Accelerating Research-to-Application Transitions through Applied Program Management at a NOAA Laboratory

NOAA Research Laboratories, like most research institutions, experience unique challenges in managing their research portfolios. At the Global Systems Laboratory (GSL), in particular, complicating factors such as a myriad of funding sources, various funding award rules and requirements, and a mission to transition research outputs to operations and other applications to meet user needs, require a significant amount of internal program and project management. To address these challenges, in 2023, GSL established a Program Management Office. Since then, work to create and organize a comprehensive, detailed, and structured understanding of the laboratory’s research activities has yielded new opportunities to monitor research progression, identify research gaps, and identify candidates for focused transition planning, intellectual property protection, and resource (such as financial, personnel, or computing) allocation. This presentation describes some of the approaches GSL has taken to establish formal program management practices and explores some of the successes, setbacks, and lessons learned.