Industry and Government-Laboratory Cooperative R&D: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
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Industry and GovemmentLaboratory Coopérative R&D: An Idea Whose Time Has Corne Lyle H. Schwartz
and their actual utilization in manufacrurThere cornes a time in the course of huing. man events when streams of intellectual A common thème underlies the develendeavor join together to form a mighty river. I believe we hâve reached such a opment path ail materials follow. Research time. Throughout the 1980s, as the U.S. inand development to improve the reliability ternational trade balance in high technoland reduce the unit cost of materials innoogy industries declined and then became vations is a prerequisite for their wide significantly négative, increasing attention adoption. This extensive R&D activity is has been given to the ability of the domesfar more expensive than that required tp tic manufacruring industry to compete in create new materials or to characterize world markets. During this same period them or understand their properties. This our attention has also focused on the rôle high development cost represents signifipur fédéral laboratories play in technologicant risk to the materials developer, who cal enterprise and, in particular, on the rôle may not be able to capture ail the économie some labs might play as their primary misbenefit of such generic technology develsions change or diminish in emphasis. opment. Stratégies to spread thèse costs, and thereby lower the risk for each particiTogether, thèse issues lead naturally to pant, are often key to the development of industry/government-laboratory coopéranew materials or new processing technolotive R&D to enhance our domestic manugies for conventional materials. facruring enterprise. However, bringing thèse two ideas together to form an effecFor 50 years the United States has purtive whole required the législation of the sued a successful strategy of risk réduction last several years which authorized those when the materials in question are related laboratories to enter into coopérative reto national goals. Materials required for the search and development agreements mission needs of DOD, DOE, and NASA (CRADAs) with individual companies or hâve been developed using the vast regroups. CRADAs enable the laboratories sources of the fédéral government to carry to protect and manage intellectual propout development programs linking induserty in such a mariner as to ensure écotry, university, and government-laboratory nomie benefit to the domestic industrial efforts. The current program to develop participants and thence to the U.S. econmaterials for the National Aerospace Plane omy. At the forefront in utilizing thèse is only the most récent of a séries of major CRADAs are activities in materials science efforts, many successes of which hâve led and engineering, particularly in the area of to the popular rhetoric of "space-agematerials processing. materials." One conséquence of thèse years of effort is the création of an enorThe recently published National Académies' study, Materials Science and Engineer-mous resource in talented staff and faciliing for th
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