Speaker 1  0:00  
All right. Good afternoon and welcome to today's webinar sponsored research partnerships working with the Department of Energy presented by Autumn. My name is Sammy Segal autumns professional development manager and I will be your staff host for today. All lines have been muted to ensure high quality audio and today's session is being recorded. If you have a question for our panelists, we encourage you to use the q&a feature on your toolbar. If you have a technical question or a comment, please feel free to use the chat. Should you need closed captioning during today's session, Zoom closed captioning feature is turned on and available on your toolbar. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank autumns online professional development sponsors, Marshall Gerstein, IP and the Michelson Institute for intellectual property. We appreciate your ongoing support. I now have the pleasure of introducing you first to today's moderator David Zimmerman. David is the strategic partnership officer at the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Lab pppl and PPAP ELLs primary mission is to research into the development of fusion as an energy source. David has over 20 years of experience in IP commercialization in each industry and academic settings. After almost 10 years as a university based tech transfer professional, David recently took the opportunity to join pppl and become part of the DOE lab complex. His office is responsible for corporate and university engagement for pppl. In heading this office, David is seeking to promote opportunities for increased efficiency and contracting. He's also actively seeking new partners to engage the lab as fusion energy continues its trajectory from the subject of lab research to a clean and green energy source for the planet. David, I will now turn it over to you to get us started and to introduce us to today's speaker and your co panelists. Diane Hart.

Speaker 2  1:52  
Thank you very much, Sammy. It's pleasure to be here. And especially so as I've been active in autumn for a number of years, and have recently transitioned from the autumn community, to the federal lab consortium community and have a new perspective on moving across the aisle really, from University Technology Transfer to partner a, to a building partnerships with national laboratories. One of the reasons I was excited to be able to join this presentation is that my experience from working at universities was the kinds of things that I'm used to industry saying about about working with universities in terms of oh, they're they're always difficult intellectual property is so hard to work with and always take so long. And I feel like while working at the university, I would hear those same things about working with national labs, that I'm sort of moved along the chain. And I'm hoping with presentations like this one, that we'll be able to build bridges and demystify a bit what things are like on the national lab side and make it easier thereby to for universities to engage with national labs and all the great resources that especially the DOE National Lab complex provides and hopefully lead to a more vibrant and engaged, more vibrant engagement between the two communities. I'm really coming in as someone just six months into my career on the national lab side, but I'm very fortunate that the the real presenter here will be Diane Hart. Diane is the manager of sponsored research the office at the spa of the sponsor research office at the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. For more than 75 years, Argonne has been tackling some of the biggest questions facing humanity, such as energy security and the environment. Diane has nearly 30 years experience National Laboratory complex including with do E's National Nuclear Security Administration and its offensive side Office of Science. over her career, Diane has worked in financial planning grants management, project management and technology transfer, including contracts administration focused on cooperative research and development agreements and strategic partnership projects. Diane's team and Argonne acts as an interface between the scientific division scientific divisions, its mission support functions and the doe. Her team also forges productive r&d relationships and collaborations with private industries, universities, as well as the state and local governments, other non DOD, federal agencies and foreign entities that require the unique risks Her expertise, facilities and tools available from the Oregon lab. Diane earned her MBA in financial management from Holy Names University in Oakland, California. Prior to that, she was she earned a dual BS in business communications, and a BA in Business Administration from Holy Names College.

Speaker 1  5:27  
Think David with that we should be ready to jump in with your slides. Great.

