Pilot Initiative Bolsters Business-National Lab Relationship

WASHINGTON — As part of a presidential effort to help U.S. businesses create jobs and strengthen their competitiveness,  the Department of Energy announced a pilot initiative to reduce some of the hurdles that prevent companies from working with national laboratories by speeding up the transfer of federal research and development from the laboratory to the marketplace.

The new Agreements for Commercializing Technology, intoduced by U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman, aims to help businesses bring job-creating technologies to the market faster by allowing them to work with the Department of Energy’s national laboratories from start to finish to develop and deliver new clean energy technologies and other innovations.

“To compete in the 21st global economy, we need to make it easier for businesses to move great ideas from the drawing board to the marketplace,” Poneman said. “The Agreements for Commercializing Technology will cut red tape for businesses and start-ups interested in working with our nation’s crown jewels of innovation, the national laboratories, and strengthen new domestic industries by helping bring innovative, job-creating technologies to the market faster.”

The agreement authorizes a more flexible framework for negotiating intellectual property rights and allows contractors operating national laboratories to attract more private investment by partnering with businesses using terms that are better aligned with industry practice. The agreement will also allow national laboratories to participate in groups formed to address some technological challenges of mutual interest.

The agreement will also allow national laboratories to participate in groups formed to address some of the technological challenges of mutual interest.

Later this month, the Department will announce the laboratories selected to participate in the pilot.

The initiative will remove barriers for businesses and startup companies that are interested in accessing the research, facilities, and scientists available at the laboratories, catapulting innovative new products to the marketplace, according to a statement from the Department.

In October, the President issued a memorandum to executive departments and agencies directing agencies with federal laboratories to accelerate technology transfer and commercialization of research, and to take steps to increase partnerships between businesses and laboratories.

The agreement will serve as a vehicle to help accomplish this at the Energy department’s laboratories, according to the statement.