(IDAHO FALLS, Idaho) — Today, the Idaho National Laboratory and Idaho State University signed an agreement to deepen collaborative research and development projects that will advance solutions to the nation’s energy and security challenges.
The newly signed Strategic Understanding for Premier Education and Research, or SUPER agreement, expands cooperation between ISU students, faculty, and laboratory researchers in two key areas: critical and strategic materials and minerals, and environmental sustainability and security. Research in critical and strategic materials and minerals involves the study and development of essential materials and minerals that are vital for modern technology and industrial processes but are at risk of supply disruptions. Environmental sustainability efforts will focus on carbon reduction, sequestration and storage technologies, digitalization and artificial intelligence, geothermal energy, and spent fuel storage and disposition, among others.
“Since 1949, when our laboratory was first established as the National Reactor Testing Station, we have maintained a strong research relationship with Idaho State University,” said INL Laboratory Director John Wagner. “Research in critical and strategic materials and minerals is essential to our nation’s manufacturing and tech centers. This agreement with the university has the potential to elevate INL’s impact on this urgent national priority.”
The five-year agreement will promote greater cooperation between both organizations through shared academic materials, visiting research scholars, and joint symposia, seminars, workshops, and conferences. Longstanding research and development efforts in areas such as nuclear energy, high-performance computing and cybersecurity will also continue under this enhanced partnership.
“ISU and INL have a long history of successful partnerships and collaborations,” said ISU President Robert Wagner, “ISU has more joint appointments with INL than any other single university and we continue to grow in ways that give ISU faculty and students opportunities to work directly with INL. Not only do we prepare our students for the future, INL and ISU faculty are finding innovative solutions to the energy challenges ahead.”
The official memorandum of understanding is between Battelle Energy Alliance, which manages INL for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, and ISU.
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