6
Principles and Recommendations
This chapter presents a compilation of the principles and recommendations discussed in the previous chapters of the report. Relevant specific principles and recommendations from the other chapters are provided following the summary principles from Chapter 3. The committee recognizes that some of the recommendations may be difficult to undertake, and that sufficient resources may not be available to undertake them all in the near term. Therefore EPA will need to set priorities and develop a strategy for addressing them as part of its integrated evaluation of agency laboratories.
A VISION OF THE LABORATORY ENTERPRISE
Summary Principle 1: Every science institution is more effective if it has a vision of how its scientists, technicians, and other professionals can best contribute to the organization’s mission and goals.
Principle 4-1: An important part of management is knowing what the entity is and what it is intended to do, and this is true of every scientific institution as well.
EPA should approach management of its laboratory enterprise not so much as separate types of laboratories but as a system of the various laboratory efforts in EPA in which science and technical support activities are undertaken to support and advance the agency’s mission–in other words, as an organized composition of diverse components. (Recommendation 4-1)
EPA should develop a vision for its laboratory enterprise that maintains the strengths of the individual components but provides synergy through systematic collaboration and communication throughout the agency. (Recommendation 4-2)
ENSURING LABORATORY FUNCTIONS MEET THE HIGHEST-PRIORITY MISSION NEEDS
Summary Principle 2: Essential laboratory capabilities are the ones that are relevant to the current mission and the ones that anticipate future mission needs. Priorities for laboratory capabilities should focus on work that is central to the agency’s mission rather than on small peripheral efforts.
Summary Principle 3: Laboratories should avoid internal redundancy or duplication of capabilities that are readily available externally.
EPA should use the frameworks presented in Figures 4-1 through 4-4 for the individual components of the laboratory enterprise and for the laboratory enterprise as a whole. (Recommendation 4-10)
Summary Principle 4: Recruiting, developing, and retaining an outstanding, committed scientific and technical workforce is crucial for maintaining outstanding laboratory capabilities.
EPA should continue and strengthen its characterization and evaluation of its laboratory workforce, establishing a defined timeline and being transparent in its processes for internal and external audiences. (Recommendation 3-1)
EPA should initiate or complete the development of a strategy for periodically addressing the composition of the workforce, in the ORD laboratories, the regional office laboratories, and the program office laboratories, particularly after completion of the Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments/Voluntary Early Retirement Authority actions in 2014. The analysis should include an inventory of skills and training and demographic analysis (for example, projected retirements over the next 5 years) for strategic planning for the future. This information is essential for making sensible decisions in hiring, future reassignments, and offers of voluntary retirements. (Recommendation 3-2)
EPA should continue its planned hiring of postdoctoral researchers by ORD and expand it to other types of laboratories as appropriate. (Recommendation 3-6)
EPA should be granted permanent Title 42 authority and the expanded authority to define the number of Title 42 positions on the basis of its programmatic needs and available budget. In addition, EPA should use an independent body to review the Title 42 program every 5 years to ensure that it is being used for its intended purposes. (Recommendation 3-7)
EPA should continue, enhance, and expand its student training grant programs, such as GRO. The STAR fellowship program should be reinstated in EPA to support the research programs specific to EPA’s mission and goals. (Recommendation 3-5)
Summary Principle 5: State-of-the-art facilities and equipment are essential if a laboratory enterprise is to be able to meet current and future mission needs.
EPA should link inventory of equipment over $500,000 in all laboratories, without regard to mission, to an agencywide accessible process. Before investment in large capital equipment, laboratory equipment in other parts of EPA, other agencies, and universities that could be available for shared use should be explored. (Recommendation 3-9)
EPA should continue taking steps to improve the transparency and agencywide awareness of all its laboratory science capabilities. (Recommendation 3-10)
Summary Principle 6: Effective management with appropriate flexibility enables an efficient and effective laboratory enterprise.
