September 25, 2007

Management Controls over Cash Advances for Proprietary Use of Office of Science User Facilities

The Office of Science oversees the operation of 48 of the nation's most advanced research and development user facilities located at national laboratories and universities. These state of the art facilities, which include particle and nuclear physics accelerators and synchrotron light sources, are shared with the science community worldwide and contain some technologies that are unavailable elsewhere. The results of the experiments performed at these facilities can either be shared with the science community or retained for proprietary purposes, typically by a commercial entity, with intentions of using the information for profit or gain.