An Ex Example o of t the I Impact ct o of N NSF EP EPSCoR - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

SUstainable eNergy Research Initiative and Supporting Education

An Ex Example o

• f t

the I Impact ct o

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NSF EP EPSCoR Funding i in R Renewable En Energy R y Research ch

Wayn yne S Seames University o y of N North Da Dakota

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• Barriers to center-building in EPSCoR Jurisdictions
• The SUNRISE model
• How well did we do?
• Lessons learned
• The impact of EPSCoR investments on sustainable

energy research via the SUNRISE program

• Questions and Commentary

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY A CENTER?

A multi-disciplinary resource base organized around a general theme,

• r organized to address one or more specific problems,
• r organized to take advantage of selected capabilities

and/or technologies “Centers”, “Centers of Excellence”, “Institutes”, “Superclusters”

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Barriers To Center-building In EPSCoR Jurisdictions

• Physical Resources

Ø Funds for new/expanded/improved facilities are unlikely Ø Discretionary research funding is rare

• Instrumentation/Experimental Resources

Ø There may be one of each type on campus Ø Startup funds are limited Ø Discretionary equipment funding is limited

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• People

Ø Small departments mean high teaching and service loads Ø Lack of administrative assistant support § Less support for grants management/proposal preparation § Little or no website support Ø Graduate students difficult to recruit § May be of lower quality

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• The University Culture

Ø Departments and Colleges are not used to accommodating centers into their plans and evaluations

§ or the participation of their faculty in centers

Ø Funds for special assignments to develop centers are rare Ø Research may be expected to fund itself and contribute to the financial resources of the rest of the university Ø Cross college initiatives may have only superficial support

§ Unit/College leaders may impose requirements that may weaken the overall effort

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There is only a limited flexibility to modify

• verall university practices and resource

allocation to overcome these barriers. . . .

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There is only a limited flexibility to modify

• verall university practices and resource

allocation to overcome these barriers. . . . So innovation is necessary in EPSCoR jurisdiction center building efforts to mitigate the impacts of these barriers.

CENTER BUILDING

• Administration organized

Ø Usually for strategic reasons and may be seeded with substantial startup funds ($millions) Ø Often bring in outside researchers for majority of the staffing

• Faculty organized

Ø Usually in response to a RFP Ø Leverage/match funding often limited to that required by the RFP Ø Successful clusters gradually grow into larger, more sustainable entities

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CENTER BUILDING

• Physical Entities

Ø The cluster obtains laboratory space, instruments, and other resources from sponsoring institution(s) Ø Faculty may give up individual space to the cluster Ø Difficult for EPSCoR jurisdiction institutions – research incubator buildings can sometimes be used

• Virtual Entities

Ø The cluster has no individually defined space, instruments, or other resources. Ø Cluster relies upon the participants to provide and manage the resources used Ø Easier for EPSCoR jurisdictions; requires a paradigm shift for many faculty – can they share and play nice with others?

v Overcoming academic cultural barriers is required for success

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Ø Formed in 2004

• UND Chemistry
• UND Chemical Engineering
• NDSU Chemistry

v Virtual center-type entity Ø Both ND Research Universities Ø Faculty Organized and Administered Ø Funding under NSF EPSCoR RIIs from 2005-2013

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12 Administrative Board Stakeholder Panel UND Co- Director

• A. Kubatova

NDSU Co- Director

• M. Berti

Research Programs Principal Investigators Administration & Outreach Commercialization

• W. Seames

Associate Director Multi-investigator Proposals/Grants

• E. Kozliak

Past-Director Mentor

• W. Seames

33 Faculty Participants from:

• - 3 Universities
• - 16 Departments

• Sustainable Fossil Fuel Utilization

Ø Environmentally acceptable use of coal Ø Recovery and reuse of CO2

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• Energy from Diffuse Sources (wind/solar/

hydrogen) Ø Combined wind/fuel cell systems Ø Improved photovoltaic materials and systems

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• Renewable Fuels, Chemicals, Polymers, Materials

Ø Fatty acid based processes Ø Lignocellulosic biomass based processes Ø Natural filler materials in composites

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• PowerON!: 5th-8th Grade Outreach Program (Engineering, Teaching &

Learning) – 12 events, over a thousand contacts in 2012/13

• “Chemistry vs. Dust”: Air Pollution High School Student Workshop

(Chemistry, Chemical Engineering) -180 high school students participants, 6 schools

• NAFRE: Native American Freshmen Research Experience (UND and

NDSU Chemistry and Chemical Engineering) – 7 fold increase in NA enrollment at 4 year college for participants over their peers

• SUNRISE REU: Research experiences for undergraduates (Chemistry

and Chemical Engineering): 11 2013 summer student participants.

