by Gary Jones
FLC Washington, DC Representative
Greetings from D.C. There has been a decided shift in the source of technological innovations in the U.S. over the past half century. In the decades following World War II, large firms, often acting on their own (in large-scale industrial labs), were the primary source of innovation in the U.S.
Over the past 20 years, however, according to a new study released by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), innovation is now more likely to stem from collaborative initiatives with universities and federal labs than large firms acting individually and, further, federal labs have become the "dominant organizational locus" for that collaborative innovation.
Using data from 1,200 award-winning innovations (as defined by R&D magazine's annual R&D 100 Awards), spread evenly over the last four decades, the authors attempted to identify what "types of organizations were responsible for nurturing these award winning technologies."
Their results are encouraging for those in the federal lab environment working to develop collaborative relationships with the goal of creating and moving technologies from the lab to market.
The study classifies the sources of these 1,200 innovations as private (i.e., firms either acting alone or collaborating with other firms), public or mixed (e.g., federal labs working alone or in collaboration, universities, etc.), or foreign.
Since 1975, while the level of foreign sourcing has remained relatively constant, there has been a "dramatic shift" from private to public/mixed sourcing.
In 1971, 86 percent of R&D 100 Awards went to innovations developed by private sources; by 2006, it was 31 percent. There is an even more dramatic reduction in the presence of Fortune 500 firms in the annual awards: from 41 (1971) to 6 (2006).
From 1988 to present, public/mixed sources have dominated the innovation awards.
Moreover, according to the study, during the past 20 years federal laboratories have become the dominant organization source for winning R&D 100 Awards; they were involved (working alone or in collaboration) in four awards in 1971 and improved to 42 in 2006.
Inter-organization collaborations increased in general during the period, reflecting less than 10 percent of awards in 1971 to nearly 70 percent in 2006.
The overarching trend identified in the study has been one where an increasing number of R&D 100 Award winners reflect collaborative projects, and those projects often involve federal labs working with industry, universities and/or spinoff firms that market technologies developed in the labs.
Even with this good news for federal lab collaborative efforts, the study identifies "three major interconnected weaknesses" in U.S. support for federal innovation: 1) too much decentralization (with potential duplication of effort across agencies); 2) lack of broad public support for federal programs to support the role of federal labs in fostering innovation; and 3) inadequate funding for both collaborative research and commercialization, as well as total R&D spending in general.
Any study is not without its limitations, and the authors clearly state the challenges to using the data set selected for the purposes of their study (see the report).
But within those limitations, the study generally provides some academic rigor and analysis to what many in our community already know: that federal labs are an essential and—according to this study—often primary source of innovation in the U.S.
Taken a step further, given the prominence in the findings on collaborative work between federal labs and industry, which is a fundamental component of our members' technology transfer efforts, it's clear that federal technology transfer is an essential component of U.S. innovation and competitiveness.
"Where Do Innovations Come From? Transformations in the U.S. National Innovation System, 1970-2006" can be found on the ITIF website.
Gary can be reached at gkjones@federallabs.org.
