CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 11 (UPI) -- The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has received a two-year, $2-million grant to assess the U.S. energy technology innovation system.

The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation grant will be used by researchers at the MIT Industrial Performance Center to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the system, considering the entire complex of incentives, regulations, markets, and public and private institutions within which the development, demonstration, adoption and diffusion of new energy technologies takes place.

The researchers said their findings are expected to lead to recommendations for improvements in federal and state research, development and demonstration policies.

Professor Richard Lester, the project's principal investigator, said there is an urgent need to think creatively about how to improve the way new energy technologies are developed.

"Massive changes in the way energy is supplied and used will be needed over the next few decades if the world is to have a realistic chance of avoiding the worst environmental and economic consequences of global climate change," Lester said. "While technological ingenuity will be essential, it will be equally important to have an institutional setup capable of supporting commercial demonstration, early adoption and large-scale deployment of new energy technologies and services."