The SIP's objective is to foster the development of multidisciplinary teams to study complex energy problems such that a critical mass of expertise is established within the state. The SIP calls for significant investments from the state in the form of cost share. Typically, for every dollar that the team requests from the DOE, the team must obtain a dollar from their home institutions to demonstrate institutional support for the endeavour. Due to funding constraints, the DOE does not necessarily release solicitations for new programs every year.

The Laboratory Partnership Program's objective is to foster individual creativity and to promote ties between individual researchers in the state and individual researchers at the national laboratories. The Lab Partnership is typically an annual program and usually does not have require cost sharing from the researcher's home institution. However, the researcher must have a partner at a national laboratory who is truly involved with the research plan. DOE funds may not be used to support the partner. Funds may be used to offer research practicums for students to travel to the national laboratory to conduct research with the lab partner. Funding amounts have varied from $50,000 annually for three years to $150,000 annually for three years.

All DOE EPSCoR programs are announced in the Federal Register. Also, the NRCCE announces new solicitations to the deans of the colleges in the state. The NRCCE relies on deans to distribute the news to their faculty.

SIP Program Selection and Awards
In its role as coordinating office, the NRCCE solicits preproposals from multidisciplinary teams of researchers from across the state. To the extent possible, the NRCCE offers advice and assistance to any interested team to help it put forward the best pre-proposal possible. Since the DOE's SIP solicitation calls for only one, two, or three research "clusters" to be submitted for consideration, the NRCCE submits the collected preproposals to the State EPSCoR Committee for their review. The committee then selects one to three preproposals that will become full-fledged proposals to the DOE. The NRCCE works with the team leader to prepare a complete submission to the DOE. The DOE conducts its own review and selection process to identify which states will receive awards.

Laboratory Partnership Program Selection and Awards
NRCCE offers assistance to all state faculty at any of the state's higher education institutions. All award decisions are made by the DOE directly without input from the WV-DOE EPSCoR program or from the state EPSCoR program.
In its role as the coordination office for the DOE part of the state's EPSCoR program, the NRCCE can operate in a manner independent of any higher education institution. Currently, faculty at West Virginia University have enjoyed much success under the Laboratory Partnership Progam.
To encourage a broader award profile for the state, the NRCCE invites all state faculty at any higher education institution to contact Richard A. Bajura or Trina Karolchik Wafle to discuss this annual program.
All discussions are held in confidence.

Laboratory Partnership Program (LPP)

State Implementation Program (SIP)