Charles Redmond

Headquarters, Washington, D.C. May

11, 1993
(Phone: 202/358-1757)

Cheryl Eberwein
National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, Ann Arbor, Mich.
(Phone: 313/995-0300)

RELEASE: 93-82

NASA AND NATIONAL INDUSTRY RESEARCH GROUP SIGN AGREEMENT

NASA and the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences

(NCMS) have signed an agreement which will allow the two
organizations to propose joint research projects.

The national center is a non-profit research consortium

created by U.S. industries to conduct, sponsor, fund and
otherwise promote scientific research, development and
demonstrations of technologies or scientific applications which
will improve manufacturing processes and materials in the United
States and Canada.

NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said "One of NASA's

responsibilities is to help transfer our skills and knowledge to
the industrial base of this nation. This agreement will help us
carry out that responsibility." Goldin added that NASA has much
to learn from the NCMS member industries and looked forward to
research projects which would use NASA's aeronautical and space
science test facilities in joint projects with industry.

Under terms of the agreement, NASA divisions or centers can

propose joint research projects with individual member
industries of the NCMS. The industries are equally free to
propose joint research projects with elements of NASA. The
collaborative activities also can include joint workshops
covering any manufacturing process or material or research
facility.

- more -

-2-

These separate research projects would be subject to separate

agreements in two categories: reimbursable and
non-reimbursable. The reimbursable activities include those
uses of NASA facilities such as wind tunnels or vacuum chambers
for research projects which NASA has a minimal collaborative
interest. The non-reimbursable activities would include
collaborative projects using NASA or NCMS industry facilities or
equipment for which both parties have a strong interest.

The overall agreement maintains a NASA program priority for

use of facilities which might be covered in separate joint
research agreements. The agreement also calls for shared
distribution of profits produced by NCMS member industries
achieved through collaboration with NASA.

Conversely, the agreement allows NCMS members which shared in

collaborative research projects to have reasonable access for
reasonable periods of time to NASA patents which resulted from
that research.

Because the overall agreement allows for patentable research,

the agreement is heavily oriented toward the protection of both
NASA and NCMS member industry's intellectual and patent rights.

- end -