• INTER-UNIVERSITY COLLABORATIONS:
• North West University, South Africa – Articulation agreements for

graduate student exchanges

• California State Polytechnic University at Pomona – Articulation

agreements for bi-university combined BS/MS program; research agreements; course sharing agreements

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Launch Date: June 2009 State Funds: $2,950,000 Matching Funds: $8,853,820 Purpose: invent, develop, and commercialize green industrial chemicals, polymers, and fiber composites. Current and Past Private Sector Partners Bayer Crop Science, Bayer Material Science, BenchMark Energy, Chemera, Fiber Composites, Global Green Refining, Kadrmas, Lee, and Jackson, Kuraray Chemicals, Marvin Windows/Tecton Products, Menon and Associates, Northwood Oilseed Processing Company, Ogden Engineering & Associates, Riley IP, Sustainable Oils, Wilcrest Consulting,

SUNRISE BioProducts Center of Excellence Biobased Chemicals, Polymers, and Composites

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• Participation is by invitation only: faculty who are interested

in interconnected areas in research/education

• A virtual center with limited administrative function; the

need for this function is mainly due to the group’s size

• Research and funding is self-generated by the members of

the group not from earmarks or other directed sources

• SUNRISE members design/volunteer to administer
• utreach activities as well as include funding in proposals

• Conduct truly collaborative research, including student co-

advising

• Sacrifice some individuality for the good of the group
• Perform some “service” related research for other SUNRISE

faculty, who will, in turn do the same for them; for the good of the group. Everyone cooperates, everyone wins.

• Try to understand and tolerate cultural differences between

different disciplines and between different Universities

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• Barriers to center-building in EPSCoR Jurisdictions
• The SUNRISE model
• How well did we do?
• Lessons learned
• The impact of EPSCoR investments on sustainable

energy research via the SUNRISE program

• Questions and Commentary

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Data Through 5/13

Proposal Awards Source ($ millons) ($ millions) External 286 34 EPSCoR 15 11 Internal 13 3 Total 314 48

Key Building Block Grants:

• 1. NSF EPSCoR RII - 1st

5/05 – 9/08 $979,369

• 2. Track I Renewal - 2nd

9/08 – 8/13 $2,955,890

• 3. ND DOE EPSCoR IIP

7/06 – 6/09 $2,593,384

• 4. IIP Renewal

7/09 – 6/12 $2,500,000

• 5. NSF REU Sites - 1st

5/03 – 5/09 $509,000

• 6. - 2nd

5/09 – 9/15 $516,000

• 7. ND Dept. of Commerce COE 1/09 – 12/11

$2,950,000

• 8. Bayer CropScience

1/07 – 12/11 $1,250,000

• 9. NSF EPSCoR Track II

9/13 – 8/16 $3,000,000

with SD EPSCoR

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Dissemination of Results (through 5/13)

247 Peer-review Publications 399 Presentations

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Over 260 students have been involved in SUNRISE research Since July 2004

152 Grad, 90 Undergrad, 18 Post-doc

Students are our primary MEASURE OF SUCCESS!

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Five graduate students have won University-wide awards from SUNRISE projects!

