The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable 1996 annual report

The Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable was created just over a decade ago to provide a unique forum for dialogue among top government, university, and industry leaders in the national science and technology enterprise. The purpose is to facilitate personal working relationships and exchange of ideas about issues, problems, and promising opportunities facing those charged with developing and deploying science and technology resources. In 1996, Council meetings focused on the following: (1) the impact of information technology on the structure of research and educational organizations; (2) ways to improve communication between the science and engineering community and the public; and (3) new approaches both to measuring the results of research investments, and to communicating those metrics to non-technical decision-makers and to the public. Significant milestones were also achieved in four major projects, representing, impart, follow-up activity from previous Council Meeting discussions: (1) facilitating the Federal Demonstration Partnership, designed to maximize the efficiency of the federal research support system; (2) compiling results of a regional workshop on experiences in industry-university collaborative organization; (3) publishing the results of a study comparing the cost structures for research performed in the industrial, academic, and government laboratory sector; and (4) catalyzing, and participating in, a series of campus-based convocations on stresses being experienced in the research university environment