Biosciences Strategic Plan and Reports

Berkeley Lab’s Biosciences Area is a leader in the advancement of biological science relevant to national-scale challenges in energy, environment, health, biomanufacturing, and technology development. Biosciences strives to align its strategic plan to these national scale challenges by outlining team science approaches to research in partnership with our sponsors, including the Department of Energy. The Biosciences’ 10-year Scientific Strategic Plan (Biosciences Strategic Plan) describes the vision for a national future strengthened by biological research achievements, and provides guidance for biosciences research activities at Berkeley Lab.

These Goals (Energy, Environment, Health, Biomanufacturing, and Technology development) are supported by strategies that each have a collection of 5-year milestones to be used in assessing our progress toward the goal, as well as 10-year metrics to validate achievement of the goal. This approach of using diversified strategies is designed to enable Biosciences to meet the goals through many different routes, providing insurance that if one or more strategies fail, there are additional strategic routes to follow.

Biosciences is committed to active management of the BSP by continually evaluating the state of the plan and undertaking periodic refreshes to improve the plan. The BSP was first refreshed in 2013 to establish an implementation framework. In 2016, the plan was updated to reflect organizational changes at Berkeley Lab and within Biosciences, and to include a new section for strategic technology development. The most recent version of the plan was updated in 2019 to integrate computing approaches more thoroughly through the science strategies, structure the Health section to represent true enduring capabilities in Biosciences, and to more clearly articulate our aspirations in biodefense and biosecurity.

In 2018, Biosciences released a 5-year Progress Report that measured progress towards meeting the 5-year milestones outlined in the 2016 version of the BSP. The report describes the hard work of nearly 650 Biosciences staff in four main locations over a period of five years. Strategy Leads were asked to assess the completion of milestones by determining if they were achieved to their satisfaction. Success was measured by factors including publications, active funding for research, and establishment of new research programs. The Strategy Leads also provided outlooks for future progress toward their 10-year metrics, as well as assessments of strengths and gaps of the associated research programs. These assessments helped Biosciences identify new program development opportunities and future strategic directions for the Area.

In 2023, Biosciences released a 10-year Summary Report that measured progress towards meeting the 10-year metrics outlined in the 2019 version of the BSP. Through the dedication of the entire Biosciences staff, the Area completed 66% of our 10-year metrics. Completed goal topics were researched and results had been made publically available through a publication, report, or patent. Of the remaining goals, progress has been made on 28%, with most in active research. Only 6% were deprioritized.

Beginning in fall 2023, the Biosciences Area will collectively vision the next 10 years of excellence in biological research to address national priorities.