Alexander Azenkeng Ph.D. Chemistry, 2009 UND’s Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award Winner

John Degenstein B.S/M.S. ChE Chris Flakker B.S./ M.S. ChE April Hoffart B.S./ M.S. ChE UND’s 2013, 2008, and 2005 Outstanding Masters Thesis Award Winners

Yongxin Zhao Ph.D. Energy Engineering, 2006 UND’s Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award Winner 25

U.S. UNIVERSITY COLLABORATIONS (2010-2013)

Arizona, Arizona State, Arkansas, Arkansas State, Cal State Polytechnic Pomona, Clemson, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa State, Johns Hopkins, Maryland (Baltimore), Maryland (College Park), Miami (Fl), Michigan State, Montana State, Nebraska (Lincoln), North Carolina State, Rutgers, San Jose State, South Dakota, South Dakota School of Mines, South Dakota State, Stanford, UC Riverside, Utah, Tulane, Washington State, West Virginia, Wichita State

FOREIGN UNIVERSITY COLLABORATIONS

Bergen, Norway; Bologna, Italy; Central South University, China; Conception, Chile; Czech Technological Institute, Czech Rep.; Ivan Franko National Univ. of Lviv, Ukraine; Karasin's Kharkov National Univ, Ukraine; Lomonosov Moscow State Univ., Russia; Lviv Polytechnic National Univ., Ukraine; National Cheng Kung Univ., National Univ. of Singapore, Singapore; Taiwan; NorthWest Univ, South Africa.

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LESSONS LEARNED

• Focus on specific, currently relevant topics but

within a more general theme Ø Important to key funding agencies Ø Sufficient local faculty interest/skills

• Get widespread buy-in and support

Ø But don’t weaken the center to be politically correct Ø Don’t try to please everyone, just need enough of the key people to allow success

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LESSONS LEARNED

• Pick the right Director and then support them

Ø A respected researcher Ø A good team-builder Ø Good communicator § Publicity is critical

Alena Kubatova Marisol Berti CURRENT SUNRISE LEADERS PAST SUNRISE LEADER (me)

Ø Patient with team members Ø Passionate about the center Ø Willing to take on Administration Ø Willing to shoulder a huge workload

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LESSONS LEARNED

• Embrace the Cultural Changes That Result from

a Successful Center

Ø New Administrators need to buy-in and champion the center, even though it wasn’t developed on “their watch” Ø Center type research and service needs to be highly valued by departments Ø Interdisciplinary work needs to be highly valued Ø Recognize synergies lead to products that exceed the sum of the parts

With E. Kozliak (Chemistry) receiving the UND 2012 award for Interdisciplinary/collaborative research

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• Barriers to center-building in EPSCoR

Jurisdictions

• The SUNRISE model
• How well did we do?
• Lessons learned
• The impact of EPSCoR investments on

sustainable energy research via the SUNRISE program

• Questions and Commentary

SUNRISE AND THE NORTH DAKOTA NSF EPSCoR RII

SUNRISE has utilized the NSF EPSCoR RII in two distinct areas:

Infrastructure: improving the resource base of SUNRISE, leading towards a long-term sustainable research and education center Research: develop new and improve existing heterogeneous catalysis for sustainable energy science and technology in SUNRISE focus areas; vertically integrated, highly interdisciplinary research and training activities are emphasized

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SUNRISE AND THE NORTH DAKOTA NSF EPSCoR RII

Infrastructure Activities:

• 1. Add new faculty positions to increase research capabilities and

production

NEW FACULTY Sean Hightower, Chemistry and Yun Ji, Chemical Engineering

• 2. Strategically provide capital equipment to leverage existing

research capabilities

• 3. Provide administrative support to SUNRISE Researchers to

improve their productivity and to the SUNRISE Director to increase capabilities for large-scale program development activities

• 4. Reference materials

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RECENT RESEARCH PROJECTS FUNDED BY THE NSF ESPCoR RII

• 1. Improved catalytic reactions for biomass-derived

sugar decomposition to chemical intermediates

• 2. Development of nanocatalysts for direct methanol fuel

cells

• 3. Functionalization of aryl and alkyl groups using

cyclopalladation

• 4. Theoretical Studies of Catalytic Reactions

Mechanisms

He also does quantum descriptive modeling method development in his spare time SUNRISE Founding Member Mark Hoffmann Is now a ND EPSCoR co-Project Director

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CURRENT CENTER PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT EFFORT: The NSF Engineering Research Center to Improve the Global Carbon Balance (IGCarB)

Planning Team Wayne Seames, UND Lead Michael Mann and Mary Baker, UND JoAnn Lighty, Utah (Associate director) Michael Overcash, Wichita State Winny Dong, Cal State Polytechnic @ Pomona James Ritter, South Carolina

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Questions and Commentary