Building Institutional Capacity for External Partnerships (BICEP)
Building Institutional Capacity for External Partnerships (BICEP) is a team of four universities, which includes Santa Clara University, Lawrence Technological University, Grand Valley State University, and Minnesota State University, Mankato, with the shared goal of collaboratively building their institutional capacity and knowledge for growing external partnerships that advance key technologies within their innovation ecosystems. As both Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) and Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs), team members share common challenges to participating in their regional innovation ecosystems.
BICEP focuses on three core objectives:
- Operational Maturity in establishing institutional policies and structure to enable efficient and professional partnering.
- Professional Development to enhance the knowledge of faculty and staff to be better equipped to participate in and contribute to technology partnerships with external organizations.
- Partner Engagement activities to support managing and strategically evolving partnerships over time.
Success in this project will result in an improved ability to establish and cultivate partnerships, secure external funding and resources, and grow programs in workforce development, use-inspired research and development (R&D), and research translation. Furthermore, it will enhance opportunities for students, support faculty in their desire to better engage with external partners, and support the vision and strategic plans of each partner organization.
BICEP is a 3-year project funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF) Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity (EPIIC) program. It will enable Santa Clara University to establish a permanent capability to initiate and grow high-value programs with partners throughout Silicon Valley and beyond.
While benefits and strategies for academic institutions to develop external partnerships are well documented, the body of knowledge specific to how PUIs/ERIs can best grow a comprehensive array of external technical partnerships is very limited. Through this program, the BICEP team will collaboratively explore how improvements in Operational Maturity, Professional Development, and Partner Engagement can expand capacity and improve knowledge for building such partnerships. These efforts will yield tangible benefits for each institution in terms of the number and quality of partnerships they have, the benefits these partnerships provide for the educational and scholarly activities at each institution, and the benefits realized by engaged partners and the regional innovation ecosystems. More importantly, as work is accomplished, the BICEP team will identify a set of strategies, practices, and lessons learned relevant to how PUI/ERI institutions can in general build their capacity to support their regional innovation ecosystems. This new knowledge will be codified, documented, and disseminated through publications, workshops and a toolkit with resources that may be used by other PUI/ERI universities.
While the Intellectual Merit focuses on the identification and validation of capacity-building techniques for PUIs/ERIs, significant Broader Impacts will be realized as the BICEP team expands their own capacity and as their lessons learned enable other PUIs/ERIs to do the same. Success in this area will significantly increase engagement of PUI/ERI students within the federal STEM-related funding portfolio, thereby contributing to high impact learning opportunities for these students while also broadening participation of these populations of students. In addition, these expanded partnerships will allow institutions to increase real-world learning opportunities, inspire new academic and professional development programs, attract resources and financial support for use-inspired research, and stimulate research and expertise of faculty. Finally, establishing a new generation of PUI/ERI universities as capable of participating in and contributing their unique sets of skills and expertise will bolster their regional ecosystems, catalyze research applicability and commercialization, enhance and maintain a skilled workforce, and contribute to the economic health of their regions.
BICEP is comprised of four institutions - Santa Clara University, Lawrence Technological University, Grand Valley State University, and Minnesota State University, Mankato. All are both Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUI) and Emerging Research Institutions (ERI).
| Christopher Kitts Principle Investigator (PI) Santa Clara University |
Linda Chamberlain Principle Investigator (PI) Grand Valley State University |
| Mark Brucki Principle Investigator (PI) Lawrence Technological University |
Brian Martensen Principle Investigator (PI) Minnesota State University, Mankato |
The BICEP cohort is working closely with evaluators and mentors from North Carolina State University.
As part of the SCU initiative within this cohort, we are coordinating efforts with the SCU NSF Tri-Alliance GRANTED Program.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Award Nos. 2433158, 2433159, 2433160, and 2433161.
Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
