Hi Everyone, I met recently with John Harvey who manages the Launchpad program at Argonne (http://inside.anl.gov/pages/launchpad-program). This program is meant to support work by highly motivated early/mid-career people in order to help them convert an initial technical idea into a much bigger R&D effort. Typically the Launchpad program lasts for a year and covers 50% of the FTE costs; aside from giving time to develop the idea, it also aims to help in honing a participant's program development skills. Program managers in DOE have seen the value of Launchpad and have paid into it. Access to the program is via open calls (May/June timeframe, if I remember correctly) or Divisional nomination. The technical idea can involve work at a basic R&D level or it can be higher up the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) stack. John was interested in seeing more applicants from the more basic science side of the Lab and we did some brainstorming. One idea is that we can use Launchpad as an internal silo-breaking strategy, for instance by bringing people in as "teams of two" (from two different parts of the Lab, e.g., CPS and HEP, CPS and MSD, etc.). Another is to promote initial work on an Early Career project; yet another is preliminary activity for an SBIR effort. If you have even a small interest in Launchpad, please swing by and talk to me. Also, do feel free to contact John Harvey ([email protected]) if you have questions. Best Salman