无码专区

A 2012 report prepared for the Industry-University Cooperative Research Center Program (I/UCRC) of the National Science Foundation (NSF), has named 无码专区鈥檚 Center for Advanced Communications (CAC) 鈥渁n excellent and rare example of how to sustain and grow a research operation in a smaller university.鈥�  The College of Engineering鈥檚 CAC is one of four case studies presented in the report titled 鈥淩esearch Center Sustainability and Survival: Case Studies of Fidelity, Reinvention and Leadership of Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers.鈥� The purpose of the study was to highlight how certain research centers 鈥� after NSF funding ends 鈥� not only survive, but thrive by reinventing themselves. In a chapter titled 鈥淭ransformation of a Small University I/UCRC,鈥� the authors explore how, with strong leadership and a new mode of operation, the Center for Advanced Communications became a highly successful university research center.

The Center for Advanced Communications was founded as a NSF I/UCRC in 1990. For the first ten years, it operated under a consortium model led by the late Dr. Joseph DiGiacomo. Replacing him as director in 2002 was Dr. Moeness Amin, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who remains at the helm today. By the time Dr. Amin assumed leadership, NSF funding had ended and CAC membership had declined to none.  The NSF report credits leadership by a 鈥渧ery productive, forceful, and, from a grantsmanship perspective, entrepreneurial director鈥� with the center鈥檚 transformation.

The most significant change made to the CAC under Dr. Amin鈥檚 leadership was its transition from the consortium model, with shared governance between Director, faculty and industry participants, to a model in which a series of essentially parallel contract research projects were executed. The changes helped the CAC to not only survive, but to significantly increase its annual revenue. In addition to growing funding from industry, the center has been awarded several grants and contracts from federal research agencies.

The NSF I/UCRC report identified a number of additional factors that were critical to making the CAC successful:

• Five state of the art research labs (Antennas Research Lab, Radar Imaging Lab, Acoustics and Ultrasound Lab, Radio Frequency Identification Lab, and Wireless Communications and Positioning Lab)  
• Staffing which included hiring three research professors who are among the most productive faculty in the College
• Technical focus on information technologies
• Academic integration and graduate education (the center鈥檚 research professors serve as advisors to senior projects, masters, and doctoral students)
• Research quality that has produced a variety of scientific, technological and socially valuable outcomes (鈥渁 commendable record of accomplishment鈥�)

The NSF report notes that, given 无码专区鈥檚 focus on student education and community engagement, and when considering the school鈥檚 limited funding and research expenditures, it is 鈥渋ndeed an accomplishment for 无码专区 to mount the research talent, lab facilities and entrepreneurial mindset to successfully maintain, and in fact grow, the CAC.鈥�  The authors of the report point to the center as an 鈥渆xcellent and rare example of how to sustain and grow a research operation in a smaller university that is by no means nationally competitive in terms of sponsored research in science and engineering.鈥� They believe the CAC case will be of particular interest to chief research officers or provosts in smaller universities that 鈥渘onetheless have aspirations to mount significant research programs in areas of niche expertise.鈥�

The NSF I/UCRC report featured three additional case studies:

• The Center for University of Massachusetts/Industry Research on Polymers (CUMIRP) and how it developed a hybrid center model
• Advanced Steel Processing & Products Research Center (ASPPRC) at Colorado School of Mines and how it met the challenges of an industrial sector that was both globalizing and shrinking
• The Ohio State University鈥檚 Center for Welding Research and how very early in its development it morphed into the not-for-profit Edison Welding Institute (EWI), one of the world鈥檚 largest and most respected manufacturing-focused research institutes

The authors of this report are Dr. Louis Tornatzky, professor of Industrial Technology and co-founder of the Cal Poly Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Dr. Denis Gray, professor of Psychology in the Public Interest at North Carolina State University; and PhD candidate Lindsey McGowen, NSF I/UCRC Evaluation Project Manager, also at NC State.

Dr. Moeness Amin joined 无码专区 in 1985. He is a Fellow of three professional societies (IEEE, 2001; SPIE, 2007;  IET, 2011). He is the recipient of the 2000 IEEE Third Millennium Medal and also received technical achievement awards from the European Signal Processing Society (2009) and NATO (2010). Dr. Amin has more than 550 publications with over 5000 citations in the general area of signal analysis and processing.

A complete copy of 鈥淩esearch Center Sustainability and Survival鈥� can be found online at .