The College of Engineering will be an integral part of a new $400,000, three-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity (EPIIC) grant awarded to LTU to boost research capacity with industry partners.
Principal investigator Mark Brucki, LTU associate vice president for economic development, said the grant “will allow us to get all the policies, procedures, infrastructure, and back-office capabilities in place to support more industry-sponsored research. We’ll also be training more faculty to be able to engage with more industry-sponsored research projects and, most importantly, establish sustained and growing industry partnerships that add value to the regional innovation ecosystem.”
Liu said she’s enthusiastic about involving CoE faculty in the training that will be part of the grant, “and through this, we will be able to provide greater support to our faculty in collaborating with industry.”
LTU’s partners in the grant are Grand Valley State University, Minnesota State University-Mankato, and Santa Clara (Calif.) University. Brucki said the four universities will share best practices from their research-boosting activities as part of the grant program.
The grant will also see the creation of a University-Industry Advisory Board to help LTU engage with industry in a more relevant and sustained manner. Two of its members will be Cynthia Hutchinson, CEO of the U.S. Center for Advanced Manufacturing, and Maureen Krauss, CEO of the Detroit Regional Partnership, an economic development nonprofit dedicated to promoting the 11-county Detroit Region to out-of-state and international companies to attract new jobs and investment to Southeast Michigan.
Nabil Grace, LTU’s senior vice president for research and development, added: “This grant is a tremendous boost for our faculty and embodies the transformation of LTU into a robust regional and national research center for industry engagement.”
