As the Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers Program has evolved over the years, the evaluation effort relies heavily on standardized collection of data by independent on-site evaluators at every I/UCRC Center.
An evaluation system built upon a national network of local evaluators requires a considerable amount of support and coordination. Although the support and coordination provided by NSF staff and the evaluators coordinating committee are essential to the programs success, these mechanisms are not adequate to meet the needs of an evaluation project that has grown to be national in scope.
were: 1) To help NSF and local centers objectively evaluate their impact by documenting I/UCRC outcomes and accomplishments 2) To promote continuous improvement by giving actionable, timely, data-based (formally collected and observational) feedback, analysis and advice to NSF and local centers; 3)To identify and communicate information about I/UCRC best practices to NSF and local centers; 4) To help promote a better understanding of industry-university-government research cooperation. Finding demonstrate that the NSF IUCRC program has successfully started and sustained a large group of cooperative research centers. Based on data collected from various stakeholder groups (e.g., faculty, industry, students) these centers have had a demonstrated effect on a variety of financial, technical/scientific, economic and human resources and social capital outcomes and impacts. Some of most relevant findings over the past five years include: IUCRC program has sustained between 54-61 IUCRCs in a diverse set of technological areas over the past five years. Data showed the IUCRC program continues to provide strong leveraging of NSF support (averaging about $8 dollars for every NSF dollar provided). Data showed that the IUCRC Program generated over $114 million/year in support during the last year with the vast majority of it coming from industry or other federal sources. The program has supported a large number of faculty and students. Last year 926 faculty, 148 research scientists, 1558 graduate students, 361 undergraduate students were supported by these activities. The program was supported by a large group of firms and organizations (1030 memberships from 548 organizations had paid memberships for 2012). Over the project period a growing number of centers are now multi-univeristy, about 90% of all centers are now multi-university format. Process/Outcome findings, on balance were stable at the national level for most of the project period and demonstrate high satisfaction and positive effects for R&D and commercialization outcomes. Companies continue to report significant follow on funding. Total follow-on funding for the past year is estimated to be at least $46 million. A targeted study on "Graduated Centers" (centers that no longer receive funding from NSF), demonstrated that about 65% of the graduated centers from the past 25 years are still in operation, demonstrating a very large indirect and continuing effect of the program. Recently completed case studies of successful graduated centers indicate centers become self-sustaining by a number of different strategies. This finding plus our prior finding that about two-thirds of graduated centers are still operating supports the sustainability of these centers. A targeted study on "Human Capital" impacts found a very high percentage of center directors are offered administrative positions but many do not accept these positions. Directors credit their tenure as directors as contributing to their human and social capital and their ability to build human capital among faculty and students. A targeted study on "Economic Impact" found that at least some IUCRCs have a very large economic impact on some of their members. Beneficiaries (n=16) listed impacts totaling $1.2 billion that were at least partially attributable to the IUCRC program. Much of our research has resulted in thesis and dissertations for the graduate students supported by the project. Our assessments have attempted to look into the 'black box' of center operations and effects for various stakeholders. We believe our findings have made significant contributions to Science and Technology Policy and Evaluation and to the training of graduate students who will make contributions in these areas. Much of our work is multidisciplinary in nature. In addition to contributing to evaluation research, our published work contributes to science and technology studies and policy, engineering education, program evaluation, and research management. We have published in journals in each of these fields. Our findings have provided empirical evidence for the outcomes and benefits of the IUCRC program. In addition, our findings have been used to highlight various best practices that have been documented and disseminated to center directors within the NSF IUCRC program and to other programs (e.g., ERC). Research on member decision making processes will help IUCRCs and other centers improve their partnering performance. Findings on sustainability of IUCRCs demonstrate the long term impacts of the program. Findings on human capital and economic impacts of IUCRCs should continue to support the value of the program. More detailed description of the IUCRC Evaluation Project and our findings can be found on the project websites: www.ncsu.edu/iucrc.
