Student News
Moore IMBA Students, USC Faculty Tapped for $600,000 NSF Project
How can business students gain a better understanding of how scientific research interweaves with business considerations as those scientific ideas move into the marketplace?
Seven Moore School students are finding out with the help of a three-year, $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. The NSF project is teaming the seven International MBA students with four graduate students from chemistry and chemical engineering to study problems presented by four companies involved in polymer nanocomposites.
Polymer nanocomposites are the microscopic additives that enhance polymers used to make plastics, fibers, and other materials. The project’s four industrial partners are Eastman Chemical, PBI Performance Products, Mead Westvaco, and Michelin Tire Co.
The NSF project began this fall.
The students’ efforts this semester "have been focused on learning about innovation and R&D from a business perspective, "says Dr. William Sandberg, associate professor of management. Other Carolina faculty involved in the project are chemistry professor Hanno zur Loye and David Pond, adjunct research professor in chemistry and biochemistry.
All the students work in teams that are assigned to each corporate partner. "Through their collaboration as well as their experiences in both classroom and laboratory," says Sandberg, "the students will gain a fuller understanding of how scientific research meshes with business considerations in managing corporate R&D. As the teams’ work moves along, they will present their corporate partners with reports and recommendations regarding both the scientific progress and their commercial opportunities or implications."
The corporate partners get access to the scientific research capabilities of Carolina’s chemistry and chemical engineering departments. This is coupled, says Sandberg, "with the capabilities of our IMBA students in business research, analysis, and creative recommendations."
In the end, then, business students will learn scientific considerations as science students learn business considerations. Scientists and business managers often don’t understand each other’s “time frames or needs," Sandberg says. "That’s why we want our business and science students to work more together."
Jan Collins
November 2007