Recent Research: GAO Finds Challenges for DOE Tech Transfer Efforts

Competing priorities, lack of funding, and inflexible negotiation strategies are among the challenges the Government Accountability Office found for the Department of Energy's efforts to transfer technology out of the DOE labs.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires DOE to establish goals for technology transfer and provide Congress its implementation plan no later than February 2006.  After consulting with officials at 17 national laboratories, however, GAO concluded, "DOE cannot determine its laboratories' effectiveness in transferring technologies outside DOE because it has not yet established department-wide goals for technology transfer and lacks reliable performance data."

DOE uses four types of technology transfer: cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs); non federal work-for-others agreements; licensing agreements; and user-facility agreements. What is considered technology transfer for/with private companies, university, and state or local government includes the following:

• Performing research on behalf of or in collaboration with these above-mentioned entities;
• Licensing the laboratories existing technologies for such entities to use or commercialize; and,
• Allowing these entities access to the laboratories' unique facilities and equipment for their own research.

However, GAO found the DOE labs several problems faced in the transfer of their technologies. These problems include: competing staff priorities or gaps in expertise needed to consistently identify promising technologies or potential markets; lack of funding to sufficiently develop or test some promising technologies to attract potential partners; and lack of flexibility to negotiate certain terms of technology transfer agreements.

TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER: Clearer Priorities and Greater Use of Innovative Approaches could increase the Effectiveness of Technology Transfer at Department of Energy Laboratories (GAO-09-548) is available at: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09548.pdf