DESY, Hamburg, Germany
Over the last decade, technology transfer has emerged as an important mission of major public research facilities. Funding agencies, regional governments and society at large have placed high hopes in the combination of scientific research and on-site technology transfer departments that can turn discoveries and research tools into marketable products. Pursuing economic interests while preserving scientific freedom is a delicate balancing act that requires novel instruments in finance, administration and governance. The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres addressed this challenge with a set of new frameworks: the Helmholtz Validation Funds (HVF) and the Helmholtz Innovation Labs (HIL). MicroTCA is a case in point: Since 2009, DESY has upgraded this standard significantly to provide state-of-the-art LLRF systems for the facilities FLASH and European XFEL. When the technology sparked interest elsewhere, DESY bundled its transfer activities in the HVF project MicroTCA.4 for Industry (2012-2015) and the HIL project MicroTCA Technology Lab (since October 2016). We report on intermediate results achieved by the MicroTCA Technology Lab after seven months of operation.
