notes

Friday, March 5, 2004 12:11

phone.

6. Themes. It seems to me that it might be useful if we agree on a few themes to guide our questioning and divide the time - I've tried to think of them as if they might be possible Section Headings of our eventual report. The kind of things I am thinking about are these:

  1. Balance and the Big Picture. How is balance and priorities in the University program determined and periodically evaluated? "Balance" can be projected onto many different axes: balance, high $/PI to low $/PI; balance, theory vs experiment; balance, support for experiments ongoing vs experiments in the future; balance of research physicist vs post docs vs grad students; etc. Are these balances healthy? Where could it be redressed? What concerns you (DOE)? Budget slicing. I always liked to slice my department budget along mission lines...but it may be too hard here to do this. What we traditionally see are things like: $/faculty; # students/faculty; whatever. But, what we argue for nationally are Large Programs. I would like to see $/faculty correlated in bins of something like: Tevatron Collider; NUMI; BaBar; SLAC FT; Phenomenology; Formal Theory; LEP; DESY; CMS; Atlas; etc. As interesting as the individual numbers at any point in time would be, the derivatives in these or other categories would be fascinating. Does this make any logical sense? Any practical sense? Present vs Future. I think that this is a failing of both DOE and NSF. The future's important, but the physics is now. How do they at the highest level make decisions on prioritization within the program. How was the hadron-lepton split done? How are theory tasks managed? what comes from above?
  2. Rules/regulations. I've always heard that DOE has many fewer 'rules' than NSF. Is this true and if so are the bureaucratic necessities appropriate to protect the program managers and the university community?
  3. How are priorities set?
  1. Stuff that comes from above ? Stuff that comes from outside?
  2. Award process. -vulnerabilities...
  4. University program vs the rest of the DOE HEP portfolio. What guides the allocations of resources? How is the university program tailored to match the priorities in HEP?
  5. Relationships. - - What are the relationships between DOE HEP and other state, federal U.S. and foreign agencies wrt university program.
  8. Needs. What do the university program administrators need that the HEP community can help provide? Advice. Does DOE HEP get the right sort of advice? What do you (DOE) wish you understood better about your programs? Vulnerabilities. What programs, projects, commitments are vulnerable? What will be protected at all costs? Where is there flexibility? Tensions. What makes the University program administration difficult?
  11. Quality. How is quality measured, both for groups as a whole, but also senior personnel within grants?
  12. OJI - what fields are involved. What's the mission now?