President Obama recently issued a Presidential Memorandum titled “Accelerating Products from the Science Lab to the Marketplace.” According to a White House release, the memo is intended to make startups receive grants 50 percent faster, by streamlining and accelerating the process for private-public research partnerships, small business research and development grants and university-startup collaborations. The memo also gives agencies more flexibility to partner with industry and share resources. The White House is directing federal agencies to develop a five–year plan with concrete goals and metrics to measure progress, including tracking number of patents each lab generates.
