&EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
EPA/600/R-14/165
June 2014
Strategic Plan for the ORD National Exposure
Research Laboratory (NERL)
Office of Research and Development
National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL)
Elvers of change
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NERL Strategic Plan
June 2014
Laboratory Director's Introduction
The National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) has a valued reputation for supporting the
Agency's mission of protecting human health and the environment with multidisciplinary expertise that
brings cutting-edge research and technology to address critical exposure questions and to develop
approaches for reducing harmful exposures. I am pleased to present this strategic plan that outlines who
we are as an organization - our mission, our values, our goals, and our direction for the future.
The plan was developed after much discussion among NERL's management team and with input from
across the Laboratory. Our plan flows from EPA's Strategic Plan and NERL's Exposure Framework. It
emphasizes the science and capabilities we bring to each of ORD's research programs, and highlights
when we have opportunities to collaborate across ORD as well as the broader Federal and scientific
research community. I am excited about leading this respected and dynamic organization as we
implement our plan. While the Strategic Plan provides a compass for the next five years, a companion
document, NERL's Action Plan, provides the road map with details about the approaches that will be
employed over the next one to two years to ensure that NERL and its scientists continue to be
internationally recognized for exceptional contributions to exposure research science.
Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, PhD
Director, ORD National Exposure Research Laboratory
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June 2014
NERL Strategic Plan
Who We Are
EPA's National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) was created in 1995, when the Office of
Research and Development (ORD) reorganized to better support EPA's mission of protecting human
health and the environment. This mission driven reorganization created national laboratories focused on
exposure, effects, and risk management research, and, centers focused on risk assessment, and
environmental research. NERL was strategically positioned to provide exposure science leadership not
only to EPA and across the Federal government, but to the broader scientific community on emerging
exposure science challenges. ORD has continued to evolve since 1995, most recently realigning its
research programs to focus on conducting research using a systems approach in an integrated and
transdisciplinary manner and transitioning to sustainability as an organizing driver. NERL also
continues to evolve organizationally and scientifically in driving the development, understanding, and
application of exposure science. NERL's multidisciplinary
expertise enables the laboratory to bring innovative research
and technology to address critical exposure questions and to
develop approaches for reducing exposures which are
necessary to protect human health and the environment.
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Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C., NERL has
an in-house workforce of more than 300 scientists, engineers
and staff across six divisions in four locations: RTP;
Cincinnati, Ohio; Athens, Georgia; and Las Vegas, Nevada.
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NERL's Mission and Core Values
We pursue our mission guided by a set of core values that ensure the i ntegrity and quality of the science
support that we provide to our partners. We strive to be collaborative in all that we do and responsive to
the short term and long term needs of our partners, EPA and the American people. Our core values
include:
NERL is a professional organization. We lead by example, and practice and model honesty, integrity,
transparency, respect, and professionalism.
Scientific and management integrity serves
as an umbrella guiding our operations and
conduct. We strive to become a highly
desirable place to work not only for the
excellence of our science, but also for the
high quality of our workplace.
The mission of the U.S. EPA's National Exposure
Research Laboratory (NERL) is to carry out EPA '.v
mission to protect human health and the environment
by developing and applying innovations in exposure
science.
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NERL Strategic Plan
NERL is an innovative organization. We bring innovation, sustainability, and systems-thinking to
solve high-priority environmental problems faced by the Agency. We strive to improve our own
knowledge and expertise, and to recruit and collaborate with similarly high levels of expertise. We also
recognize the important contributions of our staff, and celebrate our successes.
NERL is a recognized leader in exposure science. We work towards being a world-class laboratory.
Our mission of producing and applying leading-edge, high quality exposure science requires us to be
amongst the world's leaders in exposure science. We understand the importance and value of exposure
science in solving the Agency's challenges. We look at problems from an exposure perspective, and
blend our expertise with that of our colleagues in other parts of ORD to generate innovative solutions to
problems. We conduct our work with scientific integrity, incorporating appropriate levels of peer revi ew
and quality assurance to ensure the highest quality of science.
