The theme of this upcoming meeting is “Partnering for Innovation: Collaborating Across Sectors, Agencies and Institutions,” and your Planning Team has developed a highly interactive agenda that will allow you to explore partnering opportunities through a variety of formats, including:

* Optional pre-session for Directors on “Supplemental Funding Options within NSF”
* Concurrent breakout sessions on multi-university center issues and tactics for all attendees
* Facilitated roundtables on technical foci and topical issues, such as center challenges and new NSF funding initiatives
* Center overviews created by Directors to spark creative, collaborative intra-Center opportunities
* Copies of effective tools for managing the Center research portfolio

Directors, with all of this focus on partnering, we would be remiss if we did not give you the opportunity to network with your colleagues around technical issues (“talk shop”). As you will learn at the Annual Meeting, there are several new and varied federal funding initiatives that could be met by two or more I/UCRCs collaborating on a new research project. The meeting shall provide the forum for technical conversations that could lead to multi-center projects in the Friday morning breakouts, and your involvement is the key to their effectiveness. Please click on Research Overview, and take a few minutes to provide the information requested as part of the registration process.

Evaluators and Operations will also have their own pre-meeting sessions on Thursday morning.  Evaluators will also conduct their business meeting on Friday morning, while Directors and Operations participate in roundtable discussions.

Plenary session topics include the invaluable briefing from Alex and others from NSF, dialogue with representatives of the National Science Board (NSB) regarding the current cost-sharing guidelines and how they affect the I/UCRCs, emerging federal science and technology programs and priorities, and a case study of successful management of a large research portfolio.  Come and be heard!

The 2008 Alex Schwarzkopf Prize for Technological Innovation will be presented by the I/UCRC Directors Association during lunch in the newly renovated Capital View Ballroom. The view is spectacular!

If you have any trouble registering or finding the information that you need from this site, please send an email to Kate Ryan or give her a call at 920-467-3994.  We have little say over the weather, but otherwise will do what we can to make your Annual Meeting experience seamless and energizing.

See you in January!

Regards,

NSF I/UCRC 2008 Annual Meeting Planning Committee:

Joanne Aller, Bill Arbegast, Ann Becker, Ed Clancy, Alan George, Denis Gray, Alan Greenberg, Victor Hung, Glenn Larsen, Kate Ryan, Alex Schwarzkopf, and Eric Sundstrom