The FY17 portfolio was carefully structured to promote the Program’s vigorous strategic vision and the long-term goals of DOE, NNSA, and Livermore.
The projects in the present annual report underwent stringent peer-review selection and continuous management oversight. In FY17, the LDRD Program funded 215 projects, for a total allocation of $92.5M.
Project Type Distribution
The distribution of funding among the project categories is shown in the following pie chart.
Strategic Initiatives
Ten SI projects were funded in FY17. Although SIs represented ~5% of the total number of LDRD projects for the year, they claimed ~20% of the budget. Individual SI projects received funding between $1.4M and $2.4M, with average funding of $1.9M.
Exploratory Research
In FY17, 154 ER projects constituted 71% of LDRD projects and almost 71% of the budget, making this category the largest in the portfolio. This year, ER projects funded for the full year received between $147K and $1.6M, with an average of about $427K.
Laboratory-Wide Competition
Twenty-three LW projects were funded in 2017, representing 11% of the projects for the year and 7% of the budget. Individual LW projects that received full-year funding received between $100K and $275K, with an average of about $257K.
Feasibility Studies
The Program funded 28 feasibility studies in FY17, accounting for 13% of all LDRD projects and 2% of the budget. Individual studies funded for the full year received between $126K and $165K, with an average of about $150K.
Funding Distribution by Dollar Amounts
The following bar chart shows the distribution of funding by dollar amount, rounded to the nearest $1K increment, for all projects. About 15% of the projects received less than $100K, while 18% received $100K–$250K. The largest cluster (38%) was in the $250K–$500K range. Projects in the $500K–$1M range accounted for 23% of the total; 6% received more than $1M. The average funding level was about $430K.
Distribution by Research Topic
The following chart breaks down the number of projects in each field of research and their percentage of LDRD funding. The three largest categories (advanced materials and manufacturing; high-performance computing, simulation, and data science; and lasers and optical science and technology) each garnered 15% of overall funding, with 34, 26, and 23 projects, respectively. The smallest category was inertial-fusion science and technology, with four projects claiming 1% of overall funding.