Speaker 2  5:42  
So, as mentioned previously, this is this presentation is directed to navigating collaboration sponsored research at DOE national laboratories and especially focused on the University community and on opportunities for the universities to collaborate and work with national laboratories and the facilities and national laboratories. We'll start out by introducing the DoD complex. And you can see on the the map on the right of this slide shows the 17 Department of Energy National Laboratories that make up was, as we call it, the DOE National Lab complex. We will talk about the MEK mechanisms of engagement that are available for private industry and universities to work with DOE labs to talk about some of the key points to know about working with DOE labs and providing more of an understanding of what the issues is. Issues are on the lab side and engaging with the labs. And then we we've planned to allow for discussion throughout. And in terms of planning for the presentation, Diane, and I have our thinking in terms of it being a discussion between the two of us as we go through the slides. And if anyone has questions, I think just in the interest of organization if we can keep them till the end. And I think there'll be some time at the end for us to pick up and dive into any particular issues that anyone may want to revisit. So the DOE national labs are the crown jewels of the nation's r&d complex. Here you can see a logo illustrating the the image illustrating the different logos of national labs. Our priority is national labs are to ensure the fullest use of the federal investment in research and development and in the resources that unique resources that are available in the National Lab complex. To guide use inspired fundamental research, and to be able to address key problems, such as, for instance, fusion energy, but also key problems in many other fields across the different national different laboratories listed here. With dream teams of academic industry and laboratory scientists are working collaboratively and having a common point on which to coalesce their collaboration. And ultimately, to accelerate the transfer of scientific insights and technologies to industry where they can have an impact on people's lives. And I'll at this point, I will hand off, hand off the slides to Diane who will be taking the lead.

Unknown Speaker  8:55  
So again, hi everybody. So I'm I'm Diane Hart. It's great to be here. And as much time as David has been with autumn, I am a newbie to autumn. This is actually one of my first forays, you know, working with this particular group. So I'm kind of excited to see what else is out there, you know, that I can share with my own team back at Argonne that Autumn has to offer. So this has been a great opportunity to get to know David a little bit and also get some insight into what autumn offers. But FFRDC is or you know, of course, anybody who's worked with the government complex, whether it be DoD or otherwise FFRDC is are kind of an unknown entity to a lot of them. They are, you know, public private partnerships with the conducting research on behalf of the US government. So in our case, both of our cases it's with the Department of Energy. There are other FF RBCs but of course we have our internal favorites. And they're operated by, you know, managing and operating partners, which are universities and corporations. And they fulfill some of the long term needs of the government, which just can't be met effectively with DoD alone. So, for all government owned government operated laboratories, we each have our own place, whether we'd be a government owned contractor operated such as we are, or whether it's a government owned the government operated, they both kind of pulled together to develop that FFRDC complex. FFRDC is not in competition with private industry. So that's a key point, to remember that we're really on behalf of the Department of Energy, in our case, not competing with private industry. So a little different focus for some,

Speaker 2  10:57  
Diane, just to bring up on this slide. As you mentioned, some FFRDC is there some, like Princeton Plasma Physics Lab in Oregon lab, that are associated with and managed by universities, or consortium of universities, and others that are in government owned government operated, as you mentioned, as well as national laboratories, or FFR DCS that are administered by private entities such as Battelle, and others? In turn, is there anything that we should say at this point in terms of differences and working with them? From the university's perspective, whether engaging with a university managed FFRDC, or a government managed for private, privately managed?

Unknown Speaker  11:52  
Well, one, one thing to keep in mind? That's a great question, David, because one, one thing to keep in mind is that, because we're all working on behalf of the Department of Energy, we all have the same DoD orders that we have to adhere to. So there's a there's a very strong baseline, that's the same, but because we have different MMOs, and different risk profiles of those managing partners, there, there are other nuances that that do make us different between the laboratory so and the laboratories are not cookie cutters, either. So what what one laboratory provides another laboratory may not. And so we've had a lot of experience, where we're working across the aisle and collaboratively with multiple laboratories to, you know, bring, you know, solution to a complex problem by pooling our resources and drawing from those strings from those multiple laboratories. But in terms of working with them, all of us have the same do we orders that, you know, and it's, and one thing to remember is that, you know, policy, we may have some wiggle room. But when we say it does take an act of Congress, a lot of a lot of things that are driven by the FFRDC, these are legal regulations. So it is a congressionally mandated, you know, constraint, a lot of times that we're under and so when we say it takes an act of Congress, it's we have to take that literally to a certain extent. So that's, that's where the rubber meets the road, what what we can and what we cannot change. So understanding what some of those are, I think is, is one of the key elements to working with the labs.

