{"id":19222,"date":"2014-09-25T18:58:02","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T18:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/d45h139.public.uconn.edu\/sites\/news\/?p=19222"},"modified":"2025-01-28T21:53:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T02:53:38","slug":"university-industry-partnerships-discussed-at-aerospace-defense-international-trade-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/09\/university-industry-partnerships-discussed-at-aerospace-defense-international-trade-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"University-Industry Partnerships Discussed at Aerospace & Defense International Trade Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

UConn Engineering has long collaborated with industry, a fact that helped shape a discussion on how universities and industry work together at the recent Aerospace & Defense International Trade Summit.<\/p>\n

The event, the first of its kind in the state, was organized by U.S. Congressman Joe Courtney & U.S. Department of Commerce. In his opening remarks, Courtney said\u00a0the event was needed because \u201cthere is a huge appetite for this subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three-day event featured the panel discussion \u201cUniversities and Industry Cooperation for Innovation,\u201d\u00a0which included UConn\u2019s School of Engineering Dean Kazem Kazerounian as a panelist. Lawrence Silbart, UConn\u2019s Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives, served as moderator.<\/p>\n

\"Panel\"<\/a>
(from left to right) Lawrence Silbart, UConn\u2019s Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives; Kazem Kazerounian, Dean of UConn School of Engineering; Quin Genee of Delft University; Michael Kokkolaras of McGill University; Andrea Alaimo of Kore University of Enna; and Jean Francois Rouchon of University of Toulouse (photo by William Weir)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kazerounian spoke to how the relationship between academia and industry has evolved on both sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard from many of you of how your industry has changed over the past few years,\u201d he said. \u201cI invite you to visit the School of Engineering. You will be impressed to see how the culture has changed and how the professors and faculty are working together\u00a0with industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

These partnerships\u00a0make sense, he said, as both sides have a lot to gain from the other. He pointed to UConn\u2019s partnerships with United Technologies Corporation, Comcast and Fraunhofer as some of the examples these collaborations<\/p>\n

\u201cWe both need to realize that we need each other. Industry helps us keep on the ground and helps us\u00a0stay very relevant,\u201d Kazerounian said.\u00a0 “At the same time, I think that industry\u00a0appreciates the profound knowledge and creativity\u00a0that is available at the universities.”<\/p>\n

Universities are allowed more time to develop new research, he said, and that has led to more innovations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about the large majority of technologies that have shaped society, they\u00a0have at one point or another come from universities,” he said.\u00a0“This is a fact that is very well recognized by \u00a0federal agencies and by the state of Connecticut.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Blumenthal\"<\/a>
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (photo by William Weir)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While introducing the panel, Silbart spoke of\u00a0UConn’s Technology Park, which will include\u00a0the Innovation Partnership Building, a $170 million building that includes $40 million in high-tech equipment, some of which will expand on the Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center at UConn. Also enhancing the university-industry relationship, he said, is\u00a0Next Generation Connecticut, the $1.7 billion, 10-year initiative. This, Silbart said,\u00a0will add faculty to UConn and increase the university\u2019s capacity for students.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really excited about that initiative because one of the things that it\u2019s going to do is expand the size of our engineering\u00a0school, and that\u2019s going to allow us to fuel the workforce, which is so badly needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other speakers at the event included Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Congressman Jim Himes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn’s many collaborations with industry were discussed at the recent Aerospace & Defense International Trade Summit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":224155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1866],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[40],"class_list":["post-19222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engr"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-08 17:57:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224163,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19222\/revisions\/224163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/224155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19222"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=19222"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=19222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}