Firms Can’t Get Federal Research, Report Says : Technology: The government’s failure to share its studies makes it more difficult for U.S. businesses to compete, the assessment concludes.

The ability of American businesses to compete in world markets is being hampered by the U.S. government’s failure to share with them promising technologies developed in federal laboratories, according to a congressional report released Sunday.

In Japan, 85% of research in public, non-university labs is geared to assist private industry, the study found. But in the United States, very little of the research done by government agencies has been transferred to firms outside the defense establishment, it said.

The study was prepared by the Congressional Research Service, a branch of the Library of Congress, for the investigations subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The panel’s chairman, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), said its findings would pave the way for subcommittee hearings into the problem of domestic technology transfer.

“While not all research can be commercialized, links between government and industry can stimulate commercial applications. That, in fact, is what other countries have done,” Dingell said.

“Industry and former government leaders tell us that the technology transfer process between government and industry works poorly, if at all,” he said. “Government agencies act as if the research going on in our federal laboratories is of no interest to U.S. industry.”

The report said that in many foreign countries “the private sector is increasingly involved in funding, decision-making and research at publicly funded institutions.” In many cases, it said, “technology transfer efforts are integrated into a system where government laboratories are permitted--and generally expected--to provide assistance to the industrial community.”

In the United States, government research institutions are created to meet the needs of federal agencies, not to provide assistance to the business community, the study noted.

Closer cooperation between government and business is permitted under federal law, the report said. It added that government and industry leaders must bear in mind that “there is a store of knowledge developed in pursuit of government mission requirements that is of use to the industrial community.”