Technology transfer: a new culture

Universities and trade associations have had a long history of collaboration with industry to commercialize their research products. In 1989, the US Congress decided that the national laboratories should increase the nation's economic competitiveness by sharing laboratory-developed technologies with US industries. Laboratory scientists working in unclassified areas no longer could freely share their information, and for the first time they had to market their technologies. The government's new technology transfer policy affected the laboratories and government agencies as well as industry. Their challenge is to recognize that successful technology transfer depends on effective communication and adapting to a completely new culture.<
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