Industry perspectives on university research programs

Nowadays, university research programs in power systems engineering are strongly dependent on industry support. In the past, US government funds from DOE and NSF were more readily accessible. Unless power faculty & researchers are funded adequately, the power programs in universities will gradually disappear. With the imminent challenges posed by the aging workforce in the US, unless we provide a pipeline of fresh new power system graduates, our industry will suffer and more & more work is likely to be out-sourced. This is a critical time for our industry to be more pro-active with universities. This paper presents thoughts on how to build & maintain synergies between industry and university power research programs.