NERL is an impactful organization. We conduct research and deliver results that are relevant, timely,
and responsive to stakeholder and partner needs. We translate and communicate the results of our
research in a way that ensures their appropriate application.
NERL is a corporate organization. NERL is a National Laboratory that collaborates across
organizational boundaries at all levels, forming partnerships, and focusing on maximizing value to the
American people. We recognize the importance of our role in ORD and in EPA, and in our relationships
with other Labs, Centers, and Offices as well as with Program and Regional offices.
Our Strategic Plan
NERL's Strategic Plan flows from EPA's 2014-2018 Strategic Plan and builds on the five overarching
goals and four cross-Agency strategies identified by EPA's Administrator to organize and guide the
priorities of the Agency over the coming years. In addition, the NERL Strategic Plan aligns with the
ORD Strategic Research Action Plans that also flow from the overarching EPA goals and strategies
(Figure 1). As a result, this Plan presents the scientific and organizational directions for NERL for the
next five years (2014 to 2018) and the internal and external drivers that will influence our progress.
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NERL's Strategic Plan identifies where NERL will make the most significant contributions to EPA's
goals and how will we use the cross cutting, multi-disciplinary approaches to achieve those goals. A
NERL Action Plan will be developed as a companion piece to this Strategic Plan. That Action Plan will
identify the resources, people and guidance needed to implement our plan.
Organizational Goals
NERL's broad organizational goals for the next five years are identified below. NERL's goals
encompass EPA's five Strategic Goals as well as the Agency's four Cross-Cutting Strategies. Our goals
are designed to cover the whole array of what is required to achieve our mission of developing and
applying leading-edge exposure science in support of EPA's mission to protect human health and the
environment. We will continue to:
Maximize our impact through focus and scientific excellence: Science is the foundation for
high quality decision-making at EPA in order to safeguard human health and ecosystems from
environmental stressors. The strength of that foundation rests largely on the strength and
recognition of our scientific excellence. The breadth of challenges is daunting, so we must focus
on key strategic areas in order to make a difference. Thus we will maximize our impact on
EPA's work by delivering and communicating science that is consistent with the highest levels
of scientific creativity, innovation, and integrity, and which is tightly focused on the most
important Agency science priorities as identified in the EPA Strategic Plan and captured in
ORD's Research Programs.
Evolve our organizational ability to solve complex, dynamic environmental challenges:
EPA has come a long way since 1970 in addressing environmental challenges. The challenges
remaining today climate change, computational risk assessment, sustainability are in many
ways bigger and more complex problems requiring ever-more sophisticated approaches.
Sophistication does not necessarily mean more complex. We need to be more strategic in how
we approach these challenges. It may mean more adaptive or more innovative, resting on a
different way of defining and solving a problem. We will find ways to become more nimble,
efficient, and effective at anticipating and addressing these increasingly complex and constantly
changing priorities.
Become a High-Performing Organization: Consistent with the Cross-Cutting Strategy
identified in EPA's Strategic Plan and with ORD's Principles, we will attract and maintain a
diverse and engaged workforce; develop a more collaborative and transparent work environment;
modernize our business practices; take advantage of new tools and technologies; and ensure that
we add value in every transaction with staff and work colleagues, partners, and EPA clients.
Be recognized as world leaders in exposure science for the 21st century: The mission of
developing and applying leading-edge science implies that we are world leaders in that science.
Leadership in a scientific field is not conferred upon us by ourselves or by EPA; it has to be
earned, by driving the field at such a high level that others outside EPA working in the same
field are aware of and recognize our contributions as outstanding. Achieving this recognition is
key to maximizing the impact of our science.
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NERL Strategic Plan
Exposure Science - What We Do
Exposure science is a relatively young discipline. In its simplest form, exposure occurs when a stressor
contacts a receptor. Exposure science attempts to describe the real-world inter-relationships between
stressors and receptors. The initial focus of exposure was on human health but the concept of exposure
has since been extended to include ecological exposures taking place in the context of an ecosystem.
Exposure science is a multidisciplinary systems science that describes and connects processes
responsible for fate and transport of stressors as they move from sources to impact receptors in
organisms. A description of environmental systems and populations in those systems requires linking
many processes and must rely upon input from many disciplines. Additionally, maximizing the value
and contributions of exposure science in solving environmental problems requires partnerships with
other disciplines.
