Active Projects

National Partnership for Managing Upstream Innovation:

The Case of Nanoscience and Technology

The Center for Innovation Management Studies received NSF Partnership for Innovation (PFI) grant in November of 2004. The lead institution for this grant is NC State University in Raleigh, NC and the partners are the Industrial Research Institute (IRI), and the Kenan Institute for Engineering Technology and Science (KIETS).

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Funded by a three-year, $600,000 NSF Partnership for Innovation (PFI) grant, the project leaders aim to:

1) Develop a new conduit for knowledge flow between the national research enterprise and industrial corporations
2) Develop new innovation management methods to aid the translation of the early-stage science and technology into commercially important innovations
3) Disseminate results of the partnership's work to a broad range of user groups through regional education and outreach programs.

A key metric of their success will be the transfer of findings to both academia and business enterprises. Toward this end, these College of Management researchers will work with the NC State's Industrial Extension Service to investigate the impact of upstream science on small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises in North Carolina and the surrounding region.

Project participants also will collaborate with the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science at NC State in convening two Gordon Research Conferences to facilitate the dissemination of results.

In addition, a diverse group of students and faculty will be recruited to the partnership from within the NC State community to enhance program richness and the quality of solutions. Last fall, first-year MBA students conducted interviews with members of the Industrial Research Institute (IRI) and R&D managers to begin assessing how they show changes or the potential needs for change within the R&D structure. Additional MBA students are working on the project this summer and again in the fall.