Overview and analysis of technology transfer from federal agencies and laboratories

Abstract

Executive Summary The purpose of this report is to present a series of analyses of technology transfer activities across federal agencies and their research laboratories. Public support of efforts to transfer technology from federal agencies to private and public organizations has long had bipartisan support from both Congress and the White House. To emphasize this point, and thus to provide context for this study (Chapter 2), we first provide an overview of federal technology policies as they relate to U.S. federal agencies and their research laboratories. The lesson learned from this overview is that such policies have been promulgated without political bias over at least the past four decades. In addition, this overview provides some institutional context for this study. With this context in mind, we then provide a summary of the relevant academic and policy literatures related to technology transfer (Chapter 3). This review concludes with the observation that not only have there been a few systematic studies describing technology transfer activities across federal agencies, but also that those studies have not been encompassing or detailed in their descriptive analyses of economic impacts associated with federal technology transfer. We conclude that the reason for both of these limitations is associated with the lack of relevant public domain data related to the process of technology transfer at a level of aggregation (i.e., at the agency and/or laboratory level) that facilitates understanding both the genesis of the technology transfer process beginning with intramural research and development (R&D) investments and concluding with metrics that describe the paths through which technology leaves an agency or laboratory and enters into another organization, as well as the economic impact of transferred technology on the recipient organization. With this context in mind, we then provide a summary of the relevant academic and policy literatures related to technology transfer (Chapter 3). This review concludes with the observation that not only have there been a few systematic studies describing technology transfer activities across federal agencies, but also that those studies have not been encompassing or detailed in their descriptive analyses of economic impacts associated with federal technology transfer. We conclude that the reason for both of these limitations is associated with the lack of relevant public domain data related to the process of technology transfer at a level of aggregation (i.e., at the agency and/or laboratory level) that facilitates understanding both the genesis of the technology transfer process beginning with intramural research and development (R&D) investments and concluding with metrics that describe the paths through which technology leaves an agency or laboratory and enters into another organization, as well as the economic impact of transferred technology on the recipient organization. This study advances our understanding of technology transfer across federal agencies and laboratories in several ways. First, we describe publicly available information and data on technology transfer mechanisms from federal agencies and laboratories (Chapter 4). The source of this information is the annual versions of the Federal Laboratory (Interagency) Technology Transfer Summary Reports, prepared by the Technology Partnerships Office at NIST and submitted to the Office of the President and to Congress. The technology transfer mechanisms that are described are the same mechanisms that have been emphasized in the extant academic and policy literature: patent applications, patent issues, licenses, cooperative R&D agreements (CRADAs), publications, and public software downloads of open-source governmental software. Although an understanding of these mechanisms does provide insight about technology transfer activities from within to outside organizations, and to some extent across agencies and their research laboratories, that understanding, in the absence of information about how the transferred technology is used by the adopting organizations, is insufficient to offer insight about trends and nuances associated with technology transfers. As an initial step in that direction, an approach was developed to provide a logical framework to bound the study and the information we obtained from federal agencies and laboratories that agreed to participate in this study: (1) disaggregated information and related data on their technology transfer efforts and (2) background information on what they considered to be a particularly successful technology transfer effort for a case study (Chapter 5). The disaggregated data were sufficient only for a preliminary look at elements of the economic consequences associated with the technology transfer from the participating federal agencies and laboratories; the background information on successful technology transfer efforts was sufficient to develop illustrative case studies (Chapter 6). One characterization of the disaggregated data related to the geospatial distribution of organizations to which federal agency technology is transferred (Chapter 7). Using National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) data, there is suggestive evidence that CRADA activity occurs closer to the participating agency than does licensing activity. Regardless, the geospatial analysis in Chapter 7 does illustrate that technology transfer activities are national in scope. The disaggregated data allowed for a descriptive analysis of the sales growth associated with organizations to which agencies licensed technology (Chapter 8). We conclude that licensed technologies from a federal agency and laboratory have an overall positive association with the sales of private-sector company licensees. However, the available data do not allow us to control for company or other economic factors that are also associated with sales growth. As stated in 15 USC 3710a(c)(4)(A), CRADA preference to small companies is required: ‘‘The laboratory director in deciding what cooperative research and development agreements to enter into shall—(A) give special consideration to small business firms, and consortia involving small business firms; ….’’ Our analysis of available disaggregated data confirms that this is the case (Chapter 9). On average, the majority of CRADAs were with small companies measured in terms of number of employees. The case studies we conducted to complement the main analysis were structured to conform to a logical framework designed to document successful technology transfer efforts through the identification of specific outcomes and impacts associated with a technology transferred from a federal laboratory, accounting for contingencies that served as success factors (Chapter 10). The case studies illustrate that bringing innovations derived from federally transferred technology to the private-sector marketplace takes time as well as the federal laboratories’ long-term commitment to investments in R&D. Federal laboratory management may facilitate the success of technology transfer by providing resources, championing the to-be-transferred technologies, and instilling a culture in the federal laboratory that values such activity. Lastly, the federal laboratory’s co-development of a transferred technology with individuals or companies with supplementary expertise increases the likelihood that the transferred technology will have market success.