NSF/CERF Forum to Increase Collaboration Between Universities and the Design and Construction Industry

对于1998年的论坛，土木工程研究基金会(CERF)提出了一个分两个阶段的战略，以确保未来合作的可能性更大。仅有工业界的普遍兴趣是不够的。相反，要形成合作和联盟，关键是要使大学研究人员的具体研究项目与行业的商业化需求和期望相匹配。CERF将确定那些潜在的商业应用对工业界产生足够大兴趣的项目，以鼓励他们与学术界合作。通过将目前和计划在NSF赞助下进行的工作与工业的战略需求相匹配，CERF将确定工业界和学术界非常感兴趣的研究“集群”。只有在足够数量的行业代表表示具体兴趣并作出明确承诺表示愿意与学术研究人员开展合作的情况下，CEF才会建议举办合作论坛。

For the 1998 Forum, Civil Engineering Research Foundation (CERF) proposes a two-phase strategy to ensure greater likelihood of future collaborations. It is not enough to have a generic indication of interest from industry. Rather, for collaborations and consortia to be formed, it is critical to match the specific research projects of university researchers with the commercialization needs and expectations of industry. CERF will identify those projects whose potential commercial applications offer significant enough interest to industry to encourage their collaboration with academia. By matching the current and planned efforts taking place under NSF auspices with the strategic needs of industry, CERF will identify research `clusters` of significant interest to industry and academia. CERF will recommend holding the Collaborations Forum only if a sufficient number of industry representatives express specific interest and make explicit pledges indicating a desire to work in developing a collaboration with academic researchers.