(WASHINGTON, D.C. — July 28, 2026) The Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) has received two 2026 APEX Awards for Publication Excellence. The APEX Awards recognize exceptional achievements in graphic design, editorial content, and overall communications excellence among professional communicators.
The 2026 APEX Awards were highly competitive, generating about 1,000 entries vying for top honors across 13 major categories and 100 subcategories. The FLC distinguished itself with outstanding work in two categories:
2026 FLC Planner
The FLC's annual 14-month wall calendar project received top marks for its striking design. The 2026 FLC Planner features dozens of federal technologies in the form of color photography and graphics, accompanied by short and informative descriptions. The Planner is one of the FLC's most popular initiatives and remains a high-impact way for laboratories to show off their best projects to federal technology transfer peers and potential partners. Submissions for the 2027 FLC Planner are currently open through Aug. 17.
FLC Annual Report to the President and Congress (FY24)
Each year, as required by law, the FLC highlights its efforts in supporting and promoting federal technology transfer in an annual report to the President, Congress, and relevant agencies. The 2024 Annual Report provides an overview of the FLC's activities and events, strategic committees, and regional promotions, as well as the financial contributions of its member agencies, highlighting the importance of a unifying consortium to support the federal tech transfer ecosystem.
"The FLC plays a vital role in promoting the value of the federal laboratories to support turning federally funded research into real-world impact," said FLC Executive Director Paige George. "We communicate the importance of discoveries made in federal laboratories and help industry find and access those capabilities and equip federal laboratory staff with the tools, training, and partnerships they need to move innovations into the marketplace. We are thrilled to be recognized by APEX and look forward to continuing to set the industry standard."
These are the FLC's fourth and fifth APEX Awards since 2024. The FLC received an APEX Award for the Annual Report each of the last three years and also received a 2024 APEX Award for Multimedia, specifically for the Hospital section of LabTech In Your Life.
The FLC is a formally chartered, nationwide network of more than 300 federal laboratories, agencies, and research centers that foster commercialization best practice strategies and opportunities for accelerating federal technologies from out of the labs and into the marketplace. To learn more, visit federallabs.org.
APEX is the Annual Awards for Publication Excellence Competition. It is open to communicators in corporate, nonprofit, and independent settings. APEX 2026 is the 38th annual APEX, which began in 1988. APEX is sponsored by the editors of Writer's Web Watch, an e-newsletter for communicators who write, edit and manage business publications. Writer's Web Watch is published by Communications Concepts, Inc., providing problem-solving information to professional communicators since 1984. Learn more at apexawards.com.