Speaker 2  13:47  
Absolutely, and certainly, some of the things that I've been learning about since joining the complex as each lab, each lab does have its own, almost personality and, and their own way of doing things, but overall, in particular, with agreements such as Kratos and SSPs, these type of agreements we're going to speak to later we are all, as you said, dealing with the same deal you ordered, and so orders that have been put down from from the Department of Energy and so there's more commonality than anything else. And so, from the University side, that's something important to understand.

Unknown Speaker  14:40  
So just to kind of pull on that thread of a little bit more that the national laboratories do tend to focus, you know, we do have a focus, we have a lot of mission areas that we work in, but we do have a focus on technology transfer. Kind of one thing to also remember in working with the laboratories is we're Not all structured the same. So each MnO may have their technology transfer office in one area, and their sponsored research office and another and their contracts team and another. At all the laboratories, all these teams do their best to work together. But it's, it's important to kind of understand the laboratory that you're working with and, and who to contact so. But our major focus is in the in the DVS mission is to contribute again to what David said is the US economy, scientific discovery, economic competitiveness, quality of life, very strong focus on you know, how to bridge that gap between basic science and getting tech to market. So the the National Labs ensure you know, the fullest of the national spent nation's federal investment in r&d, we have, you know, billions of dollars, over 75 years of investment available for people to tap into, which is quite amazing. It's to guide use inspired fundamental research. So there's still a lot to be said, for research for research sake, and science for science sake. And the LaShana labs are, that's where their crown jewel, and contributions really are. Because not everybody can do that on their own anymore, they've moved away from being able to have their own laboratories to, to really have true fundamental research. So, you know, we we put together dream teams with industry, academia, laboratory scientists, is all working collaboratively to meet the mission and goals. And to to accelerate that transfer of of insights and technology to private industry and others were for use, again, it's all about impact. So what can we do? Now? What do we need to learn what we need to learn from each other in order to have the greatest impact?

Speaker 2  17:14  
Absolutely. And just to pick up because I don't know, I don't recall us defining it, since you mentioned, M and O's a couple of times, that just to point out to the audience. So each each of the national labs are, as Diane mentioned, managed and operated by different entities in some cases. In the case of Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, Princeton University is under a contract with the Department of Energy to run the lab. So while we are affiliated with Princeton University, really we are Department of Energy Facility that's just managed by by the University and other cases for forgive me diet, or is Oregon University of Chicago, or is there a separate entity?

Unknown Speaker  18:07  
Yeah, it's you Chicago, Argonne, LLC. So, but it's, the sole purpose is to manage and operate the laboratory. So, again, we're under a similar prime contract, as Princeton would be.

Speaker 2  18:24  
Great. I also wanted to just comment, as you mentioned, how the DOP really drives us drives each of the labs and encourages us to create maximum impact with our facilities. And that impact is, you know, covers a broad spectrum from economic competitiveness and job creation, of course, but also, it's, we love to be able to collaborate with university based scientists and other scientists. And if that impact is a publication in nature, or a phizzer of letter, that's fantastic impact for us as well and very much in keeping with what the Department of Energy is looking for, from the facilities national labs agreed.

Unknown Speaker  19:20  
to spark the sponsored research, partnership mechanisms that we have available to us are are many and sometimes it can kind of make your head spin but the the reality is is whatever, you know, you kind of if you if you start out with what it is that you actually want to do, then that will that should drive the mechanism. So you know, I always encourage people don't pick which way you want to go and which mechanism you want to use first. First let's decide what what it is that you want to do and what you want to accomplish with your research. So

