DOE invests in a wide range of civilian R&D programs that are managed by five program offices within the Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Energy, or by ARPA-E, which reports directly to the Secretary of Energy. These offices have the goal of enhancing U.S. security and economic growth through transformative scientific and technological innovation, and through market solutions to overcome science, energy, and environmental challenges that the United States faces. These program offices and ARPA-E fund R&D that is conducted by DOE national laboratories, universities, industry, nonprofit organizations, state governments, and other federal laboratories. Each program office and ARPA-E may fund R&D at any of the national laboratories. For example, the Office of Science funds civilian R&D at all 17 of DOE’s national laboratories, including the national laboratories sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Similarly, national laboratories may receive funding from any of the program offices and ARPA-E, as well as from other governmental agencies and nongovernmental entities. The five program offices and ARPA-E fund and oversee civilian R&D that aligns with their missions, as described below: The Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability’s mission is to strengthen, transform, and improve U.S. electricity infrastructure and to provide leadership to ensure that U.S. energy delivery systems are secure, resilient, and reliable. The office does not oversee a national laboratory but it is supported by staff located at the Office of Fossil Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s mission is to create and sustain American leadership in the transition to a global clean energy economy. The office oversees the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. The Office of Fossil Energy’s primary mission is to ensure reliable fossil energy resources for clean, secure, and affordable energy while enhancing environmental protection. The office oversees the National Energy Technology Laboratory—with locations in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia—which is the only DOE national laboratory operated by the government rather than a contractor. The Office of Nuclear Energy’s primary mission is to advance nuclear power as a resource capable of meeting the nation’s energy, environmental, and national security needs by resolving technical, cost, safety, proliferation resistance, and security barriers. The office oversees the Idaho National Laboratory. The Office of Science’s mission is to deliver scientific discoveries and major tools that transform our understanding of nature and advance the energy, economic, and national security in the United States. This office is the nation’s single largest funding source for basic research in the physical sciences, and supports research in energy sciences, advanced scientific computing and other fields. The office oversees 10 of DOE’s national laboratories. ARPA-E’s mission is to sponsor high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are considered too early for private-sector investment. ARPA-E does not oversee a national laboratory. Of the five program offices noted above, four consist of several types of offices that manage and oversee DOE’s R&D investments; these four are the offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Fossil Energy, Nuclear Energy, and Science. First, each of these program offices has a headquarters office in the Washington, D.C. area that includes senior leadership and that may include offices that provide support across the program office, such as policy development and oversight, budget, public relations and congressional outreach, and technical assistance programs as well as other administrative and support units. According to DOE officials, the extent to which staff functions are centralized in headquarters offices varies across program offices. Second, the program offices include research offices, generally collocated with headquarters offices, that manage particular scientific areas and research portfolios and provide strategic direction for these areas. For example, the Office of Science includes six research offices that steward different scientific areas. Third, the program offices have site offices—collocated with each national laboratory—that manage the laboratory contracts, oversee federal facilities at the laboratories and, in some cases, manage financial assistance awards to universities and industry, as well as other contracts. ARPA-E and the other program office—the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability—make smaller R&D investments, have significantly fewer staff, and do not oversee a national laboratory. As a result, they are organized differently from the other four program offices. According to an ARPA-E official, all ARPA-E staff are located at a central office, and research projects are organized around individual program directors. In the case of the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, the office has one suboffice that is dedicated to research and development; other suboffices are dedicated to regulatory or coordination functions. Figure 1 lists ARPA-E and the five program offices we reviewed, along with research offices and site offices within those program offices. Figure 2 shows the locations of the 13 national laboratories that primarily conduct civilian R&D under the oversight of the program offices we reviewed. This figure does not include the 4 other DOE national laboratories that may also conduct civilian R&D for the offices we reviewed. Of the 13 national laboratories that primarily focus on civilian R&D for DOE, 12 are owned by the federal government and are operated by management and operating (M&O) contractors. The R&D funded by DOE is carried out under the department’s direction and is managed by scientists, engineers, and others employed by the laboratory contractor. The remaining national laboratory—the National Energy Technology Laboratory—is operated by DOE. Therefore, the scientists and engineers who conduct the R&D at this laboratory are primarily federal employees. In addition to M&O contracts that DOE enters into for the operation of the national laboratories, DOE program offices and ARPA-E provide financial assistance—primarily grants and cooperative agreements—to support R&D at universities, industry, and other entities. Under the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act, an agency is to use a grant agreement when the principal purpose of the relationship is to transfer a thing of value to the recipient to carry out a public purpose authorized by law, and substantial involvement by the agency is not expected. For grants, an agency’s involvement is essentially administrative, and includes standard federal stewardship responsibilities such as reviewing performance to ensure that the objectives, terms, and conditions of the grant are met. In contrast, cooperative agreements differ from grants in that an agency expects to be substantially involved in the project through tasks such as reviewing and approving one stage of a project before work can begin on a subsequent stage. The three program offices we selected for detailed review—the offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Nuclear Energy, and Science—use various activities to oversee DOE civilian R&D investments in national laboratories, universities, industry, and other entities: these investments totaled $7.36 billion in obligations in fiscal year 2015. The activities these three offices used included activities to: identify research priorities and help determine where to invest in R&D, help ensure that national laboratories conduct R&D in alignment with DOE priorities and that M&O contractors manage the research and federally owned properties at the laboratories safely and efficiently, and help ensure that universities, industry, and other entities are meeting research goals as defined in financial assistance agreements. For all investments, including those in DOE’s national laboratories, universities, industry, and other entities, the three selected program offices engage in activities to obtain input from multiple sources to identify research priorities and to help inform where DOE invests in R&D. To help identify specific research priorities, these three program offices review objectives established in the DOE strategic plan and other DOE documents, such as the Quadrennial Energy Review and the Quadrennial Technology Review. These DOE documents are in turn influenced by national policies such as the President’s Climate Action Plan of 2013. For example, one of the objectives of DOE’s strategic plan is to advance sustainable hydropower technologies in order to help double renewable energy generation in the United States between 2012 and 2020, a goal of the President’s Climate Action Plan. Additionally, the program offices hold scientific and technical workshops with the scientific community—scientists and researchers in universities, industry, and government—to help identify priority research areas that, if supported, could contribute to overcoming barriers to advancing particular energy technologies. For example, the Office of Nuclear Energy sponsored a series of workshops in 2015 that sought to identify ideas for advancing nuclear energy technologies. Furthermore, the program offices have established federal advisory committees that provide expert input on particular knowledge gaps or infrastructure needs at the national laboratories. For example, in 2014 a panel of the federal advisory committee for the High Energy Physics research office issued a long-term plan for supporting particle physics, including recommending upgrades at a number of accelerator facilities, such as at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. DOE program offices also engage in other activities to help develop research priorities, such as attending conferences, regularly reviewing published literature, regularly meeting with national laboratory staff, and engaging with interagency working groups. In addition, according to DOE officials, new ideas often come from the scientific community in the form of proposals submitted in response to solicitations from the program offices. To help ensure that DOE civilian R&D investments in national laboratories ($5.14 billion in obligations in fiscal year 2015) align with DOE priorities, and that M&O contractors manage research and federally owned properties safely and efficiently, the offices of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Nuclear Energy, and Science carry out three broad types of activities for their respective national laboratories. We identified these activities through reviews of DOE documents and interviews with officials from DOE’s program offices and site offices. First, the three program offices conduct planning activities to help ensure that DOE investments in the laboratories support national R&D priorities.