How Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Commercialization Catalyst™ built a repeatable approach for preparing researchers for the conversations that move research toward opportunity and impact.
Commercialization Catalyst™ prepares researchers to navigate important industry conversations while remaining grounded in their technical expertise. Photo credit: U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has no shortage of groundbreaking research.
It also has sophisticated systems for moving that research toward impact: technology transfer professionals, industry engagement programs, technology maturation funding, licensing pathways, and access to Department of Energy commercialization programs.
But ORNL discovered that creating pathways between research and industry wasn’t enough.
Researchers also needed to be prepared for the conversations those pathways created.
That realization led to a collaboration between ORNL and Angelique Adams Media Solutions and ultimately helped shape Commercialization Catalyst™, a researcher development program designed specifically for scientists and engineers navigating research translation and industry engagement.
Today, ORNL’s experience offers a useful lesson for other research institutions: researcher readiness can be developed intentionally, just like other capabilities in the research translation system.
ORNL Was Already Investing in the Pathway to Industry
The story began with an ORNL initiative called Safari.
As the largest multidisciplinary laboratory in the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, ORNL develops technologies across an enormous range of fields. The challenge was creating stronger connections between those technologies and the entrepreneurs, investors, and companies capable of deploying them.
With support from the Department of Energy, ORNL created Safari to help break down traditional barriers between a national laboratory and the private sector. The technology transfer office served as a concierge, bringing external stakeholders into direct conversations with ORNL researchers and innovators.
Then the environment changed.
After COVID, ORNL found that industry engagement had become more virtual, more targeted, and less dependent on broad in-person exploration. The team began rethinking how Safari could work in this new environment.
That evolution exposed another challenge.
Creating the Connection Wasn’t Enough
ORNL could create opportunities for researchers and industry to meet.
But those early interactions didn’t always work.
Susan Ochs, ORNL’s Engagements Program Manager, was candid about what the team experienced:
“There’s no shortage of brilliant science here.”
—Susan Ochs, ORNL’s Engagements Program Manager
The problem wasn’t the quality of the research or the researchers.
ORNL already offered extensive communication training. What was missing was preparation specifically for conversations intended to move science toward industry. Researchers needed to communicate in ways that worked for people evaluating technologies for potential use, investment, partnership, or commercialization.
Jennifer Caldwell, ORNL’s Director of Technology Transfer, identified another important distinction.
Researchers didn’t simply need to communicate clearly. They needed to communicate the things industry was listening for: the value proposition, the problem being solved, the potential application, and what needed to happen next.
As Caldwell explained, someone can be an excellent communicator and still miss the topics an industry audience is “scanning” for.
ORNL had uncovered a preparation gap.
Creating the opportunity for an industry conversation and preparing a researcher to succeed in that conversation are two different capabilities.
Same Researcher. Different Room. Different Conversation.
The Response: Prepare Researchers for a Different Kind of Conversation
ORNL began working with Dr. Angelique Adams, a former corporate R&D executive and Chief Innovation Officer who had spent more than two decades working with scientists and engineers in industry.
The problem was familiar.
Adams had experienced it from both sides: as a researcher communicating technical work and as an executive evaluating technologies, investing in innovation, and leading research teams. She had previously developed training to help corporate researchers communicate with executives, boards, customers, and external collaborators.
Working with ORNL, that foundation evolved into a program designed for the realities of research translation in a national laboratory.
The premise was not that researchers needed to become salespeople.
They needed to understand their role in the process.
A researcher doesn’t need to master every detail of licensing, partnership agreements, or commercialization. ORNL has professionals with that expertise. But researchers do need to be able to explain their work in a way that creates understanding, recognize meaningful interest, and connect that interest back into the institutional system.
That work became the foundation for Commercialization Catalyst™.
Building Researcher Readiness
Commercialization Catalyst™ prepares researchers across four capabilities represented by the RAMP Method:
- Researcher Role
Understand the researcher’s role in industry engagement and research translation, including how to clarify, connect, collaborate, and make effective handoffs. - Audience Awareness
Understand who is in the room, what they may care about, and what the researcher needs to learn. - Messaging Mastery
Choose the right information, technical depth, and framing for the audience and situation. - Powerful Presentations
Communicate clearly and confidently while preparing for the questions and interaction that follow.
The RAMP Method: Four Capabilities for Researcher Readiness
But the ORNL experience demonstrated that knowing these concepts wasn’t enough.
Researchers needed opportunities to apply them to their own work.
From Training to Practice
Commercialization Catalyst™ uses small cohorts so researchers can work directly on the technologies and opportunities they are actually pursuing.
Participants learn the frameworks, apply them to their own research, practice, receive feedback, and refine their communication through individual coaching.
ORNL also made several choices that increased the stakes of the experience.
Participants were intentionally selected based on the potential impact of their work and their readiness to engage externally. Commercialization managers and other internal stakeholders participated in the process. And instead of ending with a completed workbook or training certificate, researchers prepared for a culminating event attended by laboratory leaders, Department of Energy representatives, and potential external stakeholders.
Participants apply Commercialization Catalyst frameworks directly to their own research, with opportunities for practice, feedback, and individual coaching. Photo credit: U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
One-on-one coaching became another important component.
Susan Ochs described why the small-cohort approach matters: each researcher has different science, a different opportunity, and a different voice. The objective isn’t to impose a generic pitch. It is to help researchers communicate their expertise effectively while still sounding like themselves.