Unknown Speaker  20:06  
yeah. So the do we leverages the resources? I think I'm sorry. Okay. So this so far, Chris, I'm sorry, I caught myself up again. So sorry. So for for creators, they're very common. It's a cost shared research and development agreement that allows the participants to work collaboratively with the laboratory to share technical expertise, develop unique, new and novel technologies, solutions, access intellectual property, emerging from that particular effort. So it's a shared work scope that clearly defines who is performing what tasks, milestones and deliverables. So the main thing to remember with a credo is if, if the participant you, as a participant as a university or private industry, you're doing some of the work or maybe some inkind, there may be funds coming to the laboratory, that that shared work scope is what would drive whether or not this would be a creator. So clear tasks, milestones and deliverables, is how that works best strategic partnership projects. And if you've been around as long as I have, you may formally know them as work for others, which is, you know, in some ways, a more descriptive piece of the the terminology, but that that really is a contract that enables your organization to pay the laboratory to perform a defined scope of work. So those tasks that draw upon those unique facilities, equipment, personnel that's available at the laboratory that you need in order to solve what you need to do for your research. So was with the Department of Energy's approvals, you can obtain ownership with both of both inventions and data generated under that SPP, so it still has to be consistent with the mission of the laboratory, it still requires full cost recovery. And the laboratory is the one that's actually performing the work. So unlike the credo, where both entities are, all participants are contributing to the success and the scope of work of a project. Those are two primary differences. The AC T is probably a little less known not all laboratories offer an AC t that agreements for commercialization commercializing technology. And that was really the AC T was really created to address concerns that industry had kind of like David was talking about earlier, too, that there's a lot of barriers, they don't understand things we do we do things differently at the university. And we do things differently at a national laboratory. And sometimes they felt that they were getting in the way of commercializing technology under an SPP or a credo. So some specific differences is that there can be more flexibility in negotiating over the intellectual property rights, for example, for the technologies that are created at the laboratory. While the labs generally have limited flexibility on IP terms under Create as an SPPs, an AC T would allow both parties to develop a specialized arrangement that will facilitate moving that technology into the marketplace, potentially a little quicker. So, those more flexible terms are also available on other issues, such as payment arrangements. So SPPs and creators, do you have an advance payment requirements and that can be flexible under an AC t not in all cases, just depends on what the need is there. And the goal, but the goal is to develop terms that are better aligned with standard industry practice, but the risk profile is transferred to the MNO. So you know, you really have to decide which agreement type is best, and which one will work for what your needs are. So it's not while we say it may be better aligned to industry practice, that's no guarantee that getting that those unique terms approved is any faster as on the contracting side of the house. So again, it's really what you want to ultimately at accomplish should drive which mechanism that you're using. So similarly, there are some constraints on the technical assistance and technical service agreements that are available. They're a little more similar to SPPs. But they're intended to be very short term. The terms and conditions are generally not negotiable, but they're favorable to the sponsor for that research or for it's really not r&d, these are things that don't involve r&d. And they need to be domestic. So this PSAs are, are limited to domestic organizations. But the sponsor can still designate data results as proprietary. So it doesn't mean that everything has to be public and out in the open. And we've also got user agreements that are can be proprietary and nonproprietary. After submission, and the acceptance of an application, or a project proposal that has gone through a peer review process. outside researchers can assess these access these facilities, through those user agreements, that agreement covers liability, intellectual property, any financial matters that that come along, and are needed. And the work is performed. With the access to the facility, typically not the the laboratory researcher is going to provide, you know, some, you know, basic guidance for safety and a little bit of training to make sure that you're doing the you have the resources that you need. But they're really not doing the r&d. So the user would be doing the work themselves and running their own experiments. So if if it's such time, that work kind of evolves, or there's a different direction that that researcher and that user at that facility needs, and they need that unique expertise of that laboratory researcher to assist. And now it moves into more of an r&d type of environment, then there could be an SPP or creata that would come out of that. So you can have a user agreement. And if some if SPP is needed for a portion of that work, because the nature of work dictates it, then that's a possibility as well. So they're not always mutually mutually exclusive. We've got licensing agreements that are available technology licensing agreements. So once a technology at any given laboratory is determined to be licensable. Several types of agreements could be available commercial, non commercial option, government use commercialization plan from a prospective licensee is required before licensing its intellectual property. So the plan better enables the laboratory and prospective licensee to determine and characterize the business fit between their interests. So the type of license depends on the technology itself, which, you know, varies widely among the complex. So the type of organization that's seeking that license, and what its intended use is for and small businesses, SBIR STTR, Rs, those are also very common at the laboratory. So each year, multiple federal agencies set aside an average of more than 2 billion a year in combined the annual funding for Small Business Innovation, and small business tech transfer programs. So these are highly competitive, they can be multi-phase, they can they're award based programs that encourage small businesses to engage in work with the FFRDC and develop r&d that has potential for commercialization generally. So typically, the contractual mechanism is an SPP unless the DoD provides your funding to the laboratory directly as part of their prime contract. So that's part of that m&a process. So that kind of defines how that works.

