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U.S. federal laboratories and their research partners: a quantitative case study

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Abstract

The Stevenson–Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 made explicit the technology transfer responsibilities of U.S. Federal laboratories. The Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 and the National Competitiveness Technology Transfer Act of 1989 further enhanced the technology transfer activities of laboratories by permitting Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs). However, very little is known about the characteristics of CRADA activity in Federal laboratories. Using a new, robust dataset of CRADA activity at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), we describe research partnerships over the years 1978 through 2014, and we explore several research questions. When did the Federal Technology Transfer Act have an impact on CRADA activity at NIST? Is CRADA activity at NIST a cyclical phenomenon? At what frequency do private sector establishments engage in CRADA activity with NIST? We find suggestive evidence that the Federal Technology Transfer Act began to influence NIST’s CRADA activity within 2–3 years after its passage, and we find that CRADA activity moves with the business cycle. We also find that most establishments that were engaged in CRADA activity were engaged only once over this time period; it was only the larger establishments that continued to engage in CRADAs with NIST. We speculate about the implications of these findings, and we suggest a broader research agenda into CRADA activity in Federal laboratories.

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Fig. 1

Source: Table 1

Fig. 2

Source: Table 4

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Notes

  1. Title 15, Chapter 63 § 3710a of the U.S. Code gives agencies authority to enter into CRADA agreements.

  2. Although the FLC’s Desk Reference emphasizes the benefits from technology transfer, not all agree about their advantages. Bodde (1993), for example, overviewed some of the early general problems with CRADAs in Federal laboratories. The Office of Technology Assessment (1993) reported specific examples of problems with CRADAs that were focused on defense conversion. See also, Shama (1992).

  3. See, https://www.nist.gov/tpo/federal-laboratory-interagency-technology-transfer-summary-reports.

  4. The Interagency Workgroup on Technology Transfer (IAWGTT) is comprised of a technology transfer representative from each involved agency. Its purpose is to discuss best practices in technology transfer from Federal agencies. It is coordinated by the director of the Technology Partnership Office at NIST.

  5. It has long been a problem for academic researchers to obtain data from Federal laboratories. That fact is perhaps the reason the related body of literature on Federal laboratory technology transfer is thin in comparison to the body of literature on academic technology transfer from universities. For example, Link et al. (2011) reported that they were only able to obtain longitudinal patent data from two Federal laboratories.

  6. The Stevenson–Wydler Act also makes clear that it is the responsibility of each Federal laboratory to establish an Office of Research and Technology Applications to transfer its technology to those organizations that will benefit.

  7. The Federal Technology Transfer Act established the FLC within the NBS, which later became NIST. The FLC would, according to the Act: “develop and (with the consent of the Federal laboratory concerned) administer techniques, training courses, and materials concerning technology transfer to increase the awareness of Federal laboratory employees regarding the commercial potential of laboratory technology and innovations …” See, Metcalf (1994). Brand (2003) also discussed the early role of the FLC in encouraging technology transfer from the Federal laboratories.

  8. The Federal Technology Transfer Act was clear that Government-Owned, Government-Operated laboratories (GOGOs) could enter into CRADAs, but the Act was not specific to Government-Owned, Contractor-Operated laboratories (GOCOs). The National Competitiveness Technology Transfer Act of 1989 (Public Law 101-189, Section 3131) amended the Stevenson–Wydler Act of 1980 to authorize GOCOs to enter into CRADAs. See, Kerrigan and Brasco (2002).

  9. The concept of the government’s involvement in standards traces to the Articles of Confederation signed on July 9, 1778. This responsibility was reiterated in Article 1, § 8 of the Constitution of the United States: “The Congress shall have power … [t]o coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures …”.

  10. The political force for this laboratory came in 1900 through Lyman Gage, then Secretary of the Treasury under President William McKinley. Gage’s original plan was for the Office of Standard Weights and Measures to be recognized as a separate agency called the National Standardizing Bureau. This Bureau would maintain custody of standards, compare standards, construct standards, test standards, and resolve problems in connection with standards.

  11. In 1903, the Department of Commerce and Labor was established and the NBS was transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Commerce and Labor. Then, in 1913, when the Department of Labor was established as a separate entity, the Bureau was formally housed in the Department of Commerce.

  12. See, https://www.nist.gov/about-nist/our-organization/mission-vision-values.

  13. It is important to emphasize that CRADAs by name did not exist until the passage of the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986, as discussed above. However, prior to 1986, NIST did engage in research partnership relationships and those are noted in the data discussed below in Table 1 beginning in 1978. One will see in Table 1 that there were 4 such partnership prior to 1986. For simplicity, we titled the columns in Table 1 as representing CRADAs; and for simplicity we refer to the total dataset as referring to CRADAs. Also, it is important to note that many non-traditional CRADAs involve calibrations, an activity unique to NIST.

  14. The technology transfer activity in the other laboratories in the Department of Commence (i.e., the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS)) is minimal in comparison to the activities at NIST.

  15. For an in-depth study of NIST’s intramural research see, Link and Scott (2005).

  16. Ideally, we would like to compare this sample of 2465 CRADAs to the NIST population of 3431 CRADAs in several dimensions. However, enterprise information in both this sample and the population is not reported in D&B Hoovers (see below) and thus even a descriptive analysis of the representativeness of the sample of 2465 CRADAs is not possible.

  17. Selected examples of NIST CRADAs are in NIST’s Annual Reports to the Office of Management and Budget on Technology Transfer; see, https://www.nist.gov/tpo/department-commerce.

  18. These results are available on request from the authors.

  19. The same result holds if the total number of CRADAs is disaggregated between traditional and non-traditional CRADAs as in Table 1. These results are available from the authors on request.

  20. See, http://www.hoovers.com/.

  21. Hoovers only reports the current (2017) number of employees, and we use that number regardless of the year that the CRADA was formed.

  22. NAICS codes from Hoovers do not change over time.

  23. The preponderance of CRADAs in the manufacturing sector is perhaps the results of non-traditional CRADAs, such as calibrations, with manufacturing firms.

  24. Our prior is that employment is a more meaningful measure of size for establishments in the private sector than for organizations in the academic sector or agencies in the government sector.

  25. We emphasize even smaller firms. As stated in 15 USC 3710a(c)(4)(A), CRADA preference to small firms 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; …”.

  26. Adams and Link (2017) and Bray and Link (2017) have explored public policy initiated firm-with-firm collaborations, although neither set of authors speculated how their theoretical and empirical analysis might translate to the public sector being an active collaborator in research.

  27. We thank an anonymous referee for suggesting that we emphasize the heterogeneous nature of Federal laboratory CRADAs.

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Acknowledgements

This paper has benefitted greatly from comments and suggestions from Paul Zielinski, director of the NIST Technology Partnerships Office and chair of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer, and from two anonymous referees. Any remaining shortcomings in the paper are our responsibility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA

    Chuchu Chen & Albert N. Link

  2. RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, USA

    Zachary T. Oliver

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  1. Chuchu Chen
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Correspondence to Albert N. Link.

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Chen, C., Link, A.N. & Oliver, Z.T. U.S. federal laboratories and their research partners: a quantitative case study. Scientometrics 115, 501–517 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2665-2

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