What do all these labs do?
By Bill Schweber, Technical Editor -- EDN, January 21, 1999
 A column in a recent issue of Technology Review is fairly blunt (Reference 1). In it, columnist G Pascal Zachary says that R&D spending by various US government agencies in fiscal year 1997 totaled about $68 billion. (He itemized the spending by major agency.) Much of this spending was quite removed from the original funding mandates for these agencies. Zachary offers proposals that would cut about $20 billion from this spending budget. He suggests that national labs stick to their primary task and that the government kill NASA and privatize the space program, streamline the Department of Defense’s empire, prune the "megaprojects," and scrap the Advanced Technology Program. Zachary’s point is that most of these programs are self-serving, could be better handled by market-sensitive companies, and have strayed too far from their rationale. I gave Zachary’s proposals some thought, but the reality of his premise didn’t really hit me until a few weeks later, when I attended a trade show that included the National Technology Transfer Conference. Many of the exhibitors at this show were from corporate R&D labs. They offered their technological expertise, if not their products—a service valuable to employees from other companies who are looking to adapt, refine, or advance their own products. What struck me was the large number of federal labs exhibiting, supported by glossy literature and a marketing staff. It seemed that nearly every federal agency, subagency, and outpost has its own lab for internal use. These labs are now offering to help industry with its problems. There are so many of these labs—more than 700 under 16 federal agencies—that there is a federal clearing-house consortium, supported by regional offices, whose sole task is to match your needs with the appropriate lab (Reference 2).
Some of the federal-lab officials’ desire to help is altruistic. In a so-called technology transfer, these officials aim to advance the nation’s competitiveness by working with companies that can actually apply advances and techniques to derive additional yield from the billions of dollars of federally funded R&D. (Interestingly, the consortium pegs such R&D at "just" $25 billion, much less than Zachary’s figure.) But I wonder if some of this promotion isn’t self-serving. It gives these federal labs a rationale for existence, as well as an additional revenue stream from commercial links that demonstrate the labs’ supposed relevance. What exactly is each lab’s mission? Who sets the lab’s course and modifies the course when necessary? What priorities does the lab serve, and who determines these priorities—the federal government or potential purchasers of the research? Is the lab, knowingly or not, duplicating work that is already being done elsewhere? How much of these efforts aim to "make work" to justify next year’s funding? How do you meaningfully measure the return on this extremely large investment? In the end, I was very confused by the presence of these labs at the conference and their offers to help other companies. In the rough-and-tumble commercial environment, any company that fails to satisfy customers must revise its products, or it soon goes out of business. Do these myriad federal labs face the same fate if few private companies want their research help or technology transfer? Maybe Zachary has a good point: Any organization with two conflicting feedback loops can easily spend lots of money, but these organizations rarely spend the money well. Because these labs are so varied in their work and charter, this issue is complex and lacks a single answer, but it’s an issue worth exploring. References
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 Bill Schweber, Technical EditorYou can reach Technical Editor Bill Schweber at 1-617-558-4484, fax 1-617-558-4470, or bill.schweber@cahners.com. |
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