NSF is coming!

We’ve been working all week: cross checking reservations, emailing confirmations, printing and collating! It all comes to fruition tomorrow.

Arizona State University’s Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development is pleased to be hosting the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their NSF Day on Thursday, December 5, 2013 at the Memorial Union on Tempe’s campus from 7:30am until 4:30pm. This is a unique opportunity for attendees to become more familiar with NSF policy and funding priorities. Almost 300 people will be coming from across the southwest to learn more about the NSF. It will be an exciting time for all!

For more information on the NSF, check out the following sites:

• LinkedIn
• NSF.gov
• Facebook
• Twitter

Funding Success Skills Series (fs3) – Transitioning to Large and/or Strategic Proposals

As part of the Funding Success Skills Series (fs3), ASU’s Research Strategy Group recently hosted a panel discussion on transitioning to large and/or strategic proposals (click here to see the video). Almost 50 attendees listened to five seasoned faculty and staff members describe how they achieved success in establishing research centers at ASU.

Stephen Batalden, Director of the Melikian Center, recently received a large award for his work in Armenia and related to the audience how his center considered funding agency priorities in concert with ASU expertise when designing a strategic plan for funding growth.

Bruce Rittmann, Regent’s Professor and Director of the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology in the Biodesign Institute, is motivated to do large projects because they allow you to expand your research portfolio by creating synergistic relationships  and utilize a range of personnel and services at ASU, including OKED’s Project Management Office.

Jane Maienschein, Regent’s Professor and Director of the Center for Biology and Society, emphasized that attendees should be prepared to pursue any size award and create a record of research achievement for themselves that will logically build to a center approach to research.

Flavio Marsiglia, Director of the Southwest Interdisciplinary Research Center (SIRC), related how large projects create a pool of shared resource and, contributes to an accumulation of knowledge across staff members that decreases time to start new projects and improves the overall quality of research.

John McGowen, Portfolio Manager, recommended that the audience create a rapport within their existing network and partnerships such that they can leverage relationships later. He also stated that the audience should find ways to invest at a relatvely small scale over time to advance emerging and diverse research projects.

A previous post describes the inaugural event in the fs3 series.

fs3 is a set of monthly lunchtime discussions on topics that address the full spectrum of activities necessary for preparing successful proposals. The series aims to contribute substantially to creating a culture that results in winning proposals. For more information, contact RSG: researchstrategy (@) asu.edu.

The next event, Why do I need to Finish Early? The Importance of Internal Reviews, is scheduled for May 16, 2013.

UC Berkeley, UCSF and Stanford join forces to help commercialize university innovations

BERKELEY, SAN FRANCISCO, PALO ALTO –The University of California, Berkeley, UC San Francisco and Stanford University are collaborating on an educational program aimed at commercializing university research and fostering innovation locally and nationally, thanks to a three-year, $3.75 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

The “I-Corps Node: NSF Bay Area Regional I-Node Program” is one of three new Innovation Corps (or I-Corps) Nodes that the NSF is establishing across the United States, the NSF announced yesterday, Feb. 21, 2013. The goal of I-Corps is to increase the impact of NSF-funded research by setting up innovation ecosystems within universities that will train the next generation of entrepreneurs, encourage partnerships between academia and industry, and commercialize science and technology. The resources of the program are available to NSF principal investigators and their graduate students, as well as local and national startups.

The San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley Node is coordinated by UC Berkeley in collaboration with UCSF and Stanford University. The node is headed by Richard Lyons, dean of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Blank, entrepreneurship lecturer at Berkeley and Stanford. André Marquis, executive director of the Haas School’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, serves the role of Node manager.

“Our three universities are the source of so many ground-breaking discoveries that can be put into service of society and this grant will allow us to develop next-generation processes to tap them and bring them to market,” says Berkeley-Haas Dean Rich Lyons. “Getting better at this means more jobs, more economic value and better lives.”

Read entire press release here.

Scaling Up National Manufacturing Efforts

National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute (NAMII) is planning to move from pilot to full-scale implementation of highly collaborative public, private, acadmic partnerships – led by non-profit institutes. The goal, presented by President Obama in March 2012, would be to create a national network of 15 unique Institutues for Manufacturing Innovation (IMI).
NAMII has one-time investment projected for $1 billion from the federal government and each IMI expected to receive between $140-$240 million over five to seven years before becoming self sufficient.

To read more go to State Science & Technology Institute: Obama Administration Outlines National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.

Budgeting with Uncertainty

With an uncertain federal budget, sequestration looming on the horizon, and an end to the Continuing Appropriations Resolution, recipients of federal funds have a difficult task of determining scope of work and bugetary allocations for the coming year. The American Institute of Physics : The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News #6 broadcast Department of Defense internal communications focused on internal policy preparation given the uncertain financial circumstances regarding federal funds. The Office of Budget and Management provided some response for agency leadership on how to reamin flexible and prepared, available from the American Institute of Physics: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News #7.

Read more at American Institute of Physics: FYI #7: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News – OMB Issues Memo on FY 2013 Budget Uncertainty and FYI #6: ” A Perfect Storm of Budget Uncertainty”: DOD Responds to Budget Impasse.