National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Front Matter
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Assessing NASA's University Leadership Initiative. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25996.
×
Page 1
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Assessing NASA's University Leadership Initiative. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25996.
×
Page 2
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Assessing NASA's University Leadership Initiative. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25996.
×
Page 3
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Assessing NASA's University Leadership Initiative. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25996.
×
Page 4
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Assessing NASA's University Leadership Initiative. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25996.
×
Page 5

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

Summary NASA created the University Leadership Initiative (ULI) to engage creative and innovative minds in the academic arena to identify significant aeronautics and aviation research challenges and define their unique approach to their solution. ULI was started in 2015 as part of the larger University Innovation Project, with the goal of seeking new, innovative ideas that can support the U.S. aviation community and NASA’s long-term aeronautics research goals, as established by its Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD). As the name suggests, the intent of ULI is for universities to be the driving force behind transformative research programs. ULI challenges universities to prove that by working at a system level and bringing together a multidisciplinary team as well as working with other parts of their campus and across multiple universities and industrial partners it is possible to make major advancements in line with the NASA-developed community vision for aviation. The specific overarching goals of the program are to1  Assist in achieving aviation outcomes defined in the ARMD Strategic Implementation Plan2 through NASA-complementary research;  Ensure a transition of the research outcomes to the application pipeline of the U.S. aerospace industry, whether that is continued research, a specific product line with an industrial partner, or something in-between;  Provide broad opportunities for students at different levels, including graduate and undergraduate, to participate in aeronautics research; and  Increase representation of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority- Serving Institutions (MSIs) in aeronautics research. The first round of ULI applications were solicited in 2016, with the awards being made in April 2017, with no HBCU or MSI principal investigators (PIs), and 3 as co-PIs. The second round of awards included one co-PI from an MSI. The third round of awards included one HBCU PI and 11 HBCU co-PIs, and one MSI PI and four MSI co-PIs. The fourth round of ULI proposals is currently under way. The 13 teams receiving awards from the first three rounds consist of 3- to 5-year research agendas covering a 1 The goals of ULI, as well as additional information, can be found on the ULI website at NASA Aeronautics Research Institute, “The University Leadership Initiative (ULI),” https://nari.arc.nasa.gov/uli, accessed September 22, 2020. 2 The ARMD strategic goals can be found at NASA, “Strategic Implementation Plan,” https://www.nasa.gov/aeroresearch/strategy, accessed September 22, 2020. 1

2 ASSESSING NASA’S UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE wide range of complex, multidisciplinary topics within aeronautics. There were 240 proposals for a selection rate of approximately 5 percent. Throughout these early rounds, adjustments to the ULI program and the ARMD strategy have been made to better suit NASA’s intent, as will be discussed in the following chapters. Recommendations for adjustments can then be made, as appropriate, to increase the likelihood that the program and research teams have the desired high impact on the country’s aerospace community. In summer 2020, following congressional direction to NASA,3 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an ad hoc committee to perform an independent review of ULI and recommend options for strengthening the initiative. The Committee to Assess NASA’s University Leadership Initiative was tasked to address the following:  Assess ULI’s progress towards meeting its goals.  Evaluate efforts to increase the participation of women, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and underrepresented and minority participants in ULI.  Provide options to increase awareness of ULI among universities, departments, and faculty.  Discuss the aviation industry’s perception of ULI and the advantages and disadvantages of their role as a ULI team member.  Identify ways to encourage ULI proposals with not just new technologies, but also technologies that support new business models in aviation.4 Overall, the committee commends ARMD for its development of ULI and applauds its broad goals. ULI is still relatively new, and thus NASA is still making adjustments based upon experience. The committee concluded that there are many ways in which the NASA ULI program is meeting its goals, making appropriate adjustments, and supporting aerospace innovation via academia-led partnerships with industry. This report’s recommendations suggest many ways in which the program’s impact could be enhanced to benefit students, faculty, industry, and the U.S. public. ASSESSMENT OF THE ULI PROGRAM The committee saw strong evidence of freedom for the PIs, with no interference from NASA, particularly regarding the scopes and directions of the funded project. Most of the PIs that presented to the committee indicated that they liked this freedom. There was also strong evidence of PIs getting positive feedback from both NASA and peer reviewers that have enhanced the quality and direction of the funded projects. In the first three rounds of ULI awards, NASA selected proposals that were applicable to all five of the original strategic thrusts. In the most recent solicitation, NASA added the strategic thrust “Safe, quiet, and affordable vertical lift air vehicles.” Through the portfolio of funded projects, NASA has sought to encourage work that crosscuts these thrusts and could lead to potential new research areas not yet covered by ULI. With each new solicitation, NASA includes communications about gaps it sees in the portfolio. As a result, such communications may underlie why some proposers indicated that there was some confusion about the ULI program, as the information included in the solicitation evolved over time. The committee found that there was significant confusion among proposers regarding the ULI program, who cited concerns about feedback that was unclear or with conflicting advice from reviewers. Proposers indicated that greater clarity and transparency in the proposal process was desired. Considering the ULI goal of transitioning research to appropriate stakeholders, the committee concluded that it was premature to assess success. It is clear that the performers are making progress in their research, but none of the efforts have reached completion as of yet. 3 H.R.5666, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Authorization Act of 2020, Section 509. 4 Reprinted from the committee’s statement of task.

