The 17 U.S. Department of Energy National Laboratories operate one of the largest scientific communications enterprises in the world. The lab system is run by 16 management-and-operating contractors under contracts whose communications budgets are buried inside operating overhead. The labs coordinate communications strategy through the National Laboratories Chief Communications Officers (NLCCO) working group.
EPR Research and 5W today released The National Lab Communications Study 2026, the first systematic mapping of the communications operations across the 17 DOE National Laboratories.
The 17 Labs
LabStateMissionM&O ContractorArgonneIllinoisScienceUChicago Argonne LLCBrookhavenNew YorkScienceBrookhaven Science AssociatesFermilabIllinoisScienceFermi Research AllianceLawrence BerkeleyCaliforniaScienceUC RegentsOak RidgeTennesseeScienceUT-BattellePacific NorthwestWashingtonScienceBattellePrinceton Plasma PhysicsNew JerseySciencePrinceton UniversitySLACCaliforniaScienceStanford UniversityThomas JeffersonVirginiaScienceJefferson Science AssociatesAmesIowaScienceIowa State UniversityIdahoIdahoEnergyBattelle Energy AllianceNETLMulti-stateEnergyFederal (only non-FFRDC)NRELColoradoEnergyAlliance for Sustainable EnergyLawrence LivermoreCaliforniaNuclear SecurityLawrence Livermore National SecurityLos AlamosNew MexicoNuclear SecurityTriad National SecuritySandiaNew Mexico/CaliforniaNuclear SecurityNational Technology and Engineering SolutionsSavannah RiverSouth CarolinaEnvironmentBattelle Savannah River Alliance
The Communications Cost Structure Is Hidden in the M&O Contract
Per DOE's Office of Laboratory Policy: M&O contractors are paid an annual fee that averages less than 3.5 percent of operating costs across the system. Communications, public affairs, government relations, and protocol functions are not separately billed line items in DOE's published budget — they are absorbed within operating overhead at each lab. This is materially different from a federal agency public-affairs office.
The Coordinating Body Almost No One Knows
The 17 labs operate a coordinated communications working group under the National Laboratory Directors' Council (NLDC): the National Laboratories Chief Communications Officers (NLCCO) working group. NLCCO is the peer body for U.S. federally funded science communications — and it is not widely covered in the trade press.
How the Top Labs Structure Communications
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL): Communications is housed within the Office of Government and External Affairs (OGEA), led by Senior Director Ashley Bahney. Communications director Breanna Bishop oversees integrated internal and external communications, coordinating with local communities, the State of California, NNSA, DoD, and the intelligence community.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL): Communications is led by David Keim, running the Communications and Community Engagement Directorate. ORNL has more than 7,000 staff under Director Stephen K. Streiffer.
Argonne, Berkeley, Brookhaven, Fermilab, SLAC, Pacific Northwest: Each operates a standalone Communications and Public Affairs office. University-affiliated labs interlock communications staff with the parent university's news operation.
Why This Matters for the Communications Industry
1. The labs are a primary buyer of science communications talent. The combined U.S. National Lab system employs an estimated 250–500 communications professionals across the 17 labs — larger than every U.S. media outlet covering science combined.
2. The Genesis Mission and AI infrastructure announcements run through the labs. DOE's Genesis Mission leverages more than 100 petabytes of experimental and simulation data. The labs are the on-the-ground voice of U.S. AI compute infrastructure.
3. The labs absorb politicized messaging risk. Under the second Trump administration, DOE's Office of Communications and Public Affairs has been featured in messaging on "American Energy Dominance." The communications pressure on lab CCOs is meaningfully higher than at typical federal agencies.
4. M&O contract recompetes are reputational events. M&O recompetes are a recurring driver of communications activity and lab brand identity.
Why It Matters
The U.S. National Lab system is one of the largest, best-funded, and least-trade-press-covered science communications operations in the world. Every comms agency working with universities, federal contractors, energy companies, AI infrastructure clients, or science publishers has reason to understand how the lab communications complex actually operates.
