The establishment of an ERC constitutes a major commitment on the part of both the NSF and the host university. The center comprises a unique opportunity to reinforce a research/education/technology transfer entity within the university to the level where it becomes a world-class resource and strengthens U.S. industrial competitiveness. American universities range across a very wide spectrum in the degree to which they will really commit themselves to support individual centers, and therefore in the degree to which they will guarantee the continuity of these exciting enterprises after NSF support is terminated. Certainly, some research-intensive engineering schools play the game of "musical centers," in which centers of many kinds wax and wane and no lasting changes are made in either team research or interdisciplinary education. These schools form dozens of centers in response to changing funding opportunities, and they strip space and personnel from fading centers very rapidly in order to initiate new revenue-generating enterprises. If the university is really committed to the objectives of the ERC Program, it will become a part of the university's own strategic plan at the level of the Provost and certainly the Dean. The university administrators will make specific long-term commitments to a new ERC in terms of both space and personnel. The university will also make significant changes in curriculum, and even in departmental structures, to nurture the center as a permanent part of its revitalized programs. Research alliances come and go, but a center can become a permanent part of a university if researchers stay together because of the value added by interdisciplinary research teams and by an education predicated on cooperation between departments and in cooperation with industry.

2.5.1 Leveraging University Resources

2.5.1.1 The Issue of Contiguous Space

Perhaps no decision that the Director of an ERC will make during his/her tenure is more important than the pivotal decision to press hard for contiguous space for the center. Especially if the center embraces several traditional disciplines, it is important for its faculty members and students to be housed in contiguous space in order to develop the cohesiveness that is the life blood of an ERC. Coffee is a great catalyst, and proximity is a great facilitator; and the center will develop very differently in contiguous space. Faculty members will adopt a spectrum of arrangements that mirror the extent of their commitment to the center, in that some will have labs and offices in the center and work exclusively with center research teams, while others will retain offices and labs in their home departments and attend research team meetings and seminars in the center. But the key is that all center students will be housed in contiguous space, making the center their home on evenings and weekends, and integrating to form informal research teams and supportive friendships that will make them profoundly different from conventionally trained students. The ERC Program has been very effective in changing the pattern of graduate education in engineering and science in many universities, and the Director must chose to commit fully to this movement or do the best s/he can with whatever space s/he can secure from the university administration.

Most agree that contiguous space is one of the main advantages that a new center can have. However, the chances of having that space allocated are directly proportional to the level of commitment of the university to the new ERC. That commitment is, in turn, influenced by the university's prior experience with research centers. If the university has built up relatively few centers, and really plans to build its research and education programs around these focused areas, it will certainly try hard to find contiguous space for an enterprise that will bring in at least $20 million in a decade. If the engineering faculty is highly research intensive, it may have developed a specialized building within which a number of research centers jockey for space in a pecking order that derives from their current and potential levels of funding. In such a situation, the new ERC should be able to find at least sufficient space for central administrative offices and lab space for specialized equipment that is central to its mission. However, engineering faculties in heavily endowed universities are commonly very short of space, so the new ERC may be forced to be a "virtual" center that exists in the common will of its participants and in the vision of its Director, but whose physical being is a distributed network of offices, laboratories, and personnel connected by electronic linkages.

In the view of the authors, the research and technology transfer functions of an ERC can (with some difficulty) be properly exercised without contiguous space, but the education function may be compromised. A joint committee of the National Academies of Science and Engineering has correctly characterized the graduate student, especially in the physical sciences, as a "natural loner."⁴ This individualistic tendency among students can be partially corrected by seminar programs in which center research is discussed; but the more peripheral students still will leave the room with only the vaguest concept of the center to which they belong. It is essential to ensure that all ERC students understand clearly the mission and goals of the center and how they relate to the way things are done in the center. This is important not only for the students but also for the center itself. Nothing is more deadly than the perception by a site visit team that the students have no idea what the center is all about.

Real integration into interdisciplinary research teams occurs best in common lab space, and real bonding most often occurs when undergraduate and graduate students occupy contiguous space and develop the esprit de corps that comes with sharing bad coffee and long hours. Hallways lined with center posters and echoing with spontaneous birthday parties for center students, group meals, poster sessions, and other social/academic gatherings are often the heart of a truly effective ERC education program. Most of the ERCs have a "Student Council" or comparable organization that facilitates interaction and a sense of common purpose among the students.

