The Department of Commerce's (DoC) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued a draft green paper titled Return on Investment Initiative for Unleashing American Innovation. The green paper presents preliminary proposals on university tech transfer from federally funded research, as well as commercialization efforts from agency intramural research programs.

The President’s Management Agenda (PMA), released March 20, 2018, lays out a long-term vision for modernizing the Federal Government for the 21st Century. The Return on Investment (ROI) Initiative directly supports the PMA and is designed to unleash American innovation. ROI refers here to the economic and national security return to the Nation based on the investment in Federal research and development (R&D) by the American people.

The PMA includes the Lab-to-Market (L2M) cross agency priority (CAP) goal, which aims to improve the transfer of technology from federally funded R&D to the private sector to promote U.S. economic growth and national security.

The L2M CAP Goal is organized around the five strategies, which also serve as the organization for the chapters in this green paper:
1. Identify regulatory impediments and administrative improvements in Federal technology transfer policies and practices.
2. Increase engagement with private sector technology development experts and investors.
3. Build a more entrepreneurial R&D workforce.
4. Support innovative tools and services for technology transfer.
5. Improve understanding of global science and technology trends and benchmarks.

This publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.1234

A final report is expected in March 2019.