Abstract
Cooperation between the university, industry, government and the community can help achieve the primary missions of the university while better meeting the needs of its stakeholders. This paper demonstrates the value of integrating activities of the university into the broader society by describing several areas of collaborative activities among The University of Tennessee, Eastman Chemical Co., Sentech, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and what is now INVISTA.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 480-487 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | International Journal of Engineering Education |
| Volume | 24 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| State | Published - 2008 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
The Nitrohydrolysis process had widespread usability and has recently been the recipient of a combined industry–US Department of Energy grant. Funds to begin the research and development (R&D) were provided by the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency/Renewable Energy (EE/RE) State Partnership program and involved a partnership between UT and ORNL with industry providing `in-kind' support. The work has been continued with funding from a grant from the State of Tennessee Water Resources Research Center and continued industrial in-kind support. This R&D for nitrohydrolysis has been the subject of a number of publications [6–9] and was the basis for a Ph.D. dissertation presented by Larry Perkins in 2004. 3. The Industrial Assessment Center program, sponsored by the US Department of Energy, uses student teams to improve the efficiency and cleanliness of local industrial processes. This program has been successfully adapted to East European technical universities as part of an overall curriculum enhancement activity. 4. A continuing education experience including a workshop focused on assisting a new Russian business, SATIS Ltd., a joint venture partner-ship of VNIEF and Avangard. The workshop was entitled Business Partnerships: Critical Issues, hosted by the University of Tennessee and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory with support from US Department of Energy. The workshop participants were principals of SATIS Ltd., who proceeded to apply their new techni-ques in marketing their products in a series of meetings with USA and European firms. The workshop was led by UT and ORNL professionals and was sponsored by a US Department of Energy Nuclear Cities Initiatives (NCI) project, NCI-32-ORS-SA. The DOE NCI program is chartered to support and establish redirection of employees from the Russian weapons-grade nuclear programs to peaceful, civilian employment. SATIS partners are comprised of individuals from two Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy nuclear facilities (All-Russian Scientific and Technical Research Institute, VNIIEF, and Avangard of Sarov). These two sites are similar in mission to DOE's Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory of New Mexico and PANTEX facility of Texas. The workshop featured interactive sessions: . joint USA–Russian ventures; . tools for business opportunity assessment; . business strategies; . corporate quality goals and ISO 9000; . cultural aspects of business; . marketing strategies.
Keywords
- Collaboration
- Community
- Conceptual design
- Industry
- Partnerships