Speaker 2  29:39  
Okay, thank you. I feel like there's there's so much ground covered on this slide. But just ask a start off with a very high level question. From The University side. What are the most important things the university, a university researcher or research office can do in order to To help an engagement with the national lab to be as efficient as possible.

Unknown Speaker  30:07  
So, good question I would go, I would go back to, again to having no knowing what that defined scope of work is going to be. So what is your outcome? What kind of engagement do you need? So that we can get the right one from the beginning? It's always frustrating to go, you know, partway down a path and you think, you know, this is an SPP, but no, actually, it really is a crater. So let's let's talk about, you know, early and often, what, what kind of work what are your expectations? Is their background intellectual property? Is there, you know, what, are you going to publish it in public? Or is this something that you're gonna hold near and dear to your heart and keep it proprietary? So with universities, we find most of those engagements are, you know, your open science and everything is publishable. So that generally isn't isn't an issue, do we like to go that route as well. But there's times when other mechanisms are more appropriate. But I think the best thing you could do is, you know, work with your researchers to know exactly what it is that you want to do and what your expectations are, and then engage in that to that laboratory that you want to collaborate with, and find out who is their business development executive. If they already have a pie in mind, then it's good to get the three together, the along with whether they're a tech transfer manager, they, they come in different titles. So they can be ICM, BDE, you name the alphabet soup, but they're all part of either that tech transfer office or the sponsored research office at that laboratory.

Speaker 2  32:12  
Okay, and just to emphasize, I know, something that really caught my ear as I transition from working for nonprofits, a nonprofit university to the National Lab complex where we are we're not a nonprofit in the in the sense of a nonprofit entity, we're part of the we're a facility that belongs to the federal government. The flexibility on intellectual property associated with the strategic partnership projects is, is of course very powerful and very attractive to, to industry. And I know anyone who's worked with sponsored research research, at a university sponsored by industry, intellectual property concerns always come up. So it's a, it's a wonderful opportunity in working with a national lab to try to structure things so that to the extent when there is something that has sensitive IP associated with it, and where ownership is an issue, there can sometimes be an opportunity to keep a relationship alive, because of the possibility of putting certain work into an SPP contract with the National Lab, while other other aspects of the sponsor research may be going to a university or flowing through a cooperative research and development agreement. Because in some cases, there may be a particular engagement, as Diane mentioned, where there could be something that seems to be one engagement might turn out to be separately a crater and also an SPP. In some cases.

Unknown Speaker  34:04  
Yeah, that's very true. In fact, we, you know, we're fortunate that we have a lot of engagements with multiple with the same entity, but multiple engagements. So it's not uncommon to have creata and SPP. At the same time, as well as they may be sub recipients on an SBIR or an STTR. Or we may be a sub recipient, I should say, to an SBIR or STTR, with a particular industry, so it's all good.

Speaker 2  34:46  
All right, and thank you very much. I see there's a question in the question box, but we'll move through the slides, and then then take up questions at the end.

Unknown Speaker  35:03  
So this kind of gives you this is a great pictorial of how much work the national labs do in terms of Kratos SPPs ACTA is at the National Labs now this this data goes through 2019. So we don't have so it's just gone exponential there. Of course, you know, the, you know, we've seen increase, at least I know it at our lab, we've seen dramatic increases in the number of craters that we do. Again, some of that speaks to our ability to work and pull together the right resources to bring to bear on a problem, which is, which is pretty exciting. So they can be multiple laboratory or multiple universities. But some, some good, good dollars there. AC T's are less used in terms of the actual numbers of agreements, but still a powerful, powerful tool when it's when it's the right one.