2.5.1.2 Direct Financial Support

Across the Program, about 10% of the annual budget of ERCs comes from universities. Most ERCs have been able to obtain substantial financial commitments from their host university, including annual support in addition to new faculty positions. For the ERC at NCSU, for example, this annual support package has included equipment support, salary support for students and research staff, operating costs, and laboratory upfitting costs. The University of Maryland's ERC began life as the Systems Research Center, but in its seventh year was able to persuade the university and the State of Maryland of the importance of the ERC for the interests of both, and that they should endow the ERC as the Institute for Systems Research, with permanent funding (i.e., as a line item in the State's budget).

At Carnegie Mellon's DSSC, the university has committed to substantial cost-sharing on capital equipment--something the Director terms "very effective," since capital equipment is typically very hard to obtain at a university. University cost-sharing is often flexible in use, and carries no indirect cost burden. Several of the ERCs have had new buildings constructed for the center, using funds provided partly by the university and in large part by the state. A dedicated building and/or state-of-the-art equipment and facilities make recruiting of faculty and graduate students easier, and also improve the attractiveness of the center to industry and funding agencies. A few ERCs have developed world-class experimental facilities for use by the center faculty and others; the funds have come from the university and the state government.

2.5.2 Relationships Within the University Hierarchy

In any major research-intensive university, the senior administration of a successful Engineering College is confronted almost daily with demands for support of specific programs by forceful proponents. The Director of a new ERC must present his/her vision of the center persuasively enough that the Engineering Dean and the university's Provost and Vice-President for Research, who are rarely both engineers or even scientists, buy into the vision to the exclusion of distracting demands. The concept of the ERC is inherently exciting, and the objectives of an ERC are unique, but the center will not thrive if it does not capture the strong support and commitment of the university's senior administration.

To engender that support, it is imperative that the ERC be recognized throughout the university community as being on a plane of intellectual and scholastic excellence that equals or exceeds any other research unit at the university. Even 10 years after it is established, the center's accomplishments in research and education should loom large in the university's own public assessment of its strengths. If the ERC does not dominate the internal priorities and self-image of the university, no amount of NSF planning and/or support will guarantee its continuity as an effective unit when it "graduates" from NSF support.

The Dean of Engineering must be willing to commit space and faculty slots to the nascent center. This individual in particular must be a dedicated supporter of the center. The Dean can be invaluable to the ERC and its Director as a facilitator, a "fixer," and an all-around strengthener of the center within the university. A few ERCs have had a Dean of Engineering as their Director; in other cases, ERC Directors have been promoted to Dean. The best relationship here is a close and supportive one. To that end, the Director should not hold be aloof from such college functions as Parent's Day or alumni functions, because loyalties and goodwill are bidirectional.

The support of other senior administrators is also vital. The Provost must be willing to reinforce the College of Engineering with funding for new faculty slots and with approval for new programs, and he/she should see the center as an excellent model and an effective catalyst for interdisciplinary team research. The Provost and the Dean of Graduate Studies should be proactive in support of the acceptability of thesis work done on center research terms. The Vice-President for Research should help in the acquisition of contiguous space for the center, and he/she should support the center financially by helping to secure state funding and by returning a proportion of the indirect costs (IDCs) on center grants.

Eventually, the Vice-President for Research should be so impressed by the center's success in team research, interdisciplinary education, and technology transfer that he/she will be willing to commit significant portions of his/her disposable income to the establishment of additional de facto centers, even outside of engineering. The ERC Program can really benefit a university if its senior administration become believers in the process, as they win and then run an ERC, so that the ERC ideas are "cloned" and expressed in other areas in which the institution has a critical mass of talent and experience. Public land-grant universities vastly outnumber heavily endowed private universities in the United States. For this reason, changes brought about as a result of ERCs in the public institutions may ramify to produce huge changes in national research and education policies, if the top university administrations capture the essential vision of the ERC Program.

2.5.3 Relationships with University Departments

An individual ERC may involve between 2 and 12 different departments, and people from 2-4 different faculties may be among its participants. The Director of an ERC must realize that the departments are the continuing administrative entities of the university. Most center faculty will hold tenured or tenure-track positions in conventional departments, and virtually all graduate students will actually be registered in these departments. (Indeed, the support that departments provide to an ERC often appears to be roughly proportional to the number of their faculty and students that it supports.) Departments offer center-specific courses and share in the costs of equipment. A center cannot succeed without the support of departments, but it is a difficult relationship that must constantly be nurtured. Department Heads come and go, but the ERC Director must continuously persuade the power brokers of key departments that the center enlarges their research horizons and enhances their students' education.

