More incentives along this line are needed. For example, NSF should consider scoring proposals partly for the extent and quality of industrial interaction. Doing so, however, runs counter to the academic culture, which traditionally considers students to be the only deliverables. Academic-industrial research and technology centers, such as ERCs, provide good platforms for these activities. Students experiences give them insight into the problems of industry.
Industry gains cheap labor and access to promising young engineers.
But faculty members receive no benefits under the current reward system. In fact, they are likely to see these programs as drains on their precious time, which could be devoted to publishing and raising research funding. The tenure system and other professional rewards are one source of the difficulty of involving faculty with industry in joint educational activities. Both junior and senior faculty are reluctantto involve themselves, because they are so busy. Large industry-university collaborative research centers such as ERCs can help reduce the workload imposed on faculty, because they handle many of the necessary administrative tasks.