APPENDIX IX APPENDIX IX In April 1988, the Congress requested the agencies and selected laboratories to provide detailed information on the steps they had taken to implement the technology transfer legislation.1 As with the reports to the Office of Management and Budget, the written responses of the agencies and laboratories proved, overall, to be difficult to interpret. To respond to the Committee's request for criteria for laboratory reporting, it was necessary to develop comparable, valid, reliable, and reportable measures of the impact of recent legislation on laboratory technology transfer activities. Therefore, we reviewed technology transfer literature and analyzed the major technology transfer legislation since 1980.2 We also House 1This information was requested by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the Chairman, Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Technology. 2Specifically, we analyzed the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 (P.L. 96-480); the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 (P.L. 99-502); Executive Order 12591, "Facilitating Access to Science and Technology"; the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 (P.L. 100-418); the Bayh-Dole Act (P.L. 96-517); and various conference reports associated with legislation. APPENDIX IX APPENDIX IX analyzed the responses prepared by departments and laboratories to the set of questions from the Congress, and fiscal year 1989 Office of Management and Budget reports. In addition, we conducted interviews with department or agency technology transfer officials.3 After analyzing the data collected in the activities discussed above and accounting as much as possible for differences across laboratories, we structured the criteria as a questionnaire for laboratory directors. The questionnaire was submitted for comment to approximately 70 reviewers outside GAO, including department, agency, and laboratory technology transfer officials and university technology transfer experts. It was then further modified on the basis of comments received from reviewers and pretested during April and May 1989 to develop additional information necessary to ready the questionnaire for implementation.4 The questionnaire we have developed has several characteristics. First, it includes precise definitions of terms that may affect the type of data reported. These definitions 3we interviewed officials at the following Departments: Agriculture (specifically the Agricultural Research Service), Defense, the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, Transportation, Interior (specifically the Bureau of Mines and USGS), Commerce, Energy, Veteran's Affairs, and Health and Human Services (specifically NIH); and at EPA and NASA. We also interviewed officials at the Office of Management and Budget, the National Science Foundation, and the FLC. We interviewed these officials to obtain their views and suggestions for developing criteria and to determine what information they need on technology transfer activities. 4As agreed to with the Committee, the questionnaire is expected to be implemented at the beginning of the next fiscal year to enable collection of complete fiscal year 1989 data. APPENDIX IX APPENDIX IX should allow department and laboratory officials to provide valid, reliable, and comparable data. Second, it is divided into two parts: a 5-section laboratory-level questionnaire, targeted to respondents in various laboratory units, and an agency-level questionnaire, to be answered by agencies or departments. In this way, we should obtain the information needed from the respondents best able to provide it. Third, it includes questions not asked by the Office of Management and Budget or Commerce for their reports, but that help develop a more complete picture of the impact of legislation on technology transfer activities. As such, it should produce more comprehensive information than has been available to date. The GAO-developed questionnaire is designed to provide comprehensive and uniform data to (1) aid congressional oversight of laboratory and department technology transfer activities and programs and (2) enhance the ability of departments and laboratories to manage and evaluate their technology transfer programs. APPENDIX X MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT RESOURCES, COMMUNITY, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIVISION John M. Ols, Jr., Director, Housing and Community Development Issues, (202) 275-5525 Lowell Mininger, Assistant Director Sumikatsu J. Arima, Evaluator-In-Charge George Schollenberger, Evaluator Jay L. Scott, Evaluator Sharon E. Butler, Writer-Edi tor OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL Mindi G. Weisenbloom, Attorney PROGRAM EVALUATION AND METHODOLOGY DIVISION James H. Solomon, Assistant Director Cynthia L. Walford, Evaluator (005749) APPENDIX X Mr. WALGREN. Thank you very much. We appreciate your-your having developed that survey for us and I hope that it will give us an opportunity to pursue the individual agencies that-and their practices-in hopes of encouraging them to move in this area. Let me ask whether your instinct is that things have changed at all? Do you have any instinct on that? Is there a judgment that you can make on the overall of whether technology transfer has been moved forward by this effort? Mr. OLS. I think the consensus among our team that did the work-we believe that we see the technology transfer activities rising. I think some agencies, as I mentioned, started a little slower or a little cautious, but I think the momentum is really picking up speed. I think that is a positive sign for the agencies. Many of the agreements were entered into just recently this spring, and several are on the negotiating table, if you will, to enter into more agreements. So I think that is a very positive sign. Mr. WALGREN. This is something that we have been pursuing for something in the range of 10 years. There is this requirement that each agency at each laboratory have an Office of Research and Technology Applications, a little formalistic, as I understand it, because an office can perhaps be a name only, but is the structure there? Do you find that office in each of the laboratories as has been intended by the legislation? Mr. OLS. I'll let Mr. Mininger answer. He talked to a lot of the officials out in all the individual laboratories. Mr. MININGER. Generally, there-actually, there-they don't always call the organization an ORTA, but the law does, again, permit some flexibility there. If there is an equivalent staff person at an organizational level that is performing technology transfer type activities and that always-we found those do exist. They don't, again, have ORTAS as such, but they meet the definition of— the requirement of having technology people at the location that are performing the function. So, yes, they are meeting it in that sense. And generally, we're finding that the people seem to be very capable and enthusiastic about the program. In some cases, they feel like there's some limitations. There is not always good regulations procedures yet available to give them good guidance, but they certainly are trying to promote tech transfer. At least that is what we found in visiting around. Mr. WALGREN. The-we have you pursuing this questionnaire that hopefully will at least give us assurance that each proper level has focused on the problem and at least given it their attention, and you indicated that each agency has filed the reports that they were required to under the act. I had been under a different impression, that some of the annual reports that had been required by the act had not been submitted. Mr. OLS. I don't-from our knowledge and from our looking at it, we don't have any record that none have filed that I know of. Mr. MININGER. The reports-of course, the Commerce report we mentioned, that's not yet available, but that is in draft and in final form apparently in Commerce. The budget information that was submitted to OMB was again difficult to deal with and it went to OMB, rather than the Con |