On September 15th, Ronnie Gist, the manager for a program called Maryland Industrial Partnerships Program (MIPS) at FSU, spoke on it's behalf to FSU faculty and local business owners. MIPS is a program that facilitates communication between local businesses and faculty that conduct research. If a business finds that a professor is working on something that could benefit their company in commercializing and/or developing a product, MIPS helps fund the research. MIPS funding is then matched by the participating businesses. The professors working on research must submit a proposal to MIPS and the “winners” are announced in a time span of 60 days.
To my knowledge, the winners have not been announced yet but currently there are are a few two-year programs funded by MIPS. These programs involve Cumberland-based Instant Access Networks, Frostburg-based Sustainable Systems Inc, and Cumberland-based Savage River Farms Inc. As for who is working with MIPS on these projects and why, I'm not sure yet. MIPS has been around since 1987 and has achieved a lot within this small time frame. It seems like a great way to fund research at FSU or at any university but some departments are left out. Currently, MIPS advertizes that they fund research related to engineering, computer science, physical sciences, environmental sciences, and life sciences. Who funds research for those who work in other departments and in other sciences? I wonder what this says about how FSU values certain departments. I can't say one way until I figure out how other departments are funded. This will be my next project.
If you would like to read more on MIPS and what it has achieved, use this link,
http://www.frostburg.edu/news/searchnewsdt.cfm?id_number=6435
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