Sponsoring the Embedded Signal Processing Laboratory

The Embedded Signal Processing Laboratory, which is directed by Prof. Brian L. Evans, relies heavily on sponsorship from industry. Industry is key in identifying critical design problems in reducing development cycles, improving product quality, and lowering cost. Through this exposure, students can strengthen and find practical applications for their research. Industry benefits by having access to students who are intimately familiar with the problems they are trying to solve and the technologies they are using to do it.

Three levels of industrial sponsorship are common:

Unrestricted Gift

For an unrestricted gift, The University waives overhead charges. Checks are made out to "The University of Texas". Accompanying the check should be a cover letter:

Gift cover letter template

In the gift cover letter template, please fill in the parts in red.

A no-strings-attached gift does not come with the promise or expectation of delivery of research results exclusively to the affiliate; instead, the investigator has the widest latitude to make results available to the general public and can certainly let the affiliate know when such public releases occur. Any intellectual property developed would be governed by the UT System Policy on Intellectual Property as well as any other policies of UT Austin and UT System and laws of The State of Texas.

The cost of supporting a graduate student on no-strings-attached gift for the fall/spring semesters (9 months) is $63,000. This cost includes salary, tuition and fees, and associated research costs (travel, equipment, publication, and so forth). A detailed breakdown of these costs is available. Gift funding may be tax deductible.

University Corporate Affiliate Funding

UT Austin has a standard agreement for a company to join as a corporate affiliate of a research center at UT Austin. Prof. Evans is part of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG) which currently has more than 10 corporate affiliates. WNCG has more than 20 faculty, 4 staff and 150 graduate students.

Here are some of the specific benefits for WNCG corporate affiliates:

The University waives overhead fees for University Corporate Affiliate Agreements. Corporate Affiliate funding does not come with the promise or expectation of delivery of research results exclusively to the affiliate; instead, the investigator has the widest latitude to make results available to the general public and can certainly let the affiliate know when such public releases occur. Any intellectual property developed would be governed by the UT System Policy on Intellectual Property as well as any other policies of UT Austin and UT System and laws of The State of Texas.

Contracted Research

For a contract, the terms of a contract must comply with guidelines of The University of Texas at Austin, The University of Texas System, and The State of Texas. This compliance can take up several months to negotiate, and it is possible that the two sides never reach terms. The cost for contracted research (including overhead) for two half-time graduate research assistants plus two months of faculty salary and fringe benefits, plus university overhead, is roughly $215,000 per year. A detailed breakdown of these costs is available. Contracted research funding is not tax deductible.

Contact

The primary contact for sponsorship issues is:

Prof. Brian L. Evans
UT Austin WNCG
2501 Speedway Stop C0806
Austin, TX 78712-1687 USA

E-mail: bevans@ece.utexas.edu
Web: http://users.ece.utexas.edu/~bevans


Last updated 12/12/23. Send comments to bevans@ece.utexas.edu.