UC - National Labs: A Beneficial Partnership
Speech given by Robert C. Dynes April 2003

"* Let me take this opportunity to address the ongoing debate about the UC management of Los Alamos and the other two national laboratories.

* I speak not as a UC spokesman but as a physicist who has taken great pride in service to the labs.

* Senator Dominici's "tough love" comments last week were startling but not unexpected. The UC management of the labs has broken down in a variety of ways, and I do not think it would be constructive to describe them. We have all dwelt on this, and we all agree that it must be repaired quickly and completely.

* But I believe it would be a great mistake and a loss to the nation to discard the UC-national laboratory affiliation.

* These scandals, and all the issues they have unearthed, have been jarring for those of us who work with the labs, because we know how valuable our collaborations have been and how much potential they hold.

* I have seen first-hand how mutually beneficial this partnership is. And even more important, I have seen how this partnership benefits this nation. I won't go into all the details now, but I would be happy to discuss this later.

* The university benefits because its faculty and students have unmatched opportunities to work on important projects with top scientists at the labs.

* Just last Tuesday, we announced a joint initiative between Los Alamos and the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering to train young engineers in disciplines that support global security.

* This research-based educational program will support critical infrastructure management in both the civil and defense sectors, including stewardship of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, and maintenance of bridges, roads and aircraft.

* The laboratories benefit from this partnership again for reasons you understand, because, quite simply, the University of California in totality is the finest university system in the world.

* The UC affiliation gives the laboratories a better opportunity to recruit and retain the best scholars. It sets standards for science and technology that are unmatched.

* And it gives the labs access to gifted faculty and students, and also to the vast resources of our system.

* As just one example, the UC has the highest number of Ph.D. scientists and engineers of any entity in the world.

* That deep reservoir of talent has helped the labs attract world-class scientists to serve as program reviewers or as consultants.

* When we, as a science oversight board, approach scientists at MIT, or Princeton, or Oxford, or Tokyo, or anywhere in the world, and we ask for their help in appraising a program, we approach them as peers and as familiar colleagues. This opens doors that might otherwise be closed.

* But the ultimate measure of the value of this UC-labs partnership is its benefit to the nation, especially in these precarious times.

* It recently came as a surprise to Vice President Cheney that the UC system retains no money (aside from its administrative costs) from its contract to manage the labs.

* The university is a contractor with no conflict of interest. It has no more important goal than helping to build research excellence and upholding scientific integrity in both open and closed projects.

* Our affiliation has had an impressive track record of scientific achievement in key areas of frontier research and technology. I do not believe such a record would persist with a commercial contractor. I continue to be impressed with the science & technology both defense labs had to draw on when the demand for homeland security appeared. That work didn't form out of a vapor. It came from a solid science base."