Become a Member

An annual membership fee allows industry partners to reap the benefits of CAC's full research program. CAC members from industry and government collaborate with and advise researchers to create a diverse, industry-relevant program that spans many different areas of work. Terms of membership are governed by a simple Center-wide membership agreement and associated bylaws through which activities are directed by the members themselves by direct participation on an advisory board that selects projects and activities of the Center.

Joining is as simple as filling out the Membership Agreement, selecting the desired number of memberships and any auxiliary research you may want to pursue, and contacting us to send it in. If you would like additional information about the benefits of joining the CAC@TTU, please visit the Benefits of Membership page.

To learn more about how to become a member, please contact the site director Alan Sill at alan.sill@ttu.edu.

Membership Fees

Per calendar year:

• Base membership: $50,000/year - All members effective Jan 2017
• Executive membership: $100,000/year and up - All members effective Jan 2017

All details for payment and terms are spelled out in the Membership Agreement. Please contact us, if you find the need further information.

More Information on Center Funding

Joining the Center through any site puts you on the Industry Advisory Board (IAB) for the entire Center, which selects and approves research projects. Members who join at the Executive level (two memberships) or higher are allowed twice the number of votes.

Per National Science Foundation I/UCEC program guidelines, industry and government contributions in the form of annual CAC memberships, coupled with baseline funds from NSF and university matching funds, directly support the Center's expenses for personnel, equipment, travel, and supplies. A single membership is a minimum for voting, and multiple memberships are possible.

Memberships funds go directly to support the Center's graduate students and faculty supervision for research. Additionally, the National Science Foundation and university provide funds and cost-sharing to pay for administrative costs of operation, ensuring that these costs are covered separately and do not have to come out of membership fees.

The work of the Center is carried out in the form of projects. Project selection is done by the IAB through a voting process. Projects can be funded through a single membership, but joint projects are encouraged by combining votes from multiple members to support projects with budgets that exceed individual membership amounts. Additional funding beyond memberships may also be supplied by member companies or organizations to speed up selected research.

For special projects, it is also possible for any Center member to request to negotiate private research on a one-on-one basis beyond the projects funded by the membership fees. This opportunity is only available to member companies or organizations in good standing with existing memberships in the Center.

Each regular membership is leveraged by the combined number of Center memberships, therefore multiplying its total value by a large factor. With present membership levels, for example, a single membership represents only a few percents of the total projected annual budget of the CAC, but yields access to the full range of Center activities, thus producing a research program at modest cost to your organization that would be much more expensive to pursue on your own using only internal resources.

You also gain access to the state-of-the-art facilities and software environment provided by the Center, which is fully up to date with current best practices and would be much more expensive for your organization to produce on its own. Thus membership in the CAC represents extraordinary value that will accelerate your organization's progress towards its defined goals.