DOE urges national lab-private partnerships

Innovative work at Brookhaven National Laboratory may find its way to market faster, thanks to a pilot program to simplify the process for private companies to partner with eight national science facilities.

Launched by the U.S. Department of Energy on Friday, the streamlined process, called the Agreement to Commercialize Technology (ACT), helps private companies sign onto the research and development at Brookhaven National Lab in Upton and other national labs.

"There's a lot of excitement around this. It's really Brookhaven who led the entire initiative to develop this new mechanism," said Walter Copan, BNL's managing director of technology commercialization and partnerships."This is an important step forward on Brookhaven's path toward increasing the impact of our research, as it will open doors for new types of collaborations and expedite the translation of our discoveries into tomorrow's market applications," lab director Sam Aronson said in a news release.

Up to now, there have been two methods for commercializing the research and development done at federal labs, but the new process focuses on intellectual property and multiparty contracts.

"The Agreements for Commercializing Technology will cut red tape for businesses and startups interested in working with our nation's crown jewels of innovation, the national laboratories," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a news release Friday. "This initiative will also strengthen new domestic industries by helping bring innovative, job-creating technologies to the market faster."

Copan said it was too early to identify specific companies that would benefit from the program. "We've met over the past month with quite a few companies, some of whom are already partners to Brookhaven," he said, adding that reaction has been positive.

One local business leader said the program would boost Long Island-based companies.

"This is fantastic news from DOE as it will help facilitate the mission of Accelerate Long Island, whose goal is to help commercialize research at our world class research institutions," said Kevin Law, president and chief executive of the business trade group Long Island Association.