Awardee Communications Guidelines

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) maintains standards for and provides resources to awardees to help them build awareness of their work.

Prepare Your Communications

EERE publications should also defer to EERE branding. EERE communications must and all non-EERE communications should meet Section 508 accessibility requirements, including ensuring videos have captions and graphics have alt text.

Style Guidelines

All communications should follow EERE's style guide for anything published by EERE, which contains the guidelines for print and web publications, including when and how to use acronyms, professional titles, lists, and correct use of italics and hyphenation. Amplification posted by another organization can follow their style guide but should include the preferred name for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE),

Awardee Logo Use

The brand and logo are meant to be used by small businesses, other companies, universities, consortia, and other funding recipients to self-identify themselves as official DOE awardees. Refer to DOE guidelines on the proper use of the awardee brand and logo.

Do not use DOE awardee logos from before October 2024; new awardee logos in line with the DOE rebrand are currently being developed.

Reposting And Reusing U.S. Department of Energy Content

Awardees are encouraged to repost awardee success stories, blog posts, videos, and other pieces of digital content created by DOE and featured on the department's websites. Most content produced by DOE and EERE is in the public domain and can be freely distributed and copied. However, this content should still be credited and attributed to DOE if it is reused or reposted in any form.

Attribution should be placed in a prominent location, like the top of the page, and the original content source must be linked to.

An example of an attribution statement:

Acknowledgement: "This [blog post/success story/video/infographic] originally appeared on [PLACE – include link to original piece of content] and was created and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy."

Press Releases

The DOE Office of Public Affairs team is available to review press releases associated with DOE-funded projects prior to their release to the media. Although this is not a required approval process, this review process is beneficial to verifying that brand consistency standards are being met and gives an opportunity for constructive feedback to be offered to awardees.

Please notify your technology manager or your office's communication team, especially if you anticipate significant media attention from a major achievement or high-profile partners. The Solar Energy Technologies Office also offers examples of successful press releases.

Social Media

Awardees are encouraged to engage with (retweet, like, comment on, and share) DOE social media posts.

Posting to personal social media accounts may also be beneficial; work with your office's communications team to determine what kind of social media content may be best for your project.

Promote content using hashtags, mentions, and other methods. Follow EERE's best practices for any social media content you post, regardless of platform.

Publish Your Reports

Database Record

All publications with any level of scientific or technical information (STI)—including fact sheets, pamphlets, technical reports, and third-party validation—must be submitted directly to the Office of Science and Technical Information (OSTI) through its E-Link portal.

Information on how to publish articles to OSTI's E-Link library can be found on the Publications Guidelines page.

Required Attribution

All EERE-funded reports are required to include an attribution to the sponsoring program at the program or subprogram level. These attributions should follow the guidelines set on the EERE-Branded Publications Developed by Third Parties webpage.

Presentations related to projects funded DOE require the DOE awardee logo. They must also, both verbally and in writing, acknowledge DOE as the funder of the project or study. This includes, but is not limited to conference presentations, tradeshow demonstrations, webinars, and seminars.