Bridging the Valley of Death: Successfully Moving Energy Breakthroughs from Lab to Market

A major challenge in bringing down the cost of clean energy technologies is bridging the so-called “valley of death”—the state of technology development where many promising discoveries die because they are not sufficiently advanced to attract private sector partners or venture funding even though they may hold tremendous potential impact. This problem plagues a host of clean energy technologies, such as next-gen solar and advanced batteries, and it is the source of considerable policy debate and program experimentation.

But some universities and research laboratories are advancing their technology transfer capabilities to try and address the valley of death. For example, Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU) faculty and students have leveraged their technology transfer prowess to spin out more than 130 companies over the past five years and have attracted approximately $400 million of outside investment. In addition, CMU is a leading research center for breakthrough energy technology development.

Please join ITIF's Center for Clean Energy Innovation and Carnegie Mellon University’s Scott Institute for Energy Innovation to learn how CMU is trying to bridge the valley of death and how its efforts can translate to other government and university programs. A panel of CMU-borne start-ups and technology transfer experts will discuss their recent successes as well as shed light on continued challenges to scaling up energy breakthroughs into transformative products.

This event is sponsored through the generosity of CMU alumni Michael and Janet Jesanis. The event is free, open to the public and complies with ethics rules. For more information, see CMU’s innovative energy technology guide and video.