Improving industry-government cooperative R&D

The February 1995 report of the Energy Secretary`s Task Force on Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories-known widely as the Galvin committee report-challenged the laboratories` role in civilian technology development. Renewed scrutiny and even criticism of collaboration, however, are unlikely to end technology-development activities between the DOE laboratories and private firms in areas related to the laboratories` defense, environmental, and energy missions. Important questions remain as to the structure, management, and evaluation of these joint R&D activities, many of which rely on Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, or CRADAs, which are among the most widely used vehicles for technology collaboration with private firms. In its current form (and despite its name), the CRADA mechanism seems to be most effective for the transfer projects, although it is used for projects spanning all three categories of technology collaboration. Rather than collecting economic data of dubious validity, DOE laboratories should expand their use of detailed measures of the quality of the performance and outcomes of specific CRADAs. 4 refs.