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Science and Technology Partnerships and Outreach

Commercialization Programs

Delivering impact through the market

U.S. Department of Energy commercialization programs provide support for collaborations between the national labs and industry, including the transfer of technologies from the labs to the marketplace

Small Business Vouchers Program

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Small Business Vouchers Program (SBV) provides clean energy small businesses access to select national labs – making the contracting process simple, lab practices transparent, and access to the labs’ unique facilities practical.

Through SBV, selected small businesses receive access to the state-of-the-art facilities and experts at participating DOE national labs, while the labs expand their knowledge of and involvement with the private sector, helping small businesses with advanced technologies contribute to American competitiveness and economic growth.

Technology Commercialization Fund

A core responsibility of DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions is to oversee the expenditure of DOE technology transfer funds.

The Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) is a nearly $20 million funding opportunity that leverages the R&D funding in the applied energy programs to mature promising energy technologies with the potential for high impact. These funds are matched with funds from private partners to promote promising energy technologies for commercial purposes.

The goal of the TCF is two-fold. First, it is designed to increase the number of energy technologies developed at DOE’s national labs that graduate to commercial development and achieve commercial impact. Second, the TCF enhances DOE’s technology transitions system with a forward-looking and competitive approach to lab-industry partnerships.

Technologist in Residence

The Technologist in Residence Program (TIR) – partially sponsored by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) – offers an opportunity to work closely with Argonne National Laboratory and the entire DOE national lab complex to chart out new opportunities for ground-breaking collaborative research.

The TIR program aims to help facilitate the creation of deep, comprehensive, and long-term relationships between clean energy manufacturing companies and DOE national laboratories.

The TIR program involves the competitive selection by EERE of approximately five pairs, each consisting of a senior technical staff member (“Technologist”) from a manufacturing company or group of companies and a senior technical staff member (“Technologist”) from a national laboratory.

In addition, the program creates a Council of Technologists” comprised of the program participants and senior representatives from other national labs. The Council helps enable program participants to identify and navigate resources across the entire national lab enterprise and provide feedback to DOE about the most effective tools and processes for establishing long-term national lab-industry relationships beyond the program duration.