16 In the first years of their Ph.D. program, INL Graduate Fellows will spend most of their time taking classes at their university. That balance will shift in the last years of their Ph.D. program, when INL Graduate Fellows will spend the majority of their time at INL conducting research. There are mutual benefits for the INL Graduate Fellows, universities and the lab.Throughout the program, the INL Graduate Fellows will interact and collaborate with both their INL mentor and their university thesis adviser. The program allows INL to integrate students into the laboratory and provides INL Graduate Fellows with work on significant projects that will help them fulfill their thesis research requirements. INL gains access to skilled staff, along with the opportunity to build long-term collaborations with universities, increase recruiting opportunities, and interact with a continuous pipeline of students interning and conducting research at the lab. Both the university and INL have the opportunity for joint publications and intellectual property. INL Graduate Fellows were selected in degree fields that closely tie to INL’s three mission areas of innovative nuclear energy solutions, other clean energy options and critical infrastructure. Annual calls for INL Graduate Fellows will be open to all universities. An announcement of recipients for the second round of INL Graduate Fellows is expected in spring 2018.