SUMMARY 3 The committee concluded that NASA is indeed achieving the goal of providing broad opportunities for students at different levels (graduate and undergraduate). However, the opportunities vary substantially on a project-to-project basis. The committee notes that NASA has not collected sufficient demographic data on the students who are being supported by the ULI program. As a result, it is not possible to make a detailed assessment of the ULI program’s reach. However, in the committee’s assessment, NASA has not achieved a sufficient degree of diversity in the ULI program. This is further discussed in the following chapters of this report, along with recommendations on how to improve the program’s diversity. The committee has made the following recommendations: RECOMMENDATION: NASA should better inform the community of what research ARMD is already supporting in each of the six strategic thrusts so that proposers can avoid proposing work that might duplicate existing initiatives. NASA should provide a clear indication of what research it would consider “duplicative.” (Chapter 1) RECOMMENDATION: NASA should examine the solicitation and review process and materials to improve clarity on  Research versus educational goals,  New systems versus other goals,  Intellectual property, and  Technical risk. This will help ensure that ARMD provides consistent and useful information to the proposers. (Chapter 1) RECOMMENDATION: NASA should establish specific diversity participation goals for ULI based on national data of the available workforce and determine the demographic diversity of applicants, awardees, students (graduate and undergraduate), and researchers involved in ULI projects. In addition to demographic data about individuals, NASA should analyze the demography of the university applicants and participants (as leads, principal investigators [PIs], co-PIs, and other partners) in the ULI program, making use of publicly available data from the Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, about these institutions. Based on an analysis of the demographic data, NASA should adjust and document goals, revise solicitation language, and review committee guidelines accordingly. NASA should perform ongoing tracking of the data and readjustment. (Chapter 2) RECOMMENDATION: NASA should perform detailed analysis of why no women at the time of this report have been funded as principal investigators. Based on these findings, NASA should make relevant adjustments to goals, solicitations, and reviewer guidelines, as appropriate. This should be conducted on an ongoing basis. NASA should consider double- blind reviews by at least a portion of the reviewers. (Chapter 2) RECOMMENDATION: NASA should remove the language requiring a mentoring plan only for faculty from Historically Black Colleges and Universities or other Minority-Serving Institutions. NASA should also ensure that materials do not include implicit bias. NASA should ensure that its decision processes associated with ULI are transparent to encourage participation and avoid a reduction in proposals due to low numbers of awards or even lack of awardees to specific groups. (Chapter 2)

