A Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) (15 U.S.C. §3715 ) is a contract, agreement, or memorandum of understanding with a non-profit partnership intermediary to bring together academia and industry on behalf of the government to speed up tech transfer and licensing.
Definition: Partnership Intermediary means an agency of a State or local government, or a nonprofit entity owned in whole or in part by, chartered by, funded in whole or in part by, or operated in whole or in part by or on behalf of a State or local government, that assists counsels, advises, evaluates, or otherwise cooperates with small business firms, institutions of higher education or educational institutions that need or can make demonstrably productive use of technology-related assistance from a Federal laboratory. (15 U.S.C. §3715 (c))
The main purpose of a Partnership Intermediary Agreement is to help small businesses, universities, and the federal government work together for their own good.
15 U.S.C. 3715 gives federal labs the right to use partnership intermediaries. A federal lab is any laboratory, any federally funded research and development center, or any center established under 15 U.S.C. 3705 (Cooperative Research Centers) or 15 U.S.C. 3707 (NSF Cooperative Research Centers) that is owned, leased, or otherwise used by a Federal agency and funded by the Federal Government, whether it is run by the Government or
Section 4124 of Title 10 of the United States Code says that Center Directors of Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratories (STRLs) can use PIAs.
Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA) activities include spin-in, spin-out, and dual-use activities. These activities help with the wide range of technology transfer functions across DoD entities. Some of the things that partnership intermediaries do are:
A contract or memorandum of understanding can be used to start a PIA. The contracting office of the agency and a warranted contracting officer may be involved, but they don’t have to be. The money for PIA can come from either general operating funds or money for technology transfer.
Other Transactions and a Partnership Intermediary (PI) seem to go well together. PI’s job is to set up a network of businesses and universities with skills that are useful to the government organization they work for. Their outreach can be made to fit a certain project and goes beyond what is usually done when the government buys something. Their network may include companies that don’t usually do business with the government or that don’t want to do business with the government through a procurement contract because of the extra costs and rules that don’t help commercial companies. This fit is perfect for utilizing Other Transactions.
Outreach to PIs can be part of a government competitive process (see 10 U.S.C. 4022(b)) or can help set up multi-party or consortium agreements when a project needs a group of different organizations to work together. An OT agreement can help both types of relationships. When it makes sense, OTs can be done with competitive procedures. This is often the case. The agreement that comes out of this can be friendly to businesses and not full of terms and conditions that are usually required in procurement contracts. Agreements with more than two people can be set up in different ways. These relationships can be vertical, horizontal, or a mix of both. Instead of a relationship between a prime contractor and a subcontractor, there can be more than one signatory on a multi-party OT agreement.