The role of public agencies in commercialization of technologies

Read the news in Business Times this morning about the Singapore government offering $17m for research on applications of clean energy. What's key and I thought NEW in this news is "....testbed their clean energy technologies here, using government buildings and facilities". This is long overdue. They should have done this long time ago. When you have fuel-cell out from R&D in Singapore, LTA (or rather...SBS buses) should have been the first testbed for testing. Well, the fuel-cell being researched is still at preliminary stage? Then it's not fit to be marketed to the industry in the first place. Make sure your technology is scalable. Worried about efficiency - there can always be ways to test the capability of the fuel-cell in short-loop buses eg. those that service just the housing estates. Just a (wild) thought. Yes, you may find so many roadblocks along the way but this is the fastest and relatively effective way to prove your technology works. Ok. Today, you invented a super-novel material that coats glass and acts like an insulator and call itself self-cleaning i.e. ensure minimal cleaning required of the glass. Prove it. Find government buildings, or facilities or services (buses, again...errr...and MRTs), apply the coating on it and collect your data. Since most of the R&D are supported by government and part of the government's long term initiatives and roadmap in the first place, the entire government (the technology provider and the end-users) should integrate and help each other out. They are one huge supply-chain, isn't it? For example, most of the technologies developed by scientists and researchers in the US have their technologies adopted by NASA, initially. Use NASA as the testbed and when proven feasible, they can use this as a marketing escalation to the private companies and firm in the industry.

Three key partners on clean energy applications -
R&D organisations: lead and conduct testbedding activities
Technology providers: private sector firms that provide the clean energy equipment and technologies to participate in the testbedding
Implementers: Government bodies that provide the testbedding location and facilitate the project
(See the flow here - R&D should reach the private firms first before it reaches the government. Then I ask - What makes your technology so unique that a private firm should believe in you, even before a non-profit or public agency does?). It takes much more from the private firms to license and commercialize unproven technologies than a public agency.

Personally, I think government bodies can participate in the testbedding too, and not just solely in providing the location, buildings and facilities. Government bodies are the R&D organizations, can be technology providers AND implementers.

And another question is -

"Why can't they adopt this collaboration structure to all technologies ? "

"Why must this be limited to just clean energy?"

Why, why, why....