For the FY25 cycle, the LDRD Call for Proposals cycle received a total response of 157 submissions. At present, 109 LDRD projects are funded at a current total value of $27.5M. In addition, the Lab expects to fund several additional off-cycle projects during the remainder of the year.
View the list of all FY25 LDRD projects and PIs
The Lab’s scientific leadership reviewed each proposal under one of three funding tracks: Multi-Area Topics, Early Career Development, and Area Priorities.
The three Multi-Area topics from FYs ’23-’24 remain our focus and are being funded as collaborative projects across Areas: Automation in the Acquisition and Management of Experimental Data (Lab Automation); Data Science/Machine Learning to Accelerate Science; and Instrumentation to Advance Fundamental and Applied Science.
The Early Career Development (ECD) track was implemented in FY17 to provide early career scientists a two to three year financial runway to work on ideas they can turn into proposals for either direct DOE programmatic funding or the DOE Early Career Research Program award. The goal is to provide a path for early career scientists to become independent scientists and principal investigators (PIs). In FY25, the Lab is funding seven new PIs, in addition to the continuations that began in FYs 2023 and 2024.
The ECD track has been recognized by the DOE as a successful model; similar programs have sprung up at other locations in the DOE National Lab system.
Finally, Area Priority projects were selected with input from each proposal’s direct Division and Associate Lab Director with focus on topics that were of significant and targeted relevance to their Divisions and Area.
