Management of an ERC's research program is best carried out in conjunction with interaction at all levels with the other components of an ERC. It is tempting to segregate the management of an ERC program along the lines of sections in an annual report, but such compartmentalization does not lead to a true systems approach. Those ERCs that obtain recognition for their various programs and succeed in NSF reviews have not designed each component in isolation from the others. Rather, significant accomplishments are more likely to emerge from a concerted effort to intertwine the management of all ERC components.

3.4.1 Education

See Chapter 4 for a complete discussion of ERC education programs.

3.4.1.1 Graduate Education

Education of a new generation of engineers and scientists is the shared mission of all ERCs. ERC education programs serve the following pragmatic roles: (1) to bring undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students into the center; (2) to maintain harmony among the diverse curriculum requirements placed on ERC-sponsored students; (3) to develop new graduate and undergraduate education vehicles that go beyond traditional engineering educational approaches; and (4) to actively engage academic and industrial researchers with students on teams directed to solve problems pertinent to industry.

Research program management is implicitly connected to the education programs in all ERCs. Research activities are driven by faculty ideas and student manpower. The attraction and retention of superior graduate students is critically necessary to the success of any ERC. How an ERC actually carries out this activity depends upon the relationship of the ERC to a host department or college (if that is the case), the degree to which the ERC research spans different colleges, and how the ERC financially supports research projects.

Most ERCs do not engage directly in the recruitment of graduate students to selected projects within their strategic plan. In these ERCs, research goals are addressed by supporting projects of faculty in various departments or colleges across the university. In this mode, the ERC has no direct responsibility for recruiting students, supporting them financially, shepherding those students through their degree program, or affecting directly their curriculum requirements to graduate. Those responsibilities lie with the PI receiving ERC support and with the students' departments.

One advantage to supporting research projects, rather than directly supporting a student, arises when the ERC decides to reduce or terminate project support. If support of a research project is proffered for only one or two years, then the project PI is aware that a student requiring four years to complete his/her PhD degree will require additional funding support. Thus, the ERC does not have the tacit responsibility to support a student until graduation without regard to the project's continued relevance (or irrelevance) to the center's strategic plan.

Certain ERCs satisfy their strategic plan by creating team research projects that require a collection of students from different disciplines. This mandates that the ERC education program, in direct communication with the research program, satisfy specific demands for graduate students of different backgrounds. An ERC education program in such a center can identify potential candidates by interfacing with the graduate advisor in departments around their university and also by maintaining an active ERC recruitment activity. Such an approach has the advantage of specifically identifying student expertise for each project; but the disadvantage is in the resource costs associated with independent recruiting and admissions efforts.

Often graduate students are brought into the ERC research program through formal courses, especially those involving team projects. Such mechanisms draw students into the work of the center naturally. Once students are involved in ERC research, faculty must ensure that their participation provides a solid educational experience. Most of the educational benefits are derived informally. The cross-disciplinary systems approach is absorbed through participation in regular project group meetings, through interaction with industrial collaborators, and, in some centers, through participation in center-wide strategic planning exercises. If education is taken into account in structuring the mechanisms for conducting research, then an "ERC education" is a natural outgrowth of a student's participation in research.

As ERCs near the end of their life cycle and begin planning for potential phase-out of ERC funds, a number of centers have elected to reduce their NSF budget direct cost requests for graduate student funds. Some senior ERCs mandate that they will support only non-personnel-related costs of a project. Other ERCs have elected to operate research programs in their final years utilizing MS and postdoctoral researchers, rather than PhD students, who require longer-term commitments.

3.4.1.2 Undergraduate Education

Undergraduate involvement in research is one of the cornerstones of the ERC concept. Since the early 1990s, NSF has increased its emphasis on the impact of ERCs on undergraduate education; a variety of programs now provide supplemental funding for ERC educational activities for undergraduates (see Chapter 4). Some students come to the center through undergraduate courses the ERC faculty teach in the academic departments. Often, undergraduates simply come to the center and ask for employment and/or to work on research projects. To attract new prospects, some ERCs distribute announcements, host dinners, etc.

Most ERCs practice similar programs that immerse their engineering undergraduates directly into ongoing research projects. NSF emphasizes the development of teams in which undergraduate students work closely with graduate students, technicians, postdoctoral students, faculty, and industrial scientists on active research projects. Such undergraduates may receive academic credit, credit toward graduation with honors, or may simply receive financial remuneration for their efforts. The educational vehicles can be quite standard, such as placing an undergraduate honors student on a team research project, a graduating senior's thesis project, or a capstone design project. In such cases, the research program is not designed solely for the undergraduate experience; rather, the education program avails itself of the opportunity to expose undergraduates to real academic research.

However, as they move into those years stressing the successful creation of research testbeds, a number of senior ERCs actively manage selected research projects to purposely address industrial knowledge transfer and educational issues. The following case study illustrates such an instance.

CASE STUDY:
The ERC at Montana State University was approached by an Industrial Associate to develop several alternative bioremediation protocols to detoxify an existing hazardous waste contaminated site. Through collaborative discussions with the company and various components of the ERC, a unique educational vehicle for undergraduates was developed. In conjunction with company scientists and center faculty, students enrolled in an undergraduate course were given the task to survey, sample, assess, and recommend suitable biological treatment protocols for the site. Students were exposed to actual field sampling and practical lab analytical procedures. Participating graduate students carried out fundamental research on the biodegradation processes. Each successive semester of the course moves the reclamation project closer to completion. This is a case where active cooperation between research management, industrial interaction, and education has produced fundamental research, created an undergraduate teaching experience, produced a course text documenting the project, provided industry with a problem solution, and resulted in a truly interactive testbed project.

Knowledge transfer is an umbrella term for outreach activities that transfer ERC-generated research discoveries or educational innovations to the academic scientific and engineering communities. Knowledge transfer activities comprise dissemination of basic ERC discoveries and educational opportunities to other researchers and students in the field through mechanisms such as the following: visiting graduate student/faculty research exchanges, subcontracts to outside universities for specific collaborative research projects, administering summer research experiences for undergraduates (REU) programs, generation of interactive or passive educational vehicles (e.g., textbooks, interactive CD teaching modules, computer-aided design programs, video tutorials, and Internet homepages), and ERC faculty service to professional societies in staging national and international symposia.

The focus of all ERC knowledge transfer/outreach activities is both educational and technical, but the emphasis varies greatly across activities. At one extreme, undergraduate REU programs emphasize primarily the exposure of students from other institutions to ERC research as an educational mechanism; the purely technical value beyond education is limited. At the other end of the spectrum, faculty exchanges or visits are aimed primarily at maximizing the flow of knowledge between researchers from different universities; here, the educational value is secondary, although it becomes quite significant when the visiting faculty member returns to the home institution. Most outreach activities involve a more balanced mix of knowledge/technology transfer with educational value. It is a characteristic of ERCs that the two are never entirely inseparable and are often fully intertwined.

The survey of ERCs indicated that, while knowledge transfer activities are a direct result of a productive research program, the evolution of the research program is little affected by the knowledge transfer activities. There does not appear to be an equivalent two-way impact or feedback. The process appears to be linear rather than circular -- that is, the success of an ERC is predicated on first generating research discoveries and education innovations and then transferring those successes to industry and the academic community.

An important exception to this rule is when personnel are exchanged between the ERC and another research institution. In that case, research projects are planned to fulfill portions of the strategic plan that require the collaboration of ERC researchers and others outside the ERC.
 

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