Unsolicited proposal: IUCRC Evaluation Project

IIP 1140438北卡罗来纳州州立大学;丹尼斯·格雷IUCRC评估项目IUCRC计划由50多个中心组成，有150多所参与大学。这些中心包括750多名行业成员，600名教师科学家，1000名研究生和近250名本科生。目前的提案要求支持一项为期五年的奖励，以支持IUCRC计划的评估活动。拟议的IUCRC评价项目涉及问责制和改进评价问题，并涉及方案一级和中心一级的要素。评估有三个主要目标：1）通过记录IUCRC的成果和成就，帮助NSF和地方中心客观地评估其影响; 2）通过向NSF和地方中心提供可操作的，及时的，基于数据的（正式收集和观察）反馈，分析和建议，促进持续改进; 3）识别并向NSF和地方中心传达有关IUCRC最佳实践的信息。过去通过IUCRC评估项目进行的研究和评估为扩大对一般合作研究，特别是工业/大学中心的理解做出了重大贡献。拟议的工作设定了雄心勃勃的目标，并承诺为理解各种关键问题做出贡献，包括IUCRCs的经济影响，IUCRCs对小企业的影响，以及IUCRCs的人力资本影响。IUCRC评估项目最独特的特点是重视对地方中心主任的改进评估，并及时从关键利益相关者群体收集评估数据。该项目将通过为项目支持的研究生提供高质量的研究机会，成为下一代科技评估人员的培训工具。最后，拟议的工作将继续非常积极主动地向更广泛的科学界传播研究结果，在广泛阅读的高质量期刊上发表研究结果。此外，所有的评估工具，程序报告，以及学生和教师的论文有关的程序评估工作将在程序评估网站上的北卡罗来纳州州立大学服务器（www.ncsu.edu/iucrc）公开。

IIP 1140438 North Carolina State University; Denis Gray IUCRC Evaluation Project The IUCRC program is comprised of over 50 centers with over 150 participating universities. These centers include over 750 industry members, 600 faculty scientists, 1000 graduate students and almost 250 undergraduate students. The current proposal requests support for a five-year award to support evaluation activities of the IUCRC Program. The proposed IUCRC Evaluation Project addresses both accountability and improvement evaluation issues and involves both program-level and center-level elements. The evaluation addresses three major objectives: 1) To help NSF and local centers objectively evaluate their impact by documenting IUCRC outcomes and accomplishments; 2) To promote continuous improvement by giving actionable, timely, data-based (formally collected and observational) feedback, analysis and advice to NSF and local centers; 3) To identify and communicate information about IUCRC best practices to NSF and local centers. Research and evaluation conducted through the IUCRC Evaluation Project in the past has made a significant contribution to a broadened understanding of cooperative research in general and industry/university centers in particular. The proposed work sets comparably ambitious goals and promises to make a contribution to the understanding of a variety of critical issues including the economic impact of IUCRCs, impact of IUCRCs on small firms, and human capital impacts of IUCRCs. The most unique characteristic of the IUCRC Evaluation Project is the emphasis placed on improvement evaluation for local center directors with timely evaluation data collected from key stakeholder groups. The project will be a training vehicle for the next generation of S&T evaluators by promoting high quality research opportunities for the graduate students supported by the project. Finally, the proposed work will continue to be very proactive in disseminating the findings to the broader scientific community by publishing the work in widely read and high quality journals. Further, all evaluation instruments, program reports, and student and faculty papers related to the program evaluation effort will be publicly available on the Program Evaluation Website housed on North Carolina State University servers (www.ncsu.edu/iucrc).