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Jan 5 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - Jon Van Chicago
Tribune
The University of Chicago, which has a reputation as a world-class research powerhouse, is fighting to retain control of one of its crown jewels, Argonne National Laboratory. Losing Argonne would be a huge blow to the U. of C.'s stature, and officials are pulling out all the stops to keep the lab within its orbit. They've recruited industrial partners as well as Northwestern University and the University of Illinois to join in a proposal to govern the lab. They've also argued their case to the Illinois congressional delegation and even have hired Washington lobbyists. "We've had to engage some kinds of help in pursuing this just to know what potential competitors are up to," said U. of C. President Don Randel. In a sort of warm-up for the main event, governance of Argonne West, a nuclear energy lab in Idaho that had been operated by the U. of C., was put out for bid last year. Chicago lost that competition to a group headed by Battelle Memorial Institute, an Ohio-based enterprise seen as a possible contender to operate Argonne's main campus near Lemont. "We certainly learned a lot in that competition," said Randel. The federal government's embrace of competitive bidding to operate major labs came three years ago in an act of Congress that grew largely out of dissatisfaction over the management of Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nuclear weapons facility operated by the University of California. Various security and safety problems have plagued the New Mexico facility. After a bruising competition, the Department of Energy last month awarded a new management contract to a group headed by the University of California, which bested a group that included the University of Texas. Los Alamos and Argonne were established after World War II to reward academics who developed the atomic weapons that ended that conflict. The universities of Chicago and California, which played pivotal roles in the wartime effort, were awarded management of the labs by the federal government. Argonne's mission and operation have been very different from those of Los Alamos. Argonne research centered on harnessing nuclear energy as a civilian power source rather than weaponry, and it pursues a host of other basic and applied science goals. With an annual operating budget of just under $500 million, Argonne is dwarfed by Los Alamos, which spends more than four times that amount. The fees paid to operate Los Alamos run to more than $70 million a year, while the U. of C. collects less than $4 million annually to operate Argonne. The main value of Argonne to the U. of C. is as a place where its faculty and graduate students can do research. Many other universities use Argonne's facilities, but none has as close an arrangement. With more than 100 people holding joint affiliations at Argonne and the U. of C., the institutions are tightly intertwined. "There's a larger synergy at work," said Stewart Hall, who heads the Federalist Group, one of the lobbying firms hired by the U. of C. He noted that Argonne's operating fees are the lowest of any national laboratory. "Both we and the lab are able to attract a level of talent we might not be able to attract if we weren't closely joined," said President Randel. "Our motivation certainly isn't money." U. of C. officials hope that Argonne's historic low operating fees will work to the university's advantage because it makes managing the lab a less profitable proposition for private sector firms like Lockheed Martin and Bechtel, which manage other national labs. "Fees for operating Argonne come out of what's available to do science," said Henry Webber, a U. of C. vice president. "We don't believe it's appropriate to take a large amount out of the lab's mission." The federal request for proposals to run Argonne puts a lid of $5.8 million a year on operating fees, an amount that Webber said the university finds appropriate. The request also puts significant emphasis on the need to continue doing world class scientific research at Argonne, he said. Stressing the goals of first-class science at rock-bottom operating rates plays to the university's strength, and members of the Illinois congressional delegation suggested to the Department of Energy that this is also in the taxpayers' interest, said Rep. Judy Biggert (R., Ill.), who represents the district where Argonne is located. Biggert said the delegation doesn't wish to appear to be exerting political influence on what is supposed to be a decision made on merit, "but we do want to assure that tax money is spent wisely." By bringing Northwestern and the University of Illinois into Argonne's governance infrastructure, U. of C. officials avoided difficult competition among academic institutions in the state regarding the lab. "As significant users of Argonne, we are concerned that the directorship of Argonne not be lost to Illinois," said Henry Bienen, Northwestern's president. "We didn't want to bid against the University of Chicago. We wanted to strengthen their bid." The U. of C.'s loss of the bid for Argonne West galvanized concerns at Northwestern, Bienen said. The University of Illinois also has close ties to Argonne, said Charles Zukoski, vice chancellor for research at the U. of I.'s Urbana-Champaign campus. The newly formed academic alliance centered on Argonne may prove beneficial by pooling brain power centered here toward common research goals. The Department of Energy will follow a structured procedure in determining who will operate Argonne in the future, beginning with an opportunity for potential bidders to comment on the draft request After the comment period ends next month and a final request is issued, formal bids will be submitted. A final decision is expected before Sept. 30, when the U. of C.'s contract expires.
jvan@tribune.com |