Estimates are that fully half the growth in the American economy in the last 50 years was due to funding of scientific and technological innovation.
Research investments by the Department of Energy have yielded a wealth of dividends, including new intellectual capital, significant technological innovations, medical and health advances, enhanced economic competitiveness, and improved quality of life for the American people.
Many of these scientific breakthroughs and societal benefits have been produced by researchers at DOE's national laboratories, often called the 'crown jewels' of our national research infrastructure.
The Energy Department's national laboratories, and the universities and companies that partner with them, have long been the conduits for technology transfer, collaborating to develop and commercialize energy products and processes for commercial use.
One of the most prestigious awards in technology transfer is presented each year by The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC).
The FLC is a nationwide network of federal laboratories that provides a forum to develop strategies and opportunities for linking laboratories' technologies and expertise with the market. The FLC was organized in 1974 and formally chartered by the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 to promote and strengthen technology transfer nationwide. More than 700 major federal laboratories and centers and their parent departments and agencies are FLC members. The FLC's mission is "to promote and facilitate the rapid movement of federal laboratory research results and technologies into the mainstream of the U.S. economy."
DOE FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer Awards
Since the government-wide FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer Award program began in 1984, employees at DOE's national labs have been recognized every year for "outstanding work in the process of transferring federally developed technology to the marketplace."
In fact, in the first 22 years of the FLC program, researchers at DOE national laboratories received 261 of the 589 FLC Excellence in Technology Transfer Awards presented from 1984 through 2005.
The DOE national laboratories' research and development work leading to FLC Award-winning technology transfers has been done in a wide range of areas, including energy efficiency; energy resources; environmental technologies, transportation; manufacturing; chemical processing; biotechnology; ceramics; metals, alloys and intermetallics; polymers; semiconductors; superconductors; and measurement and analysis.
Visit the FLC Archive for past and present awards.