National labs could be looking for partners for latest Department of Energy opportunity
While only national labs are eligible for funding, the "Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Market Readiness Lab Call" must include at least one private sector partner.
The application period has opened for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Technology Transitions FY 2025 “Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Market Readiness (CLIMR) Lab Call.” DOE’s Building Technologies Office is one of 14 DOE offices participating in this year’s lab call, and private entities from across the buildings sector are encouraged to collaborate on projects led by DOE’s national laboratories.
The FY25 CLIMR Lab Call allocates part of the DOE’s Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF), whose mission is to support technologies with commercial potential that originate at DOE national laboratories by attracting partners who will develop products and sell them into viable markets. This process fills a key need for many labs as they assess their own portfolios, identify the highest-quality prospective partners, and assist those industry partners in evaluating technologies for their business models.
While only DOE national laboratories are eligible for funding from this lab call, every funded project must include at least one private sector partner. Incubators, accelerators, manufacturers, and trade associations are among the range of partner types encouraged to partner with national labs through the CLIMR lab call, as they are well positioned to help energy-related national lab-developed technology advance toward commercialization.
The following six topics are now accepting proposals.
- Topic 1: Market Needs Assessment – Identify and analyze emerging market needs, competitive cost analysis, and public and private market trends to develop a strategy that will maximize success of technology commercialization from national labs.
- Topic 2: Curation of Intellectual Property (IP), Data, and Software – Develop and implement streamlined and innovative strategies for labs to connect their IP, data, and software to promising partners in the private sector.
- Topic 3: Matchmaking – Develop or expand business incubation programming to create new partnerships that will move national lab-developed technologies to market.
- Topic 4: Technology Specific Partnership Projects – Advance the commercialization of individual energy-related national lab-developed technologies by demonstrating clear evidence of commercial potential that combines technology progress with market pull or interest.
- Topic 5: Enhancing Laboratory Processes – Address barriers to effective and efficient implementation of national lab processes to facilitate moving lab-developed, promising energy-related technologies toward commercialization.
- Topic 6: Increasing Partnerships with External Commercialization Parties, Private Funders, Non-profits, and Agency- or Lab-Related Foundations – Improve how labs attract, recruit, and retain external partners to further develop and commercialize technologies by decreasing barriers to working with the labs, increasing the number and diversity of private sector partners, and accelerating and deepening connectivity with diverse commercialization stakeholders.
The deadline to submit concept papers is 3 p.m. EST on December 17, 2024, with full applications due by 3 p.m. EST on March 11, 2025.
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