Recognizing the need for a prospective examination of exposure science, NERL, in partnership with the
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, requested the National Research Council (NRC) to
perform an independent study to develop a long-range vision for the next 20 years, as well as a strategy
for implementing that vision. As a result, the NRC published the report Exposure Science in the 21st
Century: A Vision and Strategy (2012).2 which describes scientific and technologic advances needed to
support the long-range vision for exposure science in the 21st century {Figure 2). The concepts, goals
and objectives discussed in this report underpin the important role exposure science plays in the risk-
based decision framework and the sustainability framework and thus, support the key role of NERL
research as EPA moves forward into the future.
Faced with these complex problems, exposure science simplifies the problem by bringing the issues into
focus and sets the context to guide the rest of the research and risk assessment that needs to be
conducted, as well as the effectiveness of mitigation on reducing exposures and thereby risk.
NERL's Expertise in Pursing Exposure Science Advances
NERL's staff are among the leading exposure science experts in the world. Their dedication and
expertise has supported EPA in moving forward to put in place the programs and regulations that help to
create and sustain a healthy environment for all Americans. While our staff has a broad array of skills
and specialties, they also comprise a cadre of environmental professionals that offer unique expertise in
a number of areas that, combined with scientists across ORD, enable ORD to answer questions and
solve environmental problems that few other organizations can address. NERL's primary areas of
scientific expertise include fundamental skills in analytical/monitoring methods and exposure modeling.
NERL's unique contributions to exposure science comes from the targeted application of these skills in
several areas in support of EPA's mission. These fundamental skills and targeted applications are
described as:
2 National Research Council. 2012. Exposure Science in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy. The National
Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
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Environmental Characterization
Partitioning & transport
Exposure
.. Outcomes
Upstream
Human &
Natural
Factors
Integrated by Source
to Dose Models ,
Dose/stressor prediction &
characterization
Stressor-receptor interaction prediction
Integrated Systems, Models, Databases, Decision Support Tools
*Green Shaded Boxes Indicate Advanced Technologies
Databases & Informatics/analytical tools for exposure
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NERL Strategic Plan
Fundamental Skills
Analytical/Monitoring Methods Development and Applications: Research either in the
laboratory or the field that will be used to develop, refine, or evaluate tools to quantify, measure,
or sample stressors.
Exposure Modeling: Research to develop, evaluate, and apply models to characterize the
environment, the movement of human and ecological receptors in the environment, and
interactions of environmental stressors and receptors.
Targeted Applications
Indicators/Indices of Exposure: Research to determine how to combine measurements, data,
and/or models in a way that succinctly describes or characterizes the state or change of exposure.
Exposure/Dose Process Characterization: Primarily hypothesis driven research (including
field studies, laboratory studies, and data analysis) that is conducted to gain knowledge about
fate and transport, exposure, and dose in real world. This niche includes collection of data to
elucidate the important processes in models, inputs to models, and data to evaluate models. This
research is applied to both human and ecological systems.
Decision Support Tools: Research activities to assemble data, analytical and predictive tools,
and translate knowledge into a useable format for analysts and decision makers.
Predictive Modeling: Research to develop, evaluate, and apply first principle, statistical, or
stochastic models. This includes models for environmental characterization, exposure and dose,
and mechanistic elucidation.
Source Apportionment/Environmental Diagnostics: Outcome driven research where source
apportionment or environmental diagnostic tools are developed and applied in real world
instances to identify important stressors, sources, and pathways of exposure. Development of the
measurement methods are captured in other categories; application of methods in field studies is
captured here; along with model or tool development.
Transitions in Research Approaches
The methods NERL uses within the areas of expertise identified above are expanding and transitioning
with the development of new techniques, instrumentation, and approaches (Figure 5). Examples of
these transitions include:
moving beyond gathering data, to an emphasis on exploring novel data sources and analyzing big
data from disparate sources;
moving beyond direct measurements in the laboratory or field, to use of 'omics,' sensors, and
computational methods for predicting measurements;
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June 2014
moving beyond stand-alone empirical models, to include integrated systems predictive models;
and
moving beyond targeted chemical exposure modeling, to include high throughput computational
exposure analysis.
