From Research to Commerce

The concentration of scientific and technological assets in the Innovation Valley is supported by the channels necessary to transfer research breakthroughs into commercial possibilities.

• UT-Battelle works to commercialize research by licensing Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) technology. These opportunities support nanotech, instrumentation, and homeland security companies, among many others.
• Oak Ridge National Laboratory Partnerships provides the nation with world-class research based on fundamental science and applied R&D. These scientific advancements also impact and drive the global marketplace, strengthening U.S. competitiveness and supporting economic development in our communities. Breakthrough technologies and scientific innovation often result in intellectual property that further supports business and the transition of science to the marketplace. We capture this intellectual property in patents and copyrights and eagerly work with companies to license inventions so that these technologies become industrial products, services, and consumer goods.
• The University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF) helps inventors at The University of Tennessee (UT) turn their ideas and discoveries into products and services that benefit society. Researchers at the University of Tennessee disclose almost 100 inventions a year across a breadth of different application areas.
• Y-12 Office of Technology Commercialization and Partnerships makes available to U.S. agencies and international organizations unique facilities and expertise. Whether the technology relates to innovative solutions to nuclear energy or improving our national security capabilities, technology transfer provides essential partnering mechanisms regardless of the technical stage. Like all other federal agencies, Y-12 has a statutory, technology transfer mission to make its capabilities and technologies available to all federal agencies, to state and local governments, and to universities and industry. To fulfill this mission, Y-12 encourages its scientific, engineering and technical staff to disclose new inventions and creations to ensure the resulting intellectual property is captured, protected and made available to others who might benefit. As part of the mission, intellectual property is licensed to industrial partners for commercialization, creating jobs and delivering the benefits of federally funded technology to consumers. In other cases, unique capabilities are made available to other federal agencies or to regional small businesses to solve specific technical challenges.
• ORNL has 20 user facilities, including the Buildings Technology Center, the Computational Center for Industrial Innovation, the High Temperature Materials Laboratory, and the National Transportation Research Center.
• ORNL’s $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source, together with its Center for Nanophase Material Sciences and Center for Computational Sciences, provides one of the few places in the world that allows private users to characterize, simulate, design, and fabricate nanoscale materials.
• The ORNL and Y-12 complexes and national research centers are incorporating new homeland security, national defense, and global war on terrorism solutions into their research and development missions.