ORAU continuously works to deliver on its value proposition to expand opportunities for the 158 members of the university consortium to engage with a growing list of industry partners and the federal agencies with which we do work.
“A more diverse mix of partners are connecting with us because of the science and technology innovations that our university consortium can bring to their strategic mission areas,” said Cathy Fore, ORAU senior director of university partnerships.
One example of this is a task order from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention focused on wastewater surveillance for tracking the spread of communicable illnesses, such as COVID-19 or influenza. Work under the task order partners ORAU experts in public health and health care with researchers from Arizona State University (ASU). Fore says it’s a situation where everyone involved benefits: ORAU and ASU receive funding for their contributions to the work, and both organizations get to demonstrate their capabilities for a federal agency partner.
ORAU’s Research and University Partnerships Office led the development of Basic Ordering Agreements (BOAs) with a select group of member universities. The BOA provides all the required documents and templates that will benefit both ORAU and the member university in proactively pursuing and executing research and other professional services support. BOAs were fully executed with six universities: Arizona State University, Florida International University, George Mason University, Ohio State University, Texas Tech University, and University of Central Florida. A CDC-funded task order was awarded to Arizona State University through the executed BOA. Additional BOAs are in the process of being signed, and many more universities have expressed interest in entering into a BOA agreement with ORAU.
Another example is ORAU’s role in establishing an external steering committee for the Oak Ridge Enhanced Technology Training Center (ORETTC), a state-of-the-art U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facility that provides a centralized location to deliver vital training, testing, and education at advanced levels for local, state, national, and international first responders on the topics of radiation response, nuclear processing and emerging technologies. ORETTC uses cutting-edge technologies, such as augmented reality and virtual reality, to develop immersive and experiential training. The steering committee consists of subject matter experts representing member universities and private industry.
“We were able to leverage the ORETTC example to demonstrate future opportunities with private industry,” Fore said. “As you can see, there’s a lot of matchmaking among our member universities and industry partners.”
More direct matchmaking happens with ORAU’s member grant programs, including the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards and the Innovation Partnerships Grant Program.
The Powe Awards program offers seed money to junior faculty at member universities to enrich the research and professional growth and often leads to additional from other sources. ORAU awards $5,000 to 35 junior faculty members annually (see story on page 19). That award is matched by the researcher’s university. Fore is expanding the program’s value through recruitment of private industry partners to join in funding Powe awards. General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT) and AREA (Augmented Reality for Enterprise Alliance) are two partners that supported Powe Awards for 2024. GDIT’s research interests focus on supply chain innovation; AREA focuses on augmented reality in the workplace.
“It’s not just that these research partners cover the cost of the awards,” Fore said. “They are helping expand their research portfolios through engagement with our member schools. The universities then expand their reach into industry’s strategic research goals.”
None of this would be possible without strong relationships with university consortium members at the highest levels, Fore said, adding that RUPO will continue to shape the university engagement business model to demonstrate the best value to consortium members, our industry partners, and the federal agencies we work with.