Summary Of Proposed Governance Structure

Governance Structure

(tentative and speculative)

Management Team

• Board of Directors
  • a few researchers (internal and external)
  • a few industry
  • a few other
  • host institution representative (ex officio)
  • NCE representative (ex officio)
• Scientific Director (academic researcher who is the PI for the network)
• Executive Director (lead staff member with prime responsibility for almost everything. )
  • Tech transfer officer
  • Financial administrator (possibly part-time)
  • Clerical and secretarial staff
  • Other network administrative and support staff
• International advisory committee (on-going assessment of the research)
• Research Committee (oversees the research program) comprised of researchers (some external to the network)
• Technology Transfer Committee
• Community Outreach Committee

Research team

• Theme Leaders (academic researchers leading specific subareas of the network)
• Project Leaders (academic researchers - leading projects of 2-6 researchers)
• Principal Researchers (academic researchers engaged in projects, some are project/theme leaders)
• Associate Researchers (academic researchers engaged in projects led by Principal Researchers)
• Industry Researchers (industry partners actively engaged in projects)
• Grad students, postdocs, research staff supervised by researchers

The teams and individuals interact with each other in various ways through reports, policies, and cross-membership.

Strictly speaking everything reports to the Board, but in practice for day-to-day operations the Scientific Director and the Network Manager are at the top with the theme leaders next, then project leaders, then researchers.

Researchers are often on more than one project in more than one theme. This is in fact almost essential for a good network. This will be reflected in how funding is allocated to researchers.

Number of researchers

A budget of $4M to $5M per year suggests 30-40 Principal Researchers, each leading one or more projects, with additional Associate Researchers working on those projects.

Number of universities

A similar back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that about 10-12 universities might comprise the network in partnership with industry and other organizations.

There is a cost to involving universities due to the financial and reporting activity that must be undertaken on a regular basis. This increases the percentage of funds that go to administering and managing the network. It is therefore prudent to carefully consider the number of universities that participate in the network.