The purpose of DOE’s contract with ORAU is to provide management and direction of programs through ORISE that maintain and advance science and education capabilities supporting DOE’s strategic goals in the areas of defense, energy, science, and the environment. To support these goals, ORAU carries out a range of activities for DOE, including administering workforce development programs to help ensure the future availability of scientists and engineers. These workforce development programs are intended to encourage individuals to enter STEM careers, complement students’ academic programs, and provide faculty with state- of-the-art information to use in the classroom, as well as developing a pool of talent from which federal agencies can draw for future employment. ORAU groups its workforce development activities into the following three categories: Research participation program: This program provides research experiences to students, postgraduates, faculty, and other participants. These activities make up the ORISE program. Fellowships and scholarships: Among other things, these programs provide financial assistance for students to obtain academic degrees in areas related to the sponsoring agency’s mission. Events, academies, and competitions: These programs, such as the National Science Bowl, a nationwide middle- and high-school science and mathematics competition, are designed to encourage participation in scientific and technological fields. In fiscal year 2014, most of the federal agency expenditures on workforce development activities administered by ORAU were for the ORISE program. In that year, federal agencies expended $193.8 million on the ORISE program, followed by $3.2 million for fellowships and scholarships, and $1.7 million for events, academies, and competitions. These expenditures supported 5,854 research participation appointments, 72 scholarships and fellowships, and 1,191 special event participants. ORISE research participants engage in a variety of subject areas, such as climate change, weather impacts on military projects, infectious and chronic diseases, computer simulations of potential terrorist attacks or natural disasters, and conservation measures for fish and wildlife. (See app.I for additional examples, by sponsoring agency, of project subject areas in fiscal year 2014.) Research participants may also be involved in developing briefing materials on their research for agency leadership, publishing the results of their research, participating in conferences, and obtaining other research-related experiences. Research participants are not considered federal employees or federal contractors and do not receive a salary. They instead receive stipends and certain other expenses to defray their costs of living during their appointments. Participant appointments can be full- or part-time and can last for weeks, such as in the case of a 10- to 12-week summer program, or years, such as in the case of a 1-year postgraduate program renewable for up to 4 additional years. From fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2014, DOE and other sponsoring agencies expended a total of $776.4 million for the ORISE program, with DOD, DOE, and HHS accounting for the majority of the expenditures. Over that period, annual program expenditures increased by 73 percent, and the number of annual appointments rose by 42 percent. Stipends accounted for the largest portion of agencies’ expenditures. Sponsoring agency expenditures per appointment varied, affected by factors such as the length of research participants’ appointments and the program support services sponsoring agencies had ORAU perform. During fiscal years 2010 through 2014, sponsoring agencies, which included 11 departments and other federal agencies, expended a total of $776.4 million for the ORISE program. DOD, HHS, and DOE collectively had the highest expenditures for the program (over 87 percent) over that period and had the highest number of appointments in fiscal year 2014 (over 88 percent). Within DOD, the Army was the primary component that sponsored ORISE research participants, accounting for 77 percent of DOD expenditures over the 5-year period and 70 percent of appointments in fiscal year 2014. Within HHS over the same time periods, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accounted for about 59 percent and 32 percent of expenditures, respectively, and about 53 percent and 36 percent of appointments. See figure 1 below and appendix II for further information on agencies’ expenditures and numbers of appointments. Sponsoring agencies’ total annual expenditures increased from $112.3 million in fiscal year 2010 to $193.8 million in fiscal year 2014, a 73 percent increase (61 percent when adjusted for inflation), and the number of appointments grew from 4,128 to 5,854, a 42 percent increase (see fig. 2 below and app. II for further information). An ORAU official who maintains data on appointments attributed the growth in the number of appointments to an increase in the program’s popularity, which led to the addition of new sponsoring agencies and increases in the number of appointments per sponsoring agency. Agency component officials we interviewed cited a variety of reasons for wanting to sponsor ORISE research participants, including: access to the ORISE program’s recruiters and network of connections administrative support from the ORISE program