For researchers accustomed to being the expert in the room, that shift can be uncomfortable. Individual coaching creates space to work through that transition and practice a different way of showing up without abandoning technical identity.
“The coaching gave them practice and professional feedback to gain confidence in presenting to business leaders.”
— Jennifer Caldwell, Director of Technology Transfer, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The Real Test: What Happened Next?
ORNL wasn’t interested in producing better six-minute presentations.
As Ochs explained, a polished internal presentation only mattered if researchers could use those capabilities outside the program to help move their work toward the marketplace.
Catalyst culminates in researchers putting their new capabilities into practice in front of laboratory leaders, commercialization professionals, and external stakeholders. Photo credit: U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Over successive cohorts, ORNL began seeing evidence of those capabilities being used beyond the program.
From Industry Connection to Licensing and Follow-On Funding
ORNL researcher Michelle Kidder participated in the original Safari program and subsequently in Catalyst.
Her work connected with an entrepreneur through Safari and ultimately resulted in a license. Technology maturation funding helped advance the technology further.
But the activity didn’t stop with that initial opportunity.
Kidder subsequently pursued Technology Commercialization Fund opportunities with additional industry collaborators, eventually receiving significant follow-on funding to continue advancing the work with industry.
From a Clearer Message to Broader Industry Engagement
In another cohort, ORNL paired researcher Sandra Davern with business manager Jeff Cornett around work in radiopharmaceuticals.
Through Catalyst, the pair developed a shared message they could take outside the laboratory.
That work contributed to broader external engagement, including an ORNL-hosted radiopharmaceutical workshop that brought together pharmaceutical companies, venture participants, and other stakeholders.
Taking the Message Into the Real World
A later cohort included researchers working in quantum networking and quantum sensing.
Ochs recalled struggling to understand their highly technical initial presentations. By the end of the program, those researchers had developed messages they could use outside their usual technical environment.
Following Catalyst, cohort participants took those messages into external settings, including quantum symposia with audiences beyond their immediate technical disciplines.
The presentation wasn’t the endpoint. It was preparation for the conversations that came next.
Strengthening the Commercialization System, Not Adding Another Program
Perhaps the most important result ORNL observed wasn’t any single presentation, license, or funding award.
It was how researcher readiness began connecting parts of the existing commercialization system.
Caldwell described researchers using Catalyst to develop their value proposition and make initial connections, then moving into other Department of Energy programs.
Some advanced into Energy I-Corps to conduct customer discovery. From there, researchers could pursue Technology Commercialization Fund opportunities and other mechanisms designed to help move technologies toward the private sector.
Ochs pointed to researchers from the first cohort who moved directly into I-Corps and later secured significant follow-on funding for their technologies.
The significance is bigger than any one program.
Researcher readiness helps researchers make better use of the commercialization infrastructure institutions are already funding.
That creates a multiplier effect: rather than operating as isolated interventions, industry engagement, researcher development, customer discovery, technology maturation, funding, and licensing can reinforce one another.
Building a Capability Researchers Keep Using
ORNL completed its fourth cohort in August 2026, continuing its investment in preparing researchers for industry engagement.
Researchers have applied what they learned beyond their capstone presentations, using the approaches in industry engagements, external events, commercialization programs, and even internal leadership conversations.
As Ochs put it:
“Once they get it, they really get it.”
—Susan Ochs, ORNL’s Engagements Program Manager
That distinction matters.
The objective isn’t a better presentation.
It is a researcher who is better prepared for the next conversation, and the one after that.
Commercialization Catalyst™ has evolved across multiple ORNL cohorts as researchers apply the capabilities to different technologies, opportunities, and external conversations. Photo credit: U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
External Recognition
ORNL’s work to strengthen researcher-industry engagement has also received recognition from the Federal Laboratory Consortium and the Department of Energy Technology Transfer Working Group for Innovation and Impact.
Left to Right: Susan Ochs, Angelique Adams, and Jennifer Caldwell. Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Energy/Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The significance of the recognition goes beyond the award itself. It reinforces the idea that preparing researchers for industry engagement is not simply a professional-development activity. It can be part of an institution’s broader strategy for technology transfer and research impact.
Hear the Story From ORNL
ORNL Technology Transfer Director Jennifer Caldwell, Engagements Program Manager Susan Ochs, and Angelique Adams joined host Andrea Nelson on the Federal Laboratory Consortium’s The Transfer Files to discuss why ORNL created Catalyst, how the program works, and what ORNL has seen as a result.
The conversation provides something a written case study cannot: the opportunity to hear ORNL’s leaders describe in their own words why they invested in researcher readiness and how that investment has supported their broader commercialization efforts.
A Lesson for Research Leaders
Research institutions already manage many elements of research translation intentionally.
They invest in intellectual property. Technology maturation. Funding. Partnerships. Customer discovery. Licensing. Commercialization programs.
ORNL’s experience points to another capability that can be developed intentionally:
Preparing researchers for the conversations those systems depend on.
The question for research leaders isn’t whether every researcher needs to become a commercialization expert.
They don’t.
The question is whether researchers who encounter promising external opportunities are prepared to play their part in moving those opportunities forward.
How Ready Are Your Researchers?
Use the Researcher Readiness Assessment to evaluate how consistently your institution is preparing researchers for important industry conversations and identify where gaps may remain.
