OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (Dec. 7, 2015) — A state-of-the-art web application developed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory has received a national award for technology innovation.
The Research Enterprise Solution program, or RESolution, was the overall winner of the 2015 Excellence.Gov Awards, given by the American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC) to honor the best government information technology programs.
It was developed by ORNL Information Technology staff and Knoxville, Tenn.-based software engineering firm Cadre5.
RESolution integrates technologies that streamline how ORNL researchers write, plan, execute and publish their work, creating an intuitive system that can be accessed from any device.
“We have been on a multi-year effort to improve our researchers’ experience here at ORNL. We’ve created a campus-like setting, brought the most advanced scientific equipment available on-line, and worked hard to create an environment focused on meeting researcher needs,” said Jeff Smith, ORNL deputy for operations. “RESolution represents an underpinning innovation that increases researcher productivity. Cadre5 did a great job helping ORNL’s IT staff translate the needs of researchers into a tool that supports their work.”
Although the software is still being tested, Travis Howerton, deputy director of ORNL’s Information Technology Services Division and RESolution project manager, said it was the application’s ambition and compelling design that earned the recognition of ACT-IAC.
“The application is a significant technical accomplishment in terms of the underlying architecture and sophistication of the system,” Howerton said. “What was already built was viewed by ACT-IAC as perhaps the most innovative project in government. I think the project’s vision was compelling, as was the scale of the problem we were trying to solve.”
When the full version of RESolution launches in January, researchers will have access to project management and procurement functions. Howerton said the second version of the software is slated to be released in September 2016 to handle proposals and estimations, as well as to measure scientific productivity.
“We think RESolution will give the lab a competitive advantage,” Howerton said. “We’ll be able to recruit and retain the best scientific talent because of this unique capability we’ve built to support research.”
Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supported by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