Speaker 2  36:13  
And just add further comments in this, the DOP in particular for for certain technology areas, has put in place programs to help make to help institutions and companies to engage in credos such as the infused program where the DOE in accreta agreement. Then, as Diane mentioned, the the commitment of resources from the partner and the National Laboratory, they're each putting money in to fund the collaboration. And for certain technologies, which are of high interest in the DOE, the DOE has put in place additional support to make the credos, more attractive and to where the deal we can cover the matching cover some or all of the matching funds that the credo partner needs to put in. One example of that that's significant in my lab is the infused program, which is based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Princeton Plasma Physics Lab. And I know there are others as well.

Unknown Speaker  37:27  
Yeah, our our user facilities are another example J. Cesar is another example of some shared shared resources that we use. You know, Jay sees a huge collaboration and very successful between the national laboratories, private industry, academia, several universities involved in that particular one, and there's 28 different user facilities throughout the complex that you can engage in as well.

Unknown Speaker  38:14  
So there's, you know, there's, there's always opportunities out there and always new ones. One of the things in terms of engaging with the DOE national laboratories is responding and the amount of money that doe, various offices within the DOD provide in terms of a funding opportunity announcement. So engaging in those is a very important aspect to you know, continue to fund our laboratories and continue to fund research. That's, that really matters. That's where that impact comes into play. So there are eligibility requirements that you need to be mindful of, you know, so even though you're working with this national laboratory, there doe National Laboratory, there are some calls that we cannot participate in. So it's very important to know what those eligibility requirements are for engaging in in grants FOAs and broad agency announcements. But so it's important to contact that, again, that sponsored research office in that tech transfer office, you know, pretty early to ensure that we can respond and meet all the eligibility requirements. Again, you don't want to go down the path of putting together a proposal and then find out that oh, we can't collaborate in that way. So we can't be in a head to head competition with private industry or give undue preference for another laboratory or another entity to You know, win an award. So we, you know, as a government entity, and as a FFRDC, our resources are available to everybody. So we can't in essence, play favorites. So we're available for all. So remember that we're, we're there to provide access to the resources that are not available in the private sector. And we're not here to compete with it. So you know, we're here to enhance the research that you all are doing and bringing to the table. So that's partly why, you know, we can't compete comm can't create that unfair competitive advantage for any one entity over another. And that's partly why standard, you know, RFPs, you know, if you've heard across the complex, you know, those are kind of a bad word, because a lot of those they haven't gone through, you know, it's not a broad agency announcement, typically, if it's a true RFP, so it's, it would be unallowable, because it would put us head to head in competition, so. So it's important to make sure that you read those funding opportunity announcements very carefully, to find out what the opportunities are there. There are some, you know, a lot of these ones like this one, with ARPA e, a lot of er e calls, they're very favorable. And they encourage you to partner with a doe National Laboratory. Those are, those are always good things to read within there. But you know, you need to allow sufficient time for us to review what funding opportunity you're interested in, so that we can know how we can engage. So we're not always the lead, sometimes we can be the sub there could be flow down conditions, especially if it's not a doe FOA that we need to be concerned with, we do have to get full cost recovery. So if there's any cost share things of that nature, then that that needs to be addressed as to how that's going to come about because you can't use we can't use federal resources in order to provide cost share. So those are kind of some of the things that have come up in conversations in the past that people don't quite understand what full cost recovery means in working with a FFRDC.

Unknown Speaker  42:38  
That's that sort of thing. So all right, I want to add to that one, David.

Speaker 2  42:50  
No, I think you I think you've done a good job of covering it. And certainly as the newbie to to the National Lab System, I feel like I'm continuing to pick up and understand better, more and more of the system as I go through and, and look at the fo ways that are that have come down and understand the nuances of where we have flexibility on the DoD side and where we don't. So, moving on to a more detailed this is from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, and gives a is this image is meant to give some insight into the process, the internal process on the lab side, in particular, getting going through the internal approvals, and getting meeting all the requirements that the Department of Energy imposes on the Department of Energy laboratories in order to get to ultimately to getting a proposal from a proposal to an award at a national lab. So I feel like that the process at least for me at this stage in my career seems so much more complicated than this simple few boxes to go through but but I'm learning to get more experience with it. Anything to add to that or?

