Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA)

Purpose

CRADAs are partnering tools allowing federal laboratories to work with US industries, academia and other organizations on cooperative R&D projects. CRADAs provide flexibility in structuring project contributions, intellectual property rights, and in protecting proprietary information and CRADA research results.

Procedure

CRADAs originate with the specific NIST scientist(s) that would be involved in the collaboration. If the NIST scientist(s) agrees that collaboration would be in the best interests of all parties, a NIST Principal Investigator develops a Statement of Work with the other partner(s).

The NIST Principal Investigator next prepares an Approval memo with attached Statement of Work, and routes it through the laboratory management chain for review and approval. If approved, the memo is forwarded to the Office of Technology Partnerships. A CRADA Officer then contacts the partner(s) to discuss the CRADA. After an Agreement is reached, the CRADA Officer prepares and routes signature copies to partner(s) and within NIST.

CRADA Consortia

NIST may work on a technology useful to many within an industry. NIST publicly announces its desire to form a consortium to develop the technology mutually with interested firms. The following CRADA Consortia are available for participation. NIST contact phone numbers and e-mail addresses are provided for further information.