Audit Report: WR-B-02-02

The Department of Energy (DOE) issues science and technology (S&T) grants to advance
scientific research in fields important to DOE and the nation's welfare, such as health, the
environment, fusion energy, high energy physics, scientific computing, and basic energy
science. Grantees are to document the scientific and technical information (STI) that results
from their work in technical reports—interim and final—and provide the reports to DOE. DOE's
goal is to make the STI available to the scientific community and the general public.
Three principal offices within DOE are involved in carrying out S&T grant activities.
Typically, Headquarters program offices, such as the Office of Science, have management
responsibilities, including soliciting and selecting recipients for grant awards, and evaluating
grant results. DOE field offices, such as the Oakland Operations Office (Oakland), have
administrative responsibilities, including preparing and issuing the grant document, monitoring
grantee compliance with the terms and conditions of the grant, and closing out the grant. DOE's
Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is responsible for preserving grantee
technical reports and making the reports available to the public.
Recent Office of Inspector General (OIG) audits at the Albuquerque Operations Office
(Albuquerque) and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) disclosed
problems with collecting grantee deliverables and forwarding research results to OSTI. A
September 2001 audit report showed that Albuquerque was not receiving many of the reports
specified in the grants. The audit at EMSL disclosed that most of the results of nonproprietary
research done at the laboratory were not collected and forwarded to OSTI.
The OIG performed this audit of grants administered by Oakland to determine whether DOE
was receiving technical reports specified in its S&T grants and making the grant results
available to the public.