Evolution of Exposure Science
Areas of Decreasing
Emphasis
Areas of Increasing
Emphasis
Gathering Data
Novel Data
Sources/Analytics/lnformatics
Direct Field/Lab Measurements
'Omics/Remote Sensing/
Computational Predictive
Measurements
Standalone Empirical Models
Integrated Systems & Predictive
Models
Targeted Chemical Exposure
Modeling
High Through-Put Exposure
Modeling
Figure 3: Illustrates the transitions in NERL's research and how Exposure Science is evolving with traditional and new
research approaches.
Challenges of a Changing Environment
NERL faces a number of challenges over the coming years. One of the main purposes of this Strategic
Plan is to lay out how NERL will remain an effective and high performing organization in a rapidly and
constantly evolving environment. We need to be nimble, and anticipate or adapt as appropriate to
changes. Collaborations and partnerships will be key in leveraging our resources and enhancing our
workforce. The following are some of the major drivers that must be considered:
Changes within ORD: ORD has recently adopted a balanced matrix approach to research planning
and implementation where National Program Directors are responsible for identifying and
prioritizing the Agency's environmental problems to be addressed, and the Laboratory's primary
role is to understand these problems and develop innovative research that is timely and responsive to
solving these problems.
Changes to the exposure science "problem space": Although our focus remains exposure science,
the problems to which we are applying our expertise are ever more complex and interdependent.
Solving such problems requires different innovative approaches to solutions, and approaches that
incorporate concepts such as transdisciplinary, systems-thinking, and a sustainability orientation.
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NERL Strategic Plan
Changes in our resource base: At present, the resources (dollars, people, equipment, facilities)
available to ORD are declining. This trend is likely to continue, at least for the near term.
Implications for NERL are that we will need to focus our resources on the highest priority Agency
problems and be as efficient and effective as possible to maximize our impact.
Changes to our workforce: The NERL workforce is the most important asset to ensure our future
success. They are the key to maintaining our position as a high performing organization. With the
increased complexity of the Agency's needs, evolving research priorities, and the rapid
developments in exposure science, NERL must help our scientists and staff acquire the skills
necessary to assist the Agency in solving the nation's pressing environmental problems. We will
develop a workforce strategy for acquiring and evolving the skills needed to ensure that we continue
to define the cutting edge of exposure science in addressing Agency priorities working within the
bounds of a resource constrained environment.
The Road Ahead
The concepts presented in NERL's Strategic Plan are the foundations for NERL's future, long-term
planning. The companion Action Plan, which will be updated annually, emphasizes NERL's long-term
priorities:
Community Engagement/Citizen Science
Data Collection & Management
Models
Sensors/Dosimeters
Computational Exposure
Partnerships
Together, the strategic and action plans provide a common vision, and concrete steps for supporting
EPA's mission to protect human health and the environment by developing and applying innovations in
exposure science. We will be successful in our endeavors by embracing NERL's common values;
focusing our research and capitalizing on scientific capabilities; and by embracing NERL's
organizational goals.
This document is a product of considerable discussion and input from across the Laboratory. The
success of our organization in meeting EPA's and NERL's mission depends on each member of the
Laboratory. Together, we can apply exposure science to protect human health and the environment.
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June 2014
References for Additional Information
1. National Research Council, 2008. Evaluating Research Efficiency in the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
2. Rand Corporation, 2005. Using Logic Models for Strategic Planning and Evaluation.
3. National Research Council. 1983. Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing
the Process. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
4. National Research Council, 2009. Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment. The
National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
5. National Research Council, 2011. Sustainabilitv and the U.S. EPA. The National Academies
Press, Washington, D.C.
6. National Research Council. 2012. Exposure Science in the 21st Century: A Vision and a
Strategy. The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
7. USEPA, 2009. A Conceptual Framework for U.S. EPA's National Exposure Research
Laboratory. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. EPA/600/R-09/003
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