Unknown Speaker  44:32  
Well I think for me, kind of the takeaway again is just to really be in communication early and often with you know, either the contracts or sponsored research or or tech transfer office. So the to understand what the workflow is for that particular laboratory. This is where you know that this this is a great flow chart that shows the basics but you know those review process assesses and each individual laboratory may have their own specific process. But this is really the basics of it that proposal development, understanding the statement of work, what budget, and that selection of which contract mechanism, this makes the most sense for the best we can do that homework up front will speed the process along. So if you're if you're looking for ways to how to, you know, get get work to begin sooner, rather than later, that proposal development piece is really key. I mean, that should be highlighted. If we do our homework well in that space, then the rest of the review and approval process generally goes fairly smoothly.

Speaker 2  45:59  
Following up on that, this slide, I think highlights some of the points that you've made already, but really is focused on how best universities can engage with national labs.

Speaker 2  46:24  
So the engagement should be focused on the unique capabilities that are required from the laboratories from the laboratory that is being the universities meeting. I think Diane did a great job of emphasizing that, as part of the federal government, we of course, cannot put ourselves in a position where we are, are in direct competition or appear to be in direct competition with the private sector. Agreeing with specially SPPs require full cost recovery for the laboratories. And we cannot flow funds from the DOE laboratory to the SPP sponsor, or credo participant. Any work any projects that we engage in have to be within the mission of the lab and the do E's mission. And, of course, I think the point that was heavily emphasized is the importance of having a clear statement of work with milestones, and deliverables, in particular, just to call out with regard to the statement of work, that sometimes an understanding of real detail analysis of who will be doing which work can be the key to determining whether or not a credo or an SPP is more appropriate. So whether what work will be done by the laboratory and what work will be done by the partner. And and, of course, that the work cannot work agreed to under one of these agreements cannot create a detrimental burden on DoD resources.

Unknown Speaker  48:13  
Yeah, those are those are a lot of the things that the DoD really looks to in their reviews as well. So those are those are some of those key points that doe will look at as part of their review, in addition to each laboratory. So okay. So some of the key points to remember here are, you know, DOD doesn't have the same motivations that private industry has. So the terms and conditions are generally in the sponsor or participants favor. So I always tell people when they're approaching that contract terms and conditions, keep your red pen in the drawer and sit on your hands if you have to, for at least that first read. So you know, if you go into every Terms and Conditions agreement with that red pen already in your hands, there again, there's a lot of things that are out of our control and using the standard doe pro formas will streamline that process significantly. Anytime you start putting red pen to paper, that means that that agreement, those agreement terms have to go not only back through the laboratories, legal review, but it has to go up to do a wheeze legal review again as well. So that's the best way to streamline the process is you if you can stick to those doe standard terms and conditions. A key point to remember is that creators must be cooperative. You can't just throw money over the fence and say we don't we're not going to do any other work. That doesn't constitute what a credit would be that participants must perform some of those tasks. And that needs to be clearly outlined in that statement of work. So, an SPP is not possible, unless the sponsor is the one contributing 100% of the funds. So, DOE cannot augment work for other entities. So that's, that would be a misuse of government funds. So if we're doing work for XYZ company, that XYZ company has to pay 100%, for that it can't come out of taxpayer dollars. So that's why that rule is there. And it isn't always just a local doe site office decision. So again, that communication is key. So let us help set those expectations as to what reviews are going to be required and how long that may take foreign reviews require additional DoD headquarter reviews. And they take longer, so make sure that you're, you know, factoring that in and again, you know, communication, communication is key early, early and often so that you know, where it's at in that approval process, and how long that can take. So we try not to make promises that we can't keep with a particular timeline as to when we're going to be able to start work. That's why when we're we're outlining our statements of work, we generally say within when those tasks will start is after approvals.

Unknown Speaker  51:50  
Okay.

