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University Relations Working Group

The NUFO University Relations Working Group was formed in July 2011. Its purpose is to facilitate communication between the national user facilities and the full spectrum of universities (public and private, research- and teaching- oriented, and domestic and foreign). The primary mechanism for communication is through facility users based at universities, but NUFO also wants to inform potential users at other institutions, including faculty, post docs, and students, about the research opportunities available at national user facilities. Our goals include the following:

• Making university administrators and trustees aware of the important resource provided by national user facilities, which enable research in areas that would be prohibitively expensive for individual universities to undertake. These in-kind contributions by federal agencies enable a wide range of grant-supported research and education to occur.
• Working with the AAU (Association of American Universities, 59 member universities in the U.S.) and the APLU (Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, 218 member universities in the U.S.) to inform universities of the resources available at national user facilities
• Countering ignorance about national user facilities often encountered at universities, including perceptions of competition, low utilization, lack of suitability for education, low funding, and lack of credit to universities.
• Communicating the benefits to graduate and undergraduate students of conducting research at national user facilities, which can broaden their education, challenge them by exposing them to internationally- competitive research, and lead to an array of career opportunities.

University Relations Working Group List Sever: This list server is moderated.

Members

Co-chairs - Rene Bellwied (U. of Houston), Eric Gawiser (Rutgers University)

Steering Committee Liaison - Susan White-DePace, (BNL)