Corporate Graduate Fellowship Guidelines
The Corporate Graduate Fellowship offers WPI faculty members a unique opportunity to interest potential research sponsors in their work. The fellowship terms are as follows:
Rationale
Corporate graduate fellowships are intended to introduce corporations to areas of research strength within the University. They provide corporations a window on new technologies; they provide the faculty member and graduate student the support to investigate new areas.
These fellowships carry reduced costs over sponsored research. There is no overhead charged to the corporation. They also carry reduced deliverables to the corporation: the University retains ownership of new developments.
Corporate graduate fellows work within a defined area of interest, but do not perform sponsored research; there are no defined deliverables on the contract. Technology developed during the research is the property of the University, not the corporation. There are no restrictions on publication of results.
Corporate Graduate Fellowships can and do result in much more significant relationships for individual faculty, departments and the University: sponsored research contracts, individual consulting projects, sponsorship of MQPs, improved recruiting, continuing education, graduate student sponsorship, etc.
Costs
Corporate Graduate Felllowships typically begin at $40,000 per academic year, and must cover full tuition and stipend.
Non-negotiable costs: full tuition for graduate student (often 18 credit hours); full stipend for graduate student (either 9 months or 12 months). See WPI Proposal Reference Sheet.
Negotiable costs: summer stipend for graduate student; professional development grant for faculty member/graduate student; equipment; travel; etc.
Logistics
The corporation and the faculty member agree upon a particular area of interest. The terms of the fellowship (description and budget) are approved by the faculty member, department chair and Provost's Office .
The faculty member, department chair, and provost approve the individual fellow.
The corporation signs a brief agreement to the terms of the fellowship.
The Provost's Office issues the formal appointment letter.
The Corporate Graduate Fellowship Guidelines provide text you might want to use with your prospective sponsor.
Are These Funds a Gift to WPI provides a system for evaluating whether a corporate grant is a gift. If you cannot answer "yes" to most of the questions therein, your corporate graduate fellowship is more likely sponsored research.
Disclaimer
We acknowledge that there will be special cases and special opportunities that do not conform to the terms as outlined above; any negotiations outside the terms of this model must be approved in advance by the Provost's Office.
Maintained by webmaster@wpi.eduLast modified: April 25, 2008 09:35:32