Speaker 2  51:55  
And now as we we've wrapped up the presentation, we still have a few minutes, and we have a couple of questions that have come in, just to say before people leave. These are our email addresses. And we're available to if people have follow up questions, or we'd like to drill a little bit deeper, happy to set up a time to speak with to speak with anyone who's interested. Maybe I'll take the questions in reverse order, just because the question that was just raised, when you say the terms are favorable to sponsors, slash participants, can you give any specific examples of the type of terms you might be referring to?

Unknown Speaker  52:42  
So I think, for me, the first thing that comes to mind is that, you know, they, especially in SPP, they're going to own any out out of that IP. So most of the time, that's, that's the most favorable, and there's the least amount of constraints on SPPs as to who's going to own that, that IP. So, indemnification is generally the the hardest thing for people to to one, but that's where you have to remember we are a government facility. So a doe hasn't hasn't exercised any marched in marchin rights. Do you have any other thoughts on that particular favorable question?

Speaker 2  53:35  
No, I think that that's, I think that answered it well, and it's an area of continuing to learn more about follow on question is, how do you address fair treatment of sponsors, when working with company A and then later company be?

Unknown Speaker  54:00  
Well, they would be, they would each have their own unique scope of work. So I'm not 100% sure what I may have to follow up with you. And to kind of pull that thread a little bit as to what you're you're trying trying to ask. So to a certain extent within a FOA, if this is related to the conversation around a grant or a follow up or a BAA. So all of those entities have an opportunity to approach the laboratory see, you know, kind of make their pitch as to what they want to do and what can the laboratory help them with? In as long as you know, it's within our unique capability. So we're here We're open to each, it still depends on each to come to us to with, with whatever research they want. So I'm I'm not sure I'm answering your question very well there.

Speaker 2  55:14  
And I just to add to I think that was a good answer. But to add to it, you know, I think as we, as we meet with different kinds as we engage with different companies, we're very sensitive to each each additional engagement, as we're engaging with new companies and maybe competitors, of companies we've engaged with in the past, we are, of course, extremely respectful of any sort of confidentiality, and those type of things, and we scope the work. So that to minimize our exposure to any sort of conflict, to as great an extent as possible. So I think that may speak to this answer, but it might be something that that we could take up offline.

Unknown Speaker  56:15  
Conflict of Interest. Policies?

Speaker 2  56:22  
Absolutely. Is there a standard approach at DOD pertaining to assignments of AIP to clients, collaborators, for example, when the lab invents improvements in industry VIP?

Speaker 2  56:42  
I'm not familiar with the AIP. VIP terminology. Use there are no a few are Diane. Well, the

Unknown Speaker  56:51  
the VIP would be the background intellectual property. I'm not sure AIP what is referring to there, but the the background intellectual property? Sure, yeah, would be would be disclosed as to what what background intellectual property we already have. That's bringing to bear on that project. So conversely, the participant, if it's a credo, they would also disclose whatever background intellectual property they have bringing to the table. We don't have other than the work that's defined in that, again, it goes back to a clearly defined statement of work. That background intellectual property is only used for the that particular scope of work. And any outgrowth of shared intellectual property that is, is decided upon is to win in the terms and conditions. So I don't know if that answers.

Speaker 2  58:01  
I think that that. I think that is a good job of answering the question. We're now at 330, East Coast time. So I'll turn it turn the session. Sorry, one additional question that came in with company A and B are possibly competitors. So I think that that was off the bottom of my screen. But I think that was dealt with in the earlier answer. So

Unknown Speaker  58:28  
yeah, we definitely keep that confidential. So we don't mix.

Unknown Speaker  58:36  
Yep. So, Sammy, I'll turn the floor over to you. Excellent.

Speaker 1  58:41  
Well, on behalf of autumn, excuse me, I would like to thank you both Diane and David for such an informative discussion today, and thank our attendees for joining us. As a quick reminder, a recording of the webinar will be available for viewing in the autumn Learning Center within a few days of this event and is included in your registration. A handout copy of the slides and a certificate of attendance can also be accessed there.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai