Feds To Post Open Data From 700 R&D Facilities - InformationWeek

"Entrepreneurs and innovators can now access machine-readable research data in the areas of energy, healthcare, and space from more than 700 federal research and development facilities to assist them in researching, building, and testing new technologies through a major enhancement to the Research.Data.gov portal. The open data, from facilities belonging to the Energy Department, National Institutes of Health, and NASA, includes advanced research tools and represents billions of dollars of taxpayer-funded investment, said Doug Rand, assistant director for entrepreneurship at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, in a Data.gov announcement posted this week ... To help it disseminate this open data in usable formats, the administration is asking the developer community to build new tools that will enable innovators, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers to make full use of the newly available R&D open data, the announcement said.  The Data.gov team plans to expand the website to include more comprehensive data involving other federal R&D assets, including federally funded intellectual property, said the Data.gov team at the General Services Administration, which is responsible for maintaining and upgrading the US government's official portal for open data.  The federal government spends about $130 billion annually on research and development at universities and federal laboratories throughout the country. The purpose of the massive national research effort is to create new knowledge, which in turn fosters new technologies and industries ..."