Tough Times Ahead for Government Labs

Many government R&D laboratory executives face a tough couple of months ahead. These anxieties are fueled by: 1. possible management, technical direction, and budgetary changes in their agencies due to changes in the federal administration, 2. frozen operating budgets until March 2009 due to the Continuing Resolution attachment to the recent banking bailout bill, and 3. the financial fallout from the economic downturn. These and other pertinent questions regarding their R&D operations were addressed in R&D Magazine's 9th Annual Government R&D Executive Roundtable held on Oct 16, 2008, in conjunction with the 46th Annual R&D 100 Awards at Chicago's Navy Pier. The employment situation at government research laboratories is both varied from one lab to another and changing from previous models. Researchers at government laboratories continue to expand their domestic and foreign collaborations with positive and not-so-positive results. Over the past two years, there has been a very significant increase in the number of alternative energy development programs at a wide range of government research laboratories.