Big Science. Big Impact.
As the largest science and energy laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy, ORNL conducts wide-ranging research to address the nation’s energy, environmental, and security challenges — ensuring America’s future.
Our Mission
ORNL’s mission is to deliver scientific discoveries and technical breakthroughs needed to realize solutions in energy and national security and provide economic benefit to the nation.
Our Vision
Unite expert teams, transformative technologies, and world-leading facilities to accelerate innovation and advance energy security for a safe, prosperous future.
What Does ORNL Do?
Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s broad range of partnerships allows us to pair our strengths with others for outstanding contributions to science while providing economic benefit across the United States.
We devote leading-edge expertise, world-class user facilities, and strategic research to delivering the scientific discoveries and technical breakthroughs needed to answer the world’s most difficult and urgent challenges.
Strategic Research Priorities
Decades of Discovery
Since its founding in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, ORNL has been at the forefront of scientific discovery and innovation. What began as a wartime research effort has evolved into the nation’s largest multi-program science and energy laboratory, tackling some of the world’s most complex challenges in energy, national security, advanced manufacturing, and computing.
Who We Are
ORNL is home to 7,500+ scientists, engineers, technicians, and support staff representing more than 70 nations. We are driven by our shared purpose to meet the world’s biggest challenges with intelligence, creativity, and teamwork.
Science Areas
Biology and Environment
Advancing understanding of complexity in biological and environmental systems
Energy Science
Delivering breakthroughs for a secure energy future
Fusion and Fission
Delivering world-leading fusion and fission science and engineering
Isotopes
Advancing isotope science and processing for a healthy, secure, and resilient future
Physical Sciences
Conducting foundational science in chemistry, materials science, nanoscience, and physics
National Security
Solving critical challenges in cybersecurity, nuclear security, and human security
Neutron Sciences
Answering big science questions about the fundamental nature of materials at atomic scale
Supercomputing
Advancing computing and data capabilities for scientific discovery and continued U.S. technological leadership
World-Class User Facilities
ORNL is home to eight state-of-the-art scientific user facilities that are available to researchers from universities, industry, and other institutions. These unique facilities offer a diverse set of tools for experiments across a range of fields, including biology, materials and energy sciences, physics, engineering, and chemistry.
University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge
Innovation Institute
The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are directing their joint attention to advancing research in the areas of the greatest national need. These include clean manufacturing, advanced materials, energy and transportation.
“The strength of laboratories like ORNL lies in the interdisciplinary composition of their staffs. Over and over again it has been demonstrated that the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts, that good people from diverse fields working together can make major scientific discoveries that are denied geniuses working in isolation.”
Alvin Weinberg
ORNL’s longest serving lab director