Sandia National Laboratories & The University of Texas at Austin Research Partnership

Sandia National Laboratories is a world-class research and development community that delivers national security missions while advancing the frontiers of science and engineering. The formal partnership between UT Austin and Sandia National Laboratories, part of the Sandia National Laboratories University Partnerships Network (SUPN), allows UT faculty and researchers to navigate Sandia’s many resources, facilitate new research connections, and strengthen the Sandia-UT student researcher talent pipeline. These teams solve significant problems that neither institution could address alone through combined key academic disciplines, relevant research capabilities, and a strong commitment to national security.

Opportunities to Collaborate

Sandia funds several seed projects annually at UT to facilitate new collaborations between faculty, student researchers, and Sandia Principal Investigators (PIs) through its Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) program. This program offers Sandia’s scientists and engineers and UT researchers the opportunity to identify and pursue innovative solutions to our most challenging national security problems. The LDRD program seeks to invest in high-risk, potentially high-payoff activities that enable national security missions and advance the frontiers of science and engineering. As Sandia is the sole source of the LDRD funding, the program is flexible and can respond quickly to future mission needs.  For the past 6 years, the LDRD investment at UT Austin has totaled over $1M per year.

LDRD seed projects can lead to additional Sandia funding through Sandia Mission Campaigns, which are integrated, multi-disciplinary portfolios of 5- to 7-year projects, and Sandia Grand Challenges, which are single discretionary R&D 3-year projects. Teams with a strong partner foundation seeded in a previous LDRD project often pursue joint external funding proposals.

These examples of larger Sandia investments and collaborations outside seed LDRD projects are proof that the relationships have potential for long-term partnerships and thus for huge impact. Find out more about Sandia’s FY25 Research Needs at Sandia University Partnerships Network FY25 LDRD Calls and Research Needs (PDF).

Getting Started

Collaborations start with making connections between researchers with mutual interest and complementary expertise. The Collaboration Request Form will collect necessary information, so UT and Sandia staff can determine how best to connect researchers. This form is a great starting point for either UT or Sandia researchers who are interested in collaborating but may not know where to begin. The UT and Sandia partnership team review these submissions and help make connections.

For questions or for ideas, UT researchers can contact Sara Hernando, assistant director for research engagements, at ResearchCollaborations@austin.utexas.edu, and Sandia staff can email Nadine Miner, Sandia’s campus partnership manager at neminer@sandia.gov.

Sandia Resources

Sandia Academic Alliance Newsletter
Student and Post-doc Opps
Current Research at Sandia