What is really needed is very strong leadership from the Dean (and higher university administrators) to make everyone involved understand that working in a positive manner with the center is in the interest of the departments. In particularly enlightened departments, the Center Director may even receive kudos for effective contacts with industry.

Many of the real problems that will challenge an ERC Director will involve affiliated departments directly, and the Director simply cannot afford to ignore this critical academic interface. Some departments will be only distantly related to the center, but normally two to six will be intimately involved. Divisive issues will include department faculty who "disappear" into the center and then expect recognition within the department for ERC-related accomplishments that most department faculty may not even know about. Similarly, in some cases there may be graduate students who are recruited by the department and then disappear into the center space and center activities, only to reappear three to four years later expecting an advanced graduate degree from their "home department." ERCs are powerful, in terms of funding and the inherent appeal of their vision, and they can engender resentments in allied departments that may surface and confront the unwary ERC Director when s/he least expects it. (In one ERC the chairman of a key department once refused to attend a critical NSF site visit because of unresolved problems between his department and the center.)

These are potentially serious problems, but they can be avoided by a perceptive and personable ERC Director. Regular meetings with the heads of affiliated departments can help both parties to "flag" faculty and student problems before they become too serious. Faculty slots that are allocated to the ERC should be filled in a way that benefits both the center and the department concerned. The Director should work with the departments to ensure that the filling of these slots not only benefits the center, but also contributes to the long-term interests of the department. The ERC Director should apprise the Department Head of plans for increased research activity that will draw specific faculty away from teaching responsibilities, so that alternate plans can be made in a timely fashion. There is no reason why a Department Head should be alerted at the last minute about demands for either "teaching relief" or other special concessions related to the research activities of ERC-related faculty. The ERC Director should submit a written assessment of the performance of each faculty member to his/her Department Head, in ample time for its inclusion in the department's annual report.

The issue of promotion and tenure deserves special attention. Promotion and tenure decisions are made in the departments, and any animosity felt toward the ERC can easily be objectified in adverse promotion and tenure decisions regarding center junior faculty. In addition, the possible adverse evaluation of team research and multi-authored papers has been a point of uncertainty for many faculty and students considering participation in an ERC. However, the survey of ERC Directors showed no such experiences. In most cases, there is considerable collegial interaction on these matters between the departments and the center. Generally, the Director and/or senior center faculty provide departments with letters of assessment and/or support for candidates. In many cases, senior center faculty hold positions on the departmental review committees and college committees, where they have the same privileges as faculty from the departments. In certain instances, it is reported, the input of the Center Director has been the deciding factor in a positive promotion outcome. More than one Director related that participation in the center is viewed as favorable, not unfavorable, for promotion and tenure. Even in the few cases where the center has no direct influence on departmental and college review committees, the outcomes have been favorable.

Actually, this is not surprising, since the emphasis of ERCs on goal-oriented research, publication and interaction with other faculty, and excellence in teaching all mesh well with the concept of academic advancement. As one Director noted: "It is entirely appropriate for an ERC to play a role in promotion and tenure decisions. Unless the case can be made that participation in the center is beneficial not only to the center but also to the department, there will not be a culture change on campus recognizing the importance of center-related cross-disciplinary research." The Director has a key role and responsibility for ensuring that s/he helps those who are dedicated to the center's programs to achieve their professional goals and deserved rewards.

The ERC should cooperate with allied departments in the recruitment of graduate students, and the ERC Director should pay special attention to the composition of the advisory committee for center graduate students. In the simplest case, the student's thesis advisor will be a member of his/her host department and other members of the advisory committee will also belong to that department. In other cases, a graduate student may be supervised by an advisor from outside his/her home department and the advisory committee may be a smorgasbord. Especially in this latter case, it may be important to have the student give regular seminars in the home department, in addition to center seminars (they require no additional preparation), so that departmental people are not blind-sided by the final thesis. If the vision of the ERC is truly innovative and really addresses the cutting edge in the field, the student's thesis may well seem like fantasy or heresy to members of the home department, and departmental faculty should have adequate opportunity to get used to these new concepts.

Good relationships with allied university departments should be effortless and natural, and they are vital in the solution of many of the problems noted by Directors (such as faculty recognition and student integration). For example, attending meetings of Department Heads called by the Dean may strike the new ERC Director as a waste of time, because many issues may not really involve the center. However, regular attendance builds good relationships and common interests and reassures the Dean and the Department Heads that the talented Director of this "hot" research unit, the ERC, is just another member, like themselves, of the university leadership community.

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