4 ASSESSING NASA’S UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE RECOMMENDATION: NASA should assess its proposal review process to ensure that it does not contain implicit bias and that the feedback that it provides is consistent and coherent. (Chapter 2) RECOMMENDATION: In order to increase the overall visibility of the ULI program, as well as among women and minorities in related disciplines, NASA should undertake the following actions:  Employ social media to showcase success stories of the program;  Encourage the project teams to present at major conferences to reach out to the public; and  Address and consult with relevant networking groups such as Women in Aerospace, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Women in Engineering, the National Society of Black Engineers, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers, among others. (Chapter 3) RECOMMENDATION: ULI should introduce a program liaison with the relevant technical background to enhance communications and outreach. A goal of this program liaison should be to communicate to faculty and departments, as well as to the public. This program liaison should work with the relevant NASA communications and outreach offices to increase ULI’s focus on partnerships. (Chapter 3) RECOMMENDATION: NASA should analyze demographic data (recommended in Chapter 2) about ULI participants (faculty, postdocs, and students at all levels), along with data on who is supported by ULI, to communicate about ULI’s human resources with the aerospace industry. This NASA analysis should include determining those to whom support is provided for their studies (e.g., internship opportunities, paid research assistantships, travel support to present at conferences) and identifying potential gaps in support. This information (including data from the aviation industry) should be made public on the ULI webpage. (Chapter 4) RECOMMENDATION: NASA should assess the research collaborations among ULI faculty, students, industry partners of various types (both established companies and start-ups), and government collaborators to determine how these collaborations are forged, persist, and result in transferring knowledge across the three sectors (i.e., academia, industry, and government). NASA should consult the research literature and other federal agencies involved with technology transfer to identify data it should collect to answer the following question: What is the role of government organizations in knowledge transfer? This would enable NASA to make data-based decisions about programmatic changes to enhance innovation. (Chapter 4) RECOMMENDATION: NASA should require the use of technology readiness levels and manufacturing readiness levels as a standard practice for all projects. (Chapter 5) RECOMMENDATION: If new business models are to be developed, then NASA should require risk management as part of the transition plan. This plan should include, but not be limited to, maturity, market, economic, and workforce risks. (Chapter 5) RECOMMENDATION: NASA should identify and explore ways in which ULI participants can engage in cross-pollination of ideas with other NASA researchers and other ULI projects. This could also assist the agency in addressing the need for collaborative projects and avoiding duplication of effort. (Chapter 5)

SUMMARY 5 RECOMMENDATION: NASA should identify partners outside of the traditional aviation companies for the appropriate technologies. Teams should be encouraged to pursue start-ups if appropriate. (Chapter 5) The ULI program is still relatively new. As such, NASA is still adjusting based on feedback from proposers and other actors. A more complete assessment of the program and its impact will require more time. ORGANIZATION OF THIS REPORT In this report, the committee has divided the five tasks it was assigned into separate chapters with findings and recommendations. These are the results of several meetings during July–October of 2020 involving the committee and invited guests. Amongst the first guests was Koushik Datta, NASA’s project manager for ULI. Dr. Datta gave a first-hand account of the program’s intent and adaptation over the program’s first years and also provided direct answers to the committee’s questions. Several of the university leads of the ULI awardee teams from the first three rounds also presented to the committee, as did several representatives of industry. These presentations provided different perspectives of the initiative, including areas for improvement.

Next: 1 Assessing ULI's Progress Toward Meeting Its Goals »
Assessing NASA's University Leadership Initiative Get This Book
×
Buy Ebook | $9.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

NASA created the University Leadership Initiative (ULI) to engage creative and innovative minds in the academic arena to identify significant aeronautics and aviation research challenges and define their unique approach to their solution. The ULI was started in 2015 as part of the larger University Innovation Project, with the goal of seeking new, innovative ideas that can support the U.S. aviation community and NASA's long-term aeronautics research goals, as established by its Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.

Assessing NASA's University Leadership Initiative reviews the ULI and makes recommendations to enhance program's impact to benefit students, faculty, industry, and the U.S. public.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!