Strategic alliance aims to accelerate federally funded R&D into real-world tech

Terry Gerton The Federal Laboratory Consortium is an interesting group, and you’ve just announced a three-year strategic partnership with FedTech. This is supposed to, as I understand it, strengthen connections between federal labs and private sector entrepreneurs. What is it that FLC was looking at that made you feel like this was the time for partnership like this?

Paige George So the Federal Laboratory Consortium has been around since the 1970s, and our primary mission is to help accelerate the transition of federally developed technologies to the commercial marketplace for the benefit of the United States. FedTech’s mission is very similar to ours, but they offer business accelerators and help these small businesses take federal technologies and start new businesses, startups and really bring that technology to the marketplace. The Federal Laboratory Consortium is really that step one. And so a partnership with FedTech is really a natural evolution of a longstanding relationship that we’ve had with FedTech over the years.

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Terry Gerton Are there other groups like FedTech that could potentially be part of this partnership as it moves forward?

Paige George Oh, absolutely. The FLC partners with many national organizations like DefenseWerx, like MilTech. We have a page on our website where you can actually go and view all of our federal partners. And so what this does, it allows FedTech to be a more strategic part of our ecosystem, even though we’ve had a fantastic relationship with them.

Terry Gerton And how do you envision their role as a bridge between the government laboratories that FLC represents and the private sector?

Paige George FedTech has already longstanding relationships with many of the federal agencies, including defense, health, every sector of the federal government. They have programs like the Crucible and other national accelerators. And so for us, we are looking to be able to provide more of a pathway for our federal laboratories to provide innovation to FedTech and say, this is a critical piece of technology that we would love to have FedTech help us market, help find potential end users, help find businesses that could use this technology to create commercialized technologies that can then go into the marketplace.

Terry Gerton Walk us through how that might happen. Some brilliant scientist at a government laboratory invents a better mousetrap. What happens next?

Paige George So, for that laboratory, they would first have to patent that technology. And once that technology has been patented and it can be viewed by the public, what we would do is, as the Federal Laboratory Consortium, we would take that patented technology and put it on our website. We have something called FLC Business that lists all federal technologies that are available for licensing among all 300 federal laboratories in the United States. And so what we try to do is highlight some of those really important technologies that have a high value to the marketplace. And so then we would say, hey, FedTech, we have this fantastic new mousetrap that came out of Frederick National Laboratory in the Department of Energy. This has a fantastic potential for commercialization. Then we could easily pass that technology through FedTech and then they would take it and do their magic on that technology — find a partner, find an organization, find a person that is ready to start a business, and then they can actually accelerate that technology and walk a small business through those critical steps in technology development. Some technologies come out as a patent at a very low TRL, so maybe a potential licensee needs some help with further development, and that’s also where we can come in as I’ll see you and say, hey, FedTech, if you find someone that wants to license this technology, we can connect you to the scientists and engineers at Frederick National Laboratory or whomever develop that technology and they can partner with that company to further that technology development. So that’s another piece where FLC can provide assistance to FedTech, because it’s not just necessarily the patent license agreement or the licensing of that technology. We can work together under a cooperative research and development agreement where the federal labs can offer other resources other than just that intellectual property to help develop that technology.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Paige George. She’s the Federal Laboratory Consortium’s Facilitate Committee Chair. So, Paige, let’s follow on with that. So you’re an agency manager, perhaps, and you’re overseeing an R&D portfolio. How will this partnership between FLC and FedTech benefit them?

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Paige George For the laboratories and for the agencies, FedTech has already played an incredibly important role. They work with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, NASA, DHS, DISA and NSA. So they already have very strong partnerships with these agencies. And for the FLC, we are just going to help them make more connections with the actual technologies that are coming out of these labs that can help augment these already strong partnerships that FedTech has cultivated.

Terry Gerton And those partnerships also emphasize regional innovation ecosystems and connecting small businesses to federal labs. How will this partnership now help agencies maybe expand their supplier base or find new organizations to partner with?

Paige George Absolutely. So regionally, the FLC focuses a lot on regional ecosystem acceleration and development. So one of our other national partners, NAPEX, this is a Department of Defense technology accelerator program, they have APEX Accelerators all over the United States. And so we can partner with them as well and say, hey, APEX, we have some technologies that are being developed within your region, I think that you should help FedTech maybe find companies that can then move through FedTech’s programs like Crucible or NSIN Foundry or you know, again, the list is very long for FedTech’s programs that they already have. So FLC can, again, be kind of the center of a network of technology acceleration and development.

Terry Gerton With the gap in authorization of SBIR and STTR, is this partnership and FedTech’s role a way of sort of covering that gap until those programs might be reauthorized?

Paige George It could be, but FLC doesn’t really get involved too much with SBIR/STTR. And it has been reauthorized, so that is wonderful breaking news that SBIR/STTR has been reauthorized. But again, FedTech can help technologies and help companies find SBIR opportunities. And then again, we can come in and say, hey, we can help augment your SBIR through a partnership with a laboratory. So you’re in a SBIR phase 1 and you need help with prototype development, then, you know, FedTech can help and FLC can help find critical partners for these SBIR contracts.

Terry Gerton So for those folks, those innovators, those small businesses, or even the labs right now, as they’re listening, what should they be doing to plug into this partnership? Are there specific programs or pilot opportunities or initiatives that are now available?

Paige George Absolutely. You can go to federallabs.org and you can check out the FLC Business website and that’ll provide you a list of all of the available patents from all the labs. You can also figure out what labs are in your backyard and what their mission areas are. So if you are looking into getting into a specific technology sector, you can got to FLC Business and find a lab that would match with you. And then another pathway is to go through FedTech and go the other direction. So if you’re participating in one of FedTech’s programs, you can say, hey, I really need to find a laboratory that can help me develop my technology. FedTech can come to FLC and say, hey, what laboratory could this business partner with? And so that’s really kind of the pathway for how we can work together.

Terry Gerton As this partnership between FLC and FedTech matures, are there metrics that you’re going to be watching for to sort of assess the power and impact?

Paige George There are a few different ways that we can track metrics with FedTech. One can be potentially the number of new startups that come as a result of this partnership. So if FedTech is working with a number of small businesses and because of their relationship with us, they have been able to license 10% more technologies over the year, you know, that’s one way. Another part of these partnerships, there are memorandums of understanding. Ben Solomon from FedTech has always spoken at our FLC national meeting over the years. So like I said, this is more of a way to codify a relationship that has been very longstanding over many years. We have the MOU in place now, but we’ve had a fantastic relationship with FedTech for a very long time.

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