labs, and that these final reports become part of the official project jacket.
- This may be the case now, but could not tell from what we were given in the jackets.
- We recommend that Project Managers prepare an overall Program Report of accomplishments and proposed future directions every three years as part of the COV preparation process.
- Such reports would provide a way of assessing and communicating progress towards overall program and division goals, and would be useful not just to the COV, but also to DOE management and to the scientific community.

## Documentation and Records Keeping

- Although there have been improvements, documentation still varies widely across all program elements, and is much less substantive for lab projects than it is for university projects.
- Additional materials (e.g. more documentation on guidance given to PIs, final project reports) would be of great use to the COV and to Program Managers and DOE upper management in assessing progress towards goals.
- However, we are also sensitive to the other duties and time demands placed on Program Managers, and do not wish the current staff to assume an unreasonable burden.

## Documentation and Records Keeping (cont.)

**The COV strongly recommends that the CCRD conduct a self-study with selected outside members as appropriate, to establish a rubric or checklist for standard project documentation in the official files of record, for both funded projects and declined proposals.**
**We also urge that an integrated, electronic process and tracking system be implemented to ensure that project documentation is complete according to those standards, and to assist in safeguarding confidential information.**

## High Risk Projects

- ARM: We believe that ARM should be actively engaging in high-risk and innovative research more aggressively because these projects are more likely to produce extremely significant results. ARM is currently maintaining a very conservative, low-risk research portfolio. 1% now.
- ASP: Some novel instrument development projects awarded.
- TCCP: About 15 to 20% of funded proposals from universities included elements that could be considered high-risk.
- CS: During the 2004-2006 period, the program contained very little high-risk research.
- CMP: About 10% is high risk.
- ERP: The solicitations were specifically for high-risk research and represented one of four research solicitations during the period.

## New Investigators

- ARM: The COV felt that the program did have sufficient turnover, but a higher level of risk is probably needed.
- ASP: The last solicitation did result in a significant number of first-time awards (approximately 30 per cent of the awards) but few young investigators.
- CMP: The project is doing a good job in this regard.

## ARM (Science, ACRF, AVP)

- The COV found that there is excellent communication and coordination between the current program managers, but the organizational structure does not clearly define roles and responsibilities for the entire scope of ARM activities.
- The program receives far more selectable proposals than can be executed with a single mobile facility (14% success rate).
- We highly recommend that ARM move toward a strategy to compete its infrastructure investments.
- We recommend that the ARM solicitations be written with much more precise and narrow goals that are focused on ARM program science gaps.
- In recent solicitations, ARM solicitations have distinguished DOE Lab proposal solicitations as being multi-investigator or multi-disciplinary in nature. This is a positive step to help develop broader science, but we are concerned about non-DOE investigators being excluded from these broader proposals. We therefore recommend that ARM solicit both single-PI proposals and multi-investigator proposals from the entire community.
- We recommend that ARM program managers be required to compile and submit interim and final assessments on every project and campaign. We also recommend that reporting and documentation be consistent for Lab and non-Lab projects.

## ARM (Science, ACRF, AVP)

- The ARM program is clearly conducting research that is relevant to the ARM and DOE mission needs. However, there is not a clear process on how these links are formally made.
- There is also a need to more closely coordinate ARM activities with other DOE climate research programs, with potential joint working groups, solicitations, and field efforts.
- ARM needs to actively engage and be represented at national and international coordination activities (i.e. GEOSS, GEWEX, CLIVAR, etc.).
- ARM needs to increase relevance by creating a plan to conduct research that includes the transition of new model components to operational centers.

## Atmospheric Science Program

- At the time of the 2004 solicitation, it was not known which major field programs would be conducted during the award period. It might facilitate selection decisions if plans for potential field programs were known (to the proposers!), at least tentatively. It is also difficult to plan for infrastructure and logistics costs if there is not even a rough plan for field deployments. Apparently the Program Manager has little flexibility in later years because the entire program budget is committed through the solicitation.
- It would be helpful for the program manager and for future COVs if the award jackets contained brief evaluations of the annual reports. Even a short paragraph describing major accomplishments, strengths, and weaknesses would be useful for the record.
- The process of reviewing proposals could be made more efficient for the program manager and more transparent to the COV by keeping systematic records in each jacket. While the information is now much more complete than at the time of the previous COV, still lacking is a simple review record for each proposal, including the names and affiliations of everyone asked to review the proposal, the dates the request was submitted, an indication of whether and when the review was received, and the rating.

## Terrestrial Carbon Cycle

- The COV is impressed with the very good cooperation between the various program managers from DOE, NASA, NOAA, NSF and USDA involved in Terrestrial Carbon Cycle research.
- The process does not appear to foster integration across different university research projects, although within the national labs, integration is specifically encouraged. This shortcoming could be remedied, in part, with additional resources for annual meetings of PIs within a given research area. A positive aspect is that the program does encourage and help organize scientific workshops but the frequency of these meetings is not high.

## Carbon Sequestration

- The program management, despite budgetary constraints that restrict travel and limit staff support, has been outstanding in implementing a wide range of projects.
- The pool of reviewers seems small, resulting in some reviewers being used repeatedly to review diverse proposals, but acknowledge that this may reflect the size and nature of the program element.
- National laboratory funding decisions are not documented well, especially when compared with the documentation on university funding decisions. Lab proposal files typically contain a brief, two- or three-sentence guidance paragraph stating only the project title, funding amount provided, and list of deliverables.
- We recommend that some mechanism be designed into the program to accommodate some level of high risk research.
- Closer interactions with the NETL recommended.
- It may be important to revisit the process of funding support to the national labs to further enhance the efficiency, productivity, transparency, and credibility. Increasing involvement of the universities, USDA, and industry in the DOE-funded program at the national labs may be highly desirable.

## Climate Modeling Program

- The Climate Program is exceptionally complex, representing a wide diversity of activities and management structures.The COV finds that the program management generally deals effectively with this complexity.
- There is, however, no identifiable ‘core’ DOE investment at DOE labs that straightforwardly allows other agency program managers to forge direct collaborations in CCMP-related research.
- The plan to phase out individual PI projects at the labs will eventually impact the quality and character of the workforce at the labs, and this should be recognized. It will become more difficult to generate innovative or high-risk project concepts at the labs under this plan.
- Mechanisms through which DOE Program Managers exercise oversight or influence at NCAR are absent.
- For large, multi-lab projects, periodic reviews appear to be on an approximately 5-year basis, but there is little documented evidence of substantive annual reviews.  Documentation of progress on milestones, technical issues, and related items should be done on a regular basis and used as the basis for continued funding.

## Ecosystems Research Program

- The Program Manager should be commended for actively managing a high quality program of relevant research and especially for moving NIGEC to NICCR.
- Final reports that are required for university projects should also be required for National laboratory projects.
- Funding letters should include suggestions for alterations based on proposal reviews.
- NICCR Centers should continue to be monitored to ensure they follow through on their proposals.
- Formal involvement of the community (perhaps at a workshop) would help when setting new directions for the program.