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Resolving climate change involves building carbon-free infrastructure, such as solar farms and wind farms. This is likely to cost the world on the order of $100 trillion over several decades. In theory, we can reduce this cost by spending additional billions of dollars on R&D. This begs two questions:
- What might we develop that is not already being worked on, and would have a significant impact?
- Do we need a new R&D laboratory tasked with solving the climate problem?
Open-source business plan for new lab
Many foundations, universities and governments are currently exploring how to better tackle the climate problem with additional R&D. In theory, they could set up a new laboratory, or expand an existing research organization. To do that, they would need a document that describes how they hope to achieve their objectives. To raise money, this document would need to meet the satisfaction of funding sources.
To help them get started, we produced an open-source business plan for a new R&D laboratory. This can be copied, renamed, edited and used in any way for free. To do this, one adds a bifurcation statement to a copy of our open-source document.
By MRPeasy 05.01.2024
By Global Unichip Corp. 04.18.2024
For details on how to set up a new R&D laboratory, watch the following video:
What do labs do?
Some laboratories develop large systems, whereas others focus on supporting research via grants. For example, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) focuses on developing large systems like the Mars Rover and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is active in supporting research grants. The typical grant process is as follows: announce funding opportunity, collect proposals, review, select and manage awardees.
Organizational structure
Laboratories typically divide responsibility among multiple divisions, and divisions typically divide responsibility among multiple groups. A lab could have any number of divisions and any number of groups, and these could be added or subtracted at any time.
Panels of individuals typically allocate money from a general fund to divisions and to groups—and staff are typically encouraged to raise money from external sources via proposals.
Some laboratories employ many people at one site, whereas others funnel money toward other organizations. For example, a laboratory that accelerates the development of fusion power might pass money to scientists at the world’s 10 fusion research organizations who are already familiar with fusion.
How does a laboratory differ from a university?
There are approximately 300 research universities in the U.S. Each performs research, trains undergraduate students, produces Ph.D.’s, and raises money for financial aid and research.
Research project size is often limited to that which can be handled by a professor or a department. A laboratory, on the other hand, might be tasked with achieving an objective. For example, it might be tasked with “saving the planet from climate change.” To raise money, a business plan would need to explain, to the satisfaction of funding sources, how the laboratory hopes to achieve its objectives.
National R&D Goals
Governments occasionally declare a national R&D goal. For example, President Kennedy in 1961 stated he wanted to leave the planet. To see how he pitched this to congress, watch this two minute video.
