This grant will support a national conference on federal laboratory-university-industry cooperation in developing advanced manufacturing technologies. This conference has the following goals: (1) to identify improved processes for collaboration between university research centers, federal laboratories, and industry in developing advanced manufacturing technologies; (2) to provide a major networking opportunity for building direct links and valued partnerships between academic researchers and industry; (3) to facilitate the sharing of expertise and infrastructure to develop productive engineering processes, especially longer-term enabling technologies; and (4) increase industry support for university and lab research in these technologies. Workshop sessions, which will result in a compilation of lessons learned and guidelines for each of the four topic areas, will also be formed. Following the conference, a report analyzing the conference results, including the guidelines emerging from the workshops, will be published. In addition, a special conference home page will be created. Sponsors and attendees will be able to include information about their organizations, which will be useful both before and after the conference as a networking device.
