The Department of Energy on Tuesday awarded a new five-year contract to UC to manage and operate its Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The award is the result of the first competition for the management and operating contract for the laboratory since its inception in 1931.

The value of the new five-year contract is an estimated $2.3 billion. Berkeley Lab's $469 million annual budget is funded by the department's Office of Science, other DOE programs, as well as other government agencies and private industry.

"Because of its outstanding work, including 10 Nobel Prizes won by its scientists, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory has helped ensure U.S. scientific leadership for more than 60 years," Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman said. "This contract award will allow LBNL and its outstanding researchers and staff to seamlessly continue their work as they set new standards of scientific excellence."

UC has operated the laboratory since 1943 for the Department of Energy and its predecessors. The initial contract term will be June 1, 2005 to May 31, 2010.

The new "award-term" contract contains a number of innovative provisions intended to provide incentives for superior performance. The department may recognize superior performance through phased extensions, beyond the initial five-year term of the contract, for up to a total of 20 years.

The DOE issued a formal request for proposals to manage the laboratory about four months ago. A review of UC's proposal showed the contract award to be "in the best interest of the government," said Marvin Gunn Jr., a selection official with the DOE Office of Science, which is the steward of 10 laboratories in the national laboratory system, including Berkeley Lab.

This contract award is the first involving a major DOE science laboratory in response to Congressional direction in 2003 to open to competition five Science and Defense Laboratory management and operating contracts that were awarded more than 50 years ago without competition.

UC President Robert Dynes congratulated Lawrence Berkeley director, Steve Chu, and all the lab's employees.

He called Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory an "excellent example of the successful interaction between universities and the federal government in managing a scientific research facility and producing results of national significance."

"Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory is about breathing life into ideas and bringing researchers together in a rich interdisciplinary environment, to solve the scientific and technological challenges facing our nation and world," Dynes said.

The lab was founded by Ernest O. Lawrence, who won the Nobel Prize in physics in 1939 for inventing the cyclotron.

Today, the lab performs research in nanoscience and advanced materials, the life sciences, computing, energy and earth sciences, physics, and cosmology. It also operates a homeland security office dedicated to leveraging fundamental scientific research to develop methods for ensuring the safety of our country. In addition to the 10 Nobel Awards, researchers at LBNL have won 12 National Medals of Science.

More than 250 Berkeley Lab faculty and scientists hold joint appointments with UC Berkeley and other UC campuses.

The laboratory's missions include basic science and technology development, with no classified programs or facilities.

LBNL's unique research facilities, which attract scientists from all over the world, include the Advanced Light Source, Biomedical Isotope Facility, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center and the National Center for Electron Microscopy. The Molecular Foundry, a national nanoscience research center, is currently under construction and is expected to go into full operation in 2006.