2004 FLC Outstanding Laboratory Award

The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) has named the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) in Boulder, Colo., as a 2004 Outstanding Laboratory, at its annual Mid-Continent Regional Awards event in Texas on September 9. The award was the result of work done by ITS on video quality measurements. Other laboratories receiving awards included the Great Plains Research Systems Unit, Fort Collins, Colo., the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colo., and Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM.

ITS is the research and engineering arm of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). ITS serves as a principal Federal resource for solving the telecommunications concerns of other Federal agencies, state and local Governments, private corporations and associations, and international organizations. Cooperative research agreements based upon the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986 are ITS' principal means of aiding the private sector. These partnerships aid in the commercialization of new products and services.

The FLC, formally chartered by Congress in 1986 to promote and strengthen technology transfer activities, is a nationwide network of federal laboratories that strives to link laboratory-developed technologies and expertise with the private sector. More than 700 major federal laboratories and centers and their parent departments and agencies are FLC members. The Mid-Continent region of the FLC includes fourteen states and over 100 laboratories.