NSF
Industrial/University Collaborative Research Centers (I/UCRC)
are industry led research centers focusing on topics where
enhancement of American capabilities can be found by bring
together industrial research efforts targeting common technical
or scientific challenges in an area that impacts an industrial
sector. The participating universities provide unique
expertise, a common space for shared facilities, organizational
needs of the center, sites for training, consulting and contract
work. One of the functions of the center is to fund joint
research projects using membership dues. Typically,
projects are chosen by the industrial members in one biannual
meeting and are assessed in a second meeting each year.
I/UCRCs are housed at one or more universities that must have a
minimum of 6 paying members per site. Other universities
can participate in the center as contributing scientists.
These contributors can take projects from the center and their
universities are required to use the same low overhead rates
that are stipulated in the I/UCRC program. There is
flexibility for industrial participants to bring University
participants to the center. National Laboratories may
participate either as center members or as research
contributors. It may be advantageous to have some type of
scaled participation to encourage participation of small and
startup companies in the center. NSF provides a small
amount of funding to support administration of the center,
guarantees an extremely low overhead rate from the universities
and reviews the operation of the center to maintain operational
standards. NSF also makes available supporting grants that
can enhance the center such as international travel grants,
IGERT grants for direct graduate student support, REU grants for
support of undergraduate researchers and programs to support
industrial researchers in visits to the universities as well as
visits of academics to industrial sites and the like. The
I/UCRC can also serve as a springboard to an academic research
center funded at a higher level by NSF, DOD, DOE or other
government agencies.
The specifics of the center are decided by the industrial
members in consultation with the faculty and administrators at
the participating universities and with the NSF program
managers. So the first goal of the planning meeting is to
frame the structure of the Center for Macromolecular Topology,
to define the initial industrial, national lab and academic
participants and to define the structure of membership (a tiered
membership is possible). At the planning meeting some
possible projects will be presented and the industrial
participants will meet to decide which of the proposed projects
are of interest to the center and to suggest their own
projects. This framework will be presented to the
NSF in a center proposal in March, 2012 with a decision expected
in September, 2012. The Center proposal can be modified
and resubmitted if necessary. The Center proposals have an
85% success rate at this stage of the process. The main
reason for rejection is that the universities have not provided
sufficient evidence of industrial commitment to become members
of the center. Again, the NSF requires 6 full members per
university site, so with two sites we require 12 paying
members. The membership fee is decided by the industrial
members at the planning meeting.
The companies involved in the Center for Macromolecular Topology
have interest in structure property relationships in
macromolecules where chain topology (branching, crosslinking,
dendrimeric structure, hyperbranching, network structure) are of
commercial importance. These industries include
polyethylene and copolymers, gels, network polymers, elastomers
and several other areas. The center seeks to build at team
of researchers in coordination with industrial scientists to
address common issues related to characterization, simulation,
synthesis, and modeling of structure property relationships in
these materials.
In terms of the structure for this center, we have some insight
from the
Polymer
IRC center in the UK (Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Durham)
which has links to the CMT through Prof. Larson's participation
in the British IRC and through common areas of interest.
The Polymer IRC is best known for simulation and modeling of Tom
McLeish and the work of Daniel Read in rheology. The two
centers are complimentary with unique expertise at the CMT in
the use of scattering to quantify macromolecular topology, the
coupling of macromolecular simulations to predict rheology and
synthetic capabilities in the CMT.
The CMT could be used to
access NSF international travel funds for industrial and
academic members to interact with the Polymer IRC in the UK and
with other collaborative centers in Europe and Asia.
In addition to determining organizational aspects of the center
the planning meeting can be used to assess the need for
centralized equipment that may be of general use to participants
in the center. The advantage of centralized facilities
lies in cost reduction, space savings and staffing
reductions. For example members of the center interested
in polyethylene and copolymers might be interested in pooling
resources to support a TREF fractionation facility.
Other centralized facilities can be discussed at the planning
meeting.
The need for centralize training in rheology, analytic
techniques, synthesis, modeling and simulation can be assessed
at the planning meeting. A framework for the center in
this respect may be an outcome of the planning meeting
discussions. The use of Net Meeting, PolyCom and Skype may
be of use in this context.
Participants in the planning meeting can also discuss with
national lab participants the special role of NIST, ORNL, Sandia
and AFRL in the center. The CMT already has a working
relationship with a parallel center at NIST,
nSoft Consortium,
as well as with the
Center for
Nanoscale Materials Science and the
SNS/HFIR scattering
centers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The center also
has long-term relationships with the Air Force Research
Laboratory in Dayton, Argonne National Laboratory and Sandia
National Laboratory.