IL-Sandia LDRD Program Adjustment

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Illinois) and Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia) are engaged in a longstanding partnership.  Together, we have seen how the nation’s largest federal laboratory and our world-class research and land-grant university can join hands to advance national security while growing workforce and expanding knowledge and expertise. 

 

For the past five years, the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation waived F&A on Sandia’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) projects.  This allowed Sandia to increase its investment in direct costs as we built the LDRD portfolio of projects.  It enabled more of Illinois’ faculty, staff and students to join with Sandia counterparts for thoughtful research collaborations.  This investment has resulted in multiple collaborations and opportunities, and has positioned our partnership with the LDRD program to stand on its own.

 

As we move forward with LDRD projects in FY21, Illinois will:

  1. in FY21 and FY22, continue to waive overhead on continuing projects that commenced in FY20 or earlier,
  2. beginning in FY21 for new LDRD projects, assess the university’s Sponsored Research Facilities and Administration (F&A) rate,
  3. in FY23, assess the university’s F&A rate on all LDRD projects.

 

We are confident that our waiver of F&A over the past five years will pay partnership dividends for many years to come.

 

 

Susan A. Martinis, Ph.D.

Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation

Stephen G. Sligar Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Professor of Biochemistry