A richer soil for tech startups: It took awhile, but the national labs are now working closely with private industry and the result is a number of new business successes. (Technology Transfer).

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...opportunity swords into plowshares.

Problem was, nobody knew what to do with all that scientific backlog. Aside from few early and exceptional examples of lab technologies making it in the business world (the sensor that triggers an airbag to deploy during an auto accident was invented at Sandia in the 1960s, for example), kicking technology out of the nest was uncharted territory for the labs.

In 1989, Congress enacted the National Competitiveness Technology Transfer Act. The bill not only spelled out ways the labs could interact with industry, it ordered the labs to contribute to "U.S. economic competitiveness."

The age of technology transfer was born, and the labs embarked on a new kind of experimentation.

Recognizing that U.S. corporations--such as those that make cars or computer chips--couldn't afford major, long-term R&D projects and keep prices down at the same time (thereby skimping on the very technological investments that might help them leapfrog their overseas competitors), the labs first sought relationships with large corporations or groups of companies called consortiums--essentially offering to be an industry's R&D department.

To manage these business arrangements, they relied on CRADAs (Cooperative Research and Development Agreements), contractual tools that allowed corporations and lab researchers to work together.

Sandia, for instance, worked with the semiconductor-industry consortium SEMI/SEMATECH to accelerate development of advanced chip-making equipment. Los Alamos worked with computer software giant Cray Research to develop software for everything from automobile engine design to global climate change modeling.

Dave...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.




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