that the sponsoring agencies could not easily supply themselves, and the speed, flexibility, and relatively low overhead cost of the ORISE program. For example, an official who managed the research participation program at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases told us that the cost of hiring and managing staff to administer their own program would cost more than the overhead that they pay for the ORISE program. The average total expenditure per appointment in the ORISE program also increased from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2014, from about $27,200 per appointment in fiscal year 2010 to about $33,100 per appointment in fiscal year 2014. Expenditures per appointment may have risen for a variety of reasons, such as changes in the average education level of research participants and the average length of their appointments. For example, the proportions of appointments at different education levels in fiscal year 2014 shifted compared to the proportions in fiscal year 2010, with recent graduate and postdoctoral appointments increasing 65 percent and 68 percent, respectively, while undergraduate appointments increased 12 percent. An ORAU official said that postgraduate appointments generally command higher stipends than undergraduate appointments. For example, according to information provided by FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, monthly stipends at their center could be as high as $2,897 for currently enrolled undergraduate students and as high as $7,569 for postgraduates with PhD degrees. The official said that postgraduate appointments at their center also last longer than undergraduate appointments, resulting in higher expenditures per appointment. From fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2014, stipends—funds paid to research participants to defray their costs of living during their appointments—comprised the majority of agencies’ expenditures for the ORISE program. Sponsoring agencies’ other expenditures for the program included the following categories of expenses: Travel and other research participant expenses: Funds paid to research participants to cover particular expenses not covered by their stipends, such as expenses for travel to conferences or other appointment-related destinations. Program support and overhead: Funds paid to DOE to cover ORAU’s expenses for administering the appointment of research participants at agencies. These expenses included (1) program support expenses—direct expenses for services ORAU provides to agencies, such as managing recruitment activities, and (2) general and administrative expenses—indirect expenses such as building expenses, paid by agencies as a fixed percentage (negotiated by DOE and ORAU) of total expenditures on the ORISE program. Federal administrative and security charges: Fees paid to DOE by other sponsoring agencies, including (1) a federal administrative charge of 3 percent of an agency’s total expenditures on the ORISE program to offset DOE’s administrative expenses for work conducted on behalf of other agencies and (2) a charge applied to Strategic Partnership Projects to supplement DOE support for safeguards and security expenses. Figure 3 shows the percentage of expenditures for each category of expense. Sponsoring agencies’ expenditures per appointment in the ORISE program varied among agencies. In each year from fiscal year 2010 through fiscal year 2014, the lowest average expenditure per appointment for a sponsoring agency was $14,396 or less, and the highest average expenditure per appointment was $42,996 or more. For example, in fiscal year 2014, the Department of the Interior expended an average of $12,246 per appointment, while the Environmental Protection Agency expended an average of $44,099 per appointment. The proportions expended for different categories of expenses also varied. For example, data provided by ORAU showed that the proportion agencies expended on stipends ranged from 69 percent to 88 percent in fiscal year 2014. We identified the following factors that contributed to per-appointment expenditures varying among agencies: Research participants’ appointment terms. Differences in the terms that sponsoring agency components set for research participants’ appointments contributed to variation in expenditures per appointment. Some appointments lasted for days, weeks, or months, while others lasted for a full year or more. For example, FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research’s Summer Student Research Program placed research participants in a 10-week summer program. In contrast, the National Library of Medicine’s Associate Fellowship Program placed research participants in 1- or 2-year residency programs. In addition, some appointments were full-time, while others were part-time. Methods of setting stipends. Officials at sponsoring agency components reported that they used differing methods to set research participants’ stipends. ORAU officials said that they sometimes provided advice to the agencies, but that the agencies ultimately set their own stipends. Almost all of the officials we interviewed at sponsoring agency components said that they considered applicants’ education levels when setting stipends, but they varied in the other factors they considered. For example, some used the Office of Personnel Management’s General Schedule pay scale, but others did not.