Applications for two-year fellowships in the Cyclotron Road program – and all other U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Programs (LEEPs) – are now open. Scientists and engineers from diverse disciplines including energy, biosciences, and robotics are encouraged to explore this unique opportunity to validate, scale, and fund their ideas from prototype to production.
Entering its 11th year, the Cyclotron Road program at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) was the first of four LEEPs across the U.S. Since the program’s inception, startups founded by participants have secured more than $1.9 billion in follow-on funding. With the addition of the 2024 cohort that began in July, 109 people have taken part in the program, founding 84 startups, and creating more than 1,400 jobs.
The scientific entrepreneurship program provides fellows with a living stipend, research funding, entrepreneurial training in collaboration with non-profit partner Activate, and access to the multidisciplinary researchers, facilities, and resources at Berkeley Lab.
To learn more and submit your application, visit the How to Apply page on the Cyclotron Road website.
Our application process is hosted by Activate through a SurveyMonkey-powered submission platform, and reviewed by subject matter experts at Berkeley Lab and partners. Qualifying applicants will be invited to conduct video interviews in January, and finalists will be invited to a virtual pitch during Finalist Week in late February or early March. In April, the 2025 cohort of fellows will be invited to begin their fellowship with an in-person retreat in mid-June 2025.
The DOE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) and the Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) are the founding and anchor sponsors of the program. Other partners supporting the program include the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) with the State of California, the California Energy Commission (CEC), the DOE Building Technologies Office (BTO), the DOE Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), Office of Electricity (OE), the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP), The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and Activate.
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) is committed to delivering solutions for humankind through research in clean energy, a healthy planet, and discovery science. Founded in 1931 on the belief that the biggest problems are best addressed by teams, Berkeley Lab and its scientists have been recognized with 16 Nobel Prizes. Researchers from around the world rely on the Lab’s world-class scientific facilities for their own pioneering research. Berkeley Lab is a multiprogram national laboratory managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
DOE’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.
