Released: December 17, 2021
(WASHINGTON, DC – December 17, 2021) The Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC), a network of more than 300 laboratories nationwide, has launched the Federal Lab Education Accelerator (FLEX) program, designed to foster collaborations between federal labs and academic institutions, paving the way for new entrepreneurial partnerships.
This pilot program, created by the leadership of the FLC Mid-Atlantic Region (which includes more than 100 labs in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and DC) is intended to strengthen federal lab collaborations with entrepreneurs and those in business-focused higher education.
The program has several desired outcomes, including: the creation of full technology marketing assessments that labs can use to license or co-develop technology with the partnering university; MBA teams licensing of technology from the federal lab to start a company; and establishing long-term relationships between labs and entrepreneurs.
“This exciting program brings federal lab innovations to an academic community preparing the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs, while benefiting the labs with technology assessments,” said Linda Burger, FLC Chair.
FLEX began recruiting university MBA programs in 2021 and plans to kick off its programming in January 2022 by connecting business students with federal labs, where they will gain experience assessing the labs patented and licensable technologies and interacting directly with technology managers and inventors. While students will benefit from conducting market research, the labs will benefit from the business-centered analysis of their technologies.
To review the FLEX project guidelines please click here. If you would like to participate as a university MBA program or federal lab, contact [email protected].
Click here to learn more about the FLEX program.
About the FLC
The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) is a formally chartered, nationwide network of more than 300 federal laboratories, agencies, and research centers that foster commercialization best practice strategies and opportunities for accelerating federal technologies from out of the labs and into the marketplace. To learn more, visit www.federallabs.org.
Media contact: Carolina Olivieri FLC Marketing Director 1+202-960-1781 [email protected]
Originally published at https://federallabs.org/about/media/flc-press-releases/federal-laboratory-consortium-launches-new-program-to-build-relationships-between-labs-and-aspiring
