COMPANIES PARTICIPATING WITH federal laboratories in research and technology development efforts report that more than 22 percent of their projects have resulted in new products, processes or services, according to a National Science Foundation-sponsored report done by researchers at Georgia Tech.
The survey also found that most industrial participants are satisfied with their company's partnership with the federal laboratory; 89 percent of respondents report that the project was a good use of their company's resources.
However, the interactions were less successful when measured by another criterion -- the creation of new jobs. "Our limited evidence suggests that laboratory-industry commercial technology interactions can be quite successful, but there are no guarantees," says Dr. Barry Bozeman, director of Tech's School of Public Policy and the lead author of the study. Variance in quality and benefit of the interactions mean that "sometimes the commercial technology lives up to the promise; often it does not."
The Georgia Tech study surveyed 219 companies who worked with federal laboratories in joint technology development projects. In addition to providing data on levels of commercial product development and industry satisfaction, the study reports information about the economic costs and benefits of federal laboratory-industry technical interactions and assesses the role of partnerships in creating new jobs.
During the past decade, federal legislation has provided mandates and incentives for federal laboratories to work with industry in producing and developing new technology. This attempt to use federal laboratories to enhance U.S. "competitiveness" has been controversial but, according to Bozeman, "the early results show that industry-federal lab technology partnerships have a good deal of promise."
Despite the fact that most of the projects examined have not yet ended and that most began after 1990, 22 percent have already led to the marketing of a new product. In another 38 percent of the cases, product development is underway.
"This is certainly a reasonable rate of product development from R&D," Bozeman says.
Most participants were satisfied, including even some who did not receive an economic return on investment. Bozeman says, "Any time 89 percent go away as satisfied customers you have to be doing something right. However, the economic cost and benefit data, though generally favorable, is much more equivocal."
Companies' economic returns are positive overall but vary a great deal. While a handful of companies reported economic benefit in excess of $10 million, in nearly one-third of the projects, costs exceeded benefits.
According to Bozeman, "one of the more useful figures is net benefit, the difference between costs and benefits. After subtracting costs, the average benefit is $1,087,000. This figure is inflated by a few projects with enormous benefits, but still indicates that many of the projects are quite successful." In return on investment, the average for all projects is nearly $3 returned for each dollar invested.
The researchers were interested in determining not only the level of success of industry-federal laboratory commercial interactions, but also the reasons for success. According to Bozeman, the more successful projects tended to involve smaller companies with a high percentage of scientific and technical employees and companies that had experience working with the federal lab on more than one project.
Bozeman suggests research partnerships with broad goals offer greater opportunity than narrowly-focused programs. "The company needs to be relatively flexible rather than looking for one specific technology or technological need," he says. "The company needs to understand that success is most likely with a research partnership, rather than simply taking the research results of the lab and expecting these results to turn into a product."
This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation's Research on Science and Technology Program under contract 9220125. The results are reported in "Industry Perspectives on Commercial Interactions With Federal R&D Laboratories: Does the Cooperative Technology Paradigm Really Work?"
Further information is available from Dr. Barry Bozeman, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332- 0345. (Telephone: 404/894-0093) (E-mail: barry.bozeman@pubpolicy.gatech.edu)
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