Energy widens scope of R&D search engine

An Energy Department search engine now includes more than a half-million summaries of federally funded R&D, reaching out to project databases at four more agencies.Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information runs the search service, called the Federal R&D Project Summaries, with assistance from the Government Printing Office. The search engine connects users to descriptions of current and recently completed research funded by the government.“Our primary customers are [Energy] researchers who need to be aware of what other agencies are doing,” OSTI director Walter Warnick said.The service now draws summaries from databases at the Agriculture and Defense departments, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Small Business Administration.It already covered Energy, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.OSTI also manages two other search services: Science.gov and the GrayLit Network.