Let’s use technology transfer to drive growth

The U.S. government invests some $135 billion each year to advance science and technology (S&T) as the basis for breakthrough knowledge development and new innovations, of which around 20-30 percent is invested in successful technology transfer. This federally-funded research delivers a portfolio of outcomes whose benefits therefore need to be maximized for growth and economic development.

While there are many legitimate cases where the intellectual property (IP) generated as result of such work should remain with the funded originator, there are also many cases where everyone would benefit if the IP, the product of federal investment, were shared with other parties via the mechanism routinely referred to as ‘Technology Transfer.’ This process involves either making the IP freely available as open source, or entering into a formal licensing agreement with a third party. By pursuing such approaches, the knowledge and/or capability gained through the federal investment can be leveraged by other applications beyond just those that were originally intended. In combination with other new discoveries, it contributes to the pipeline for future generations of innovation. Such a channel is a hallmark of scientific progress–and also helps an entrepreneurial ecosystem develop–thereby growing businesses, creating new jobs, and boosting the U.S. economy. 

{mosads}In practice, however, Technology Transfer typically has not been a high priority within federal research programs, even though it is often an integral part of legislation and charters that set forth the conditions for such federal investment. Many federal employees have only a limited understanding of Technology Transfer. Often, it is not required by agency leadership, and there has been no sustained push to ensure that additional, value-added outcomes are delivered successfully on a consistent basis until now; the intent is that we see some change.

In today’s global, hyper-competitive innovation marketplace, however, our nation should be maximizing the impact of every federal dollar spent on research and development. In order to achieve this, we must increase our emphasis on obtaining full value from these investments. All new government-funded R&D initiatives should have an outcome-focused philosophy at their core, and federal R&D program managers should be given additional training to increase their awareness and adoption of Technology Transfer protocols.

Too often today, federal managers are unaware of opportunities to maximize the benefits of the research results which they manage routinely. Instead, their focus has been on the more traditional aspects of their role, such as ensuring that funding and contractual obligations are in order, timelines and budgets are met, and successful innovations transition to the government customer. The end result is that further innovations that could be spun off to maximize the return on the original investment–bringing new products to market and generating significant economic benefits–remain, in effect, locked up and sitting on the shelf. Moreover, in many cases, this IP is left legally unprotected, due to the lack of a strategy to safeguard it.  

A successful example that illustrates the value of Technology Transfer comes from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA and its Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), the Center for Advanced Aviation System Development (CAASD), operated by The MITRE Corporation). The FAA sponsored CAASD’s effort to develop a prototype system that would provide small aircraft with the same level of situational awareness in the air that larger planes with costly and sophisticated systems enjoy. CAASD developed the Universal Access Transceiver Beacon Radio (UBR), which affordably incorporates the community’s standard Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology. ADS-B, which was developed under the FAA’s NextGEN initiative and leverages GPS satellites to feed critical flight data directly to the cockpit, helped address several important operational and safety needs, both for the FAA and for small aircraft operators. MITRE has since licensed this technology to more than 20 companies, which now offer a variety of affordable UBRs. Transferring the results of this federally-funded research has created a new market, revolutionized private aviation, and increased safety in the skies.

To secure prolonged growth, we need to make sure that Technology Transfer receives more emphasis and support in the future. Additionally, we need to encourage every government program to consider Technology Transfer as a natural outcome and an opportunity to drive economic development through increased manufacturing and new jobs. While there are some success stories similar to that of the UBR, much more can be done to generate additional benefits from valuable government investment. Our aim should be to capitalize on research outcomes much more broadly–both internally within the federal space, as well as externally within the private sector. It is clearly of interest to the taxpayer to see that these major investments benefit a wider community. 

Barry A. Costa and Vicki A. Barbur Ph.D. are members of the Technology Transfer Office at The MITRE Corporation

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.