The National Science Foundation is constantly striving to more fully document the impact that I/UCRCs have on the development of technological breakthroughs, technology transfer and commercialization. Previous compendia have been used by the I/UCRC program to demonstrate the scope of high quality, industrially relevant research outcomes produced by the program. The proposed project will gather, organize, catalogue and illustrate noteworthy program-related technological breakthroughs that have resulted from I/UCRC research and subsequent technology transfer activities.
The deliverables from the proposed project would make it easier for policy makers and researchers to access breakthrough descriptions from all I/UCRC scientific areas. Deliverables will also be useful as marketing tools for informing industry and the scientific community of the benefits of such programs, and could pave the way for studies of economic impacts of cooperative research.
The development project's two deliverables (the DVD entitled 'Catalysts for Innovation' and the '2009 Compendium of Industry-Nominated Technological Breakthroughs') have as their major purpose the education of the IUCRC Program's various audiences. The IUCRC Program's origins, the center model upon which each IUCRC is based, and the center's most notable research accomplishments are highlighted in both the DVD and the video. Both deliverables were showcased at the January 2010 IUCRC Center Directors Meeting in Arlington, Virginia. Each center director received a copy of both deliverables and both are accessible online. The breakthroughs in the compendium and the exemplary breakthroughs on the video are illustrative of the highly regarded technological contributions of IUCRCs. In that sense, both project deliverables contribute to a wider understanding of the disciplines covered by IUCRCs. Recipients of both the DVD 'Catalysts for Innovation' and the '2009 Compendium of Industry-Nominated Technological Breakthroughs' have expressed interest in using both to recruit industrial and university sites to their centers. The IUCRC Program uses both deliverables when various committees of visitors come to the NSF to learn about and evaluate the program. The printable Compendium of Technological Breakthroughs can be viewed and downloaded from www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/iucrc/2009_compendium.pdf. The fully downloadable and captioned video entitled "Catalysts for Innovation" and a companion 8-minute condensed version of the video can be downloaded from www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/iucrc/iucrc_video.jsp.