The means of implementing the vision for the laboratory enterprise should be determined by the EPA administrator with a view to meeting the functional criteria set forth in this report for enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the enterprise. (Recommendation 4-11)
EPA should continue to look for innovative ways to address emerging problems and opportunities that create synergies among agency personnel who might encounter similar problems or opportunities within different EPA laboratories within ORD, program offices, and regional offices. (Recommendation 4-5)
Principle 4-2: Systematic involvement of all the agency’s laboratories in the planning process is far preferable to ad hoc connections and would probably yield a stronger and more efficient laboratory enterprise.
EPA should ensure that its laboratory planning process includes cross–regional office and cross–program office laboratory input and that it is more transparent within the agency and to outsiders. (Recommendation 4-3)
Principle 4-3: The overall aim should be for EPA to have the ability to produce fairly accurate estimates of costs for implementing various types of laboratory activities before undertaking a project and be able to provide final costs at the completion of the project.
EPA should conduct an annual internal accounting of the cost of the entire laboratory enterprise as a basis for assessing efficiency and assisting in planning. (Recommendation 4-4)
EPA should compile adequate data regarding the costs of individual activities in the various laboratories so that it can manage the laboratory enterprise appropriately. (Recommendation 4-6)
COMMUNICATION AND PARTNERSHIPS
Summary Principle 7: Communication and coordination among the laboratories within an organization are essential for efficiency and effectiveness.
EPA should continue to cultivate an interdisciplinary scientific workforce at all levels of expertise throughout the laboratory enterprise that can engage in high-quality, collaborative, science activities aimed at transdisciplinary challenges. (Recommendation 3-3)
EPA is encouraged to continue taking steps to improve the transparency and cross-agency awareness of capabilities through enhanced communication regarding scientific and engineering staff expertise and laboratory equipment. (Recommendation 3-8)
EPA should determine precisely what lines of communication are needed, which ones already exist, and which ones should be established. It should then clearly articulate the need for these avenues and the mechanisms by which they will be sustained. (Recommendation 4-9)
Summary Principle 8: Outstanding research and other science-related activities are the foundation for meeting current and future mission needs and for sustaining leadership in environmental science and applied research.
Principle 5-1: Success is largely a matter of commitment to a sound scientific and technical workforce and research and technical infrastructure.
Principle 4-4: Most successful organizations use both internal and external mechanisms for assessment.
EPA’s program office laboratories and regional office laboratories should undergo regular internal reviews of their efficiency and effectiveness. (Recommendation 4-7)
EPA should expand the use of external reviews to cover all components of its laboratory enterprise. (Recommendation 4-8)
SYNERGIES WITH OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
Summary Principle 9: A strong linkage to universities, industry, research institutions, and other federal and state government organizations enhances the laboratory enterprise and prepares it for the future.
Principle 4-5: An effective EPA laboratory enterprise should be fully cognizant of the array of research conducted outside EPA laboratories, should have mechanisms and programs to capitalize on that scientific work, and should have plans and staffs in its own laboratories not only to accomplish work necessary for its mission but to complement efforts of other agencies and to provide a means of collecting, sorting, and analyzing the results of those efforts to serve EPA’s mission.
EPA should develop more explicit plans for partnering with other agencies (federal and state), academia, industry, and other organizations to clarify how it uses other federal and nonfederal knowledge resources, how it maintains scientific capabilities that are uniquely and critically needed in the agency, and how it avoids unnecessary duplication of the efforts or capabilities of the other agencies. (Recommendation 4-12)
EPA should develop relationships with community colleges and universities to enable students to work in EPA laboratories as interns or student employees in an effort to develop future technicians and scientists who will conduct research and other laboratory functions related to EPA needs. (Recommendation 3-4)
EPA should consider using a variety of structured approaches for identifying emerging issues and possible solutions, including formal analyses of future societal scenarios and their ramifications and third-party advisory groups. (Recommendation 5-1)
EPA should consider creating an Environmental Advanced Research Projects Alliance (E-ARPA) and also consider how and under what circumstances E-ARPA efforts could be managed to address the agency’s future scientific and technical needs. (Recommendation 5-2)
