Core University Leadership
Along with the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) engages with Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) and seven core universities—Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina State, the University of Virginia, Vanderbilt and Virginia Tech—in a variety of ways.
- Joint Faculty Appointments - These enable a university faculty member to conduct research at the laboratory for extended amounts of time, with costs shared by the two institutions.
- Collaborative Research - Programs are driven by principal investigators from core universities, and strategically directed toward key elements of ORNL's science agenda. The core universities also support the laboratory in the development of major new science initiatives and provide leadership in expanding university interaction with ORNL across the broader academic research community.
- Joint Institutes - ORNL partners with the core universities on four different joint institutes: heavy ion research, neutron sciences, biological sciences and computational sciences.
- UT-Battelle Board - Representatives from the core universities also hold seats on the science and technology committee of the UT-Battelle Board of Directors.