MEMBER FUND

Industrial Membership directly and indirectly supports research in all the areas below.

Member fees are unrestricted funds segregated and generally used by faculty and researchers in unfunded early exploratory areas; for short-term funding of student and postdoctoral researchers; for maintaining faculty and researcher collaboration, exposure, and currency through conference and seminar attendance; for expenditures related to Industrial Member engagement, services, and support; for semiannual and regional research reviews conducted for Industrial Members; and for salaries of researchers and BSAC staff. Industrial Member funds are, after common expenses are paid, distributed to each faculty co-Director for their University core research fund. For BSAC faculty co-Directors who maintain an active research agenda, this distribution is in part uniform and in part reflective of the wishes of the industrial members as expressed in a (confidential) annual membership distribution survey.

Federal and State research funds, together with annual contributions of
$70,000 per-Member (Regular/Basic Membership) or
$155,000 first project and $125,000 additional projects per-Member (Collaboration Membership), support the Center. The funds from BSAC Industry Membership fees comprise about 15%-20% of BSAC research funds, the bulk of which are from competitive federal grants.  But 100% of the research results are made available to Industrial Members, as they happen, before external disclosure or publication, and with favored IP access by members. This funding gain represents a large advantage in the research investment for Industrial Members.

New Membership Level: Collaboration Membership

Background
BSAC, In consideration of National Science Foundation recommendations and in order to more actively engage members in research collaboration, has established an optional membership level: Collaboration Membership.  Collaboration Members (CM) can distribute the large majority of their net membership fees to Supported Project(s) ("PROJECTS") of high interest and value to all parties: the Collaboration Member, the responsible BSAC Faculty, and the student researcher(s) supported by the CM.

Many I/UCRC's have multi-level memberships eg. silver, gold, platinum and almost all distribute funds to support specific projects rather than to support specific faculty.  The BSAC Collaboration Membership will provide individual members with higher ability to reward research efforts and specific faculty-defined PROJECT(S).  Such Collaboration Project(s) (PROJECTS) can be supported by one or more Collaborating Members.  This is expected to lead to higher likelihood of commercial relevance of BSAC fundamental research while still maintaining integrity and faculty control of BSAC research agenda and that of BSAC GSR's.  Unlike Sponsored Projects, the PROJECT(s) include no additional contract. PROJECT(S) may include support by multiple students.  Such supported projects offer to ALL industrial members, the same time-limited access currently provided to industrial members for any membership fee-funded project. (Nonexclusive paid up license for those who agree to share the costs of patenting.)

Summary:

1. Current level Industrial Members ("IM") shall remain as the basic membership as defined in current PA and all members will have these benefits and obligations without change.

2. Collaboration Members (CM) can individually or in concert with other CM's, designate one or more PROJECT(S) in consultation with a BSAC faculty co-director (host) who serves as Principal Investigator (PI) and who defines, staffs, advises, and oversees the PROJECT.

3. Each PROJECT comprises a best effort project statement of work defined by co-Director, such statement of work to be based on at least one GSR-equivalent year funding.

4. All research results of the Center are currently reported semiannually on a prepublication basis to all members regardless of who supports the research, and that would not change; PROJECTs would not be shielded from that reporting obligation.

5. Additional reporting, materials, visits, and prototypes, may be offered to CM by faculty co-Director where these are a consequence of the PROJECT execution.

6. Collaboration Membership Fees will be $155,000 annually.  University overhead costs described in Appendix B will be withheld prior to distributions, as will a $30,000 Common Allocation which shall be deposited to the general BSAC membership fund to support Center costs and annual distributions to faculty according to membership votes.  The remainder of the $155,000 shall be distributed to the membership research fund of the collaborating faculty co-Director to support the PROJECT.

7. Collaboration Members can optionally offer additional $125,000 Membership Fee in support of EACH ADDITIONAL PROJECT (if any) as may be defined by any BSAC faculty co-Director(s).  ALL of these ADDITIONAL Membership Fees (after reduction by University Administrative fees of Appendix B) will be distributed to the collaborating co-Director(s) to support the additional PROJECT(s).

8. IP: A Non Exclusive Paid Up License to all Membership Fee-funded inventions (including those from PROJECT) will be offered on a time-limited basis to ALL members (not just Collaboration Members) who agree to share the costs of patenting.  However if only one member so elects, the member and Berkeley Office of Technology Licensing are free to negotiate a royalty-bearing exclusive license to the Membership Fee-funded invention.  This IP treatment is already provided in the current PA (as required by NSF) for all Membership Fee-funded inventions; there are no special IP deliverables associated with Collaboration Membership or Collaboration Membership Supported Projects.  Members wanting other IP provisions such as sole time limited access to negotiate exclusive options or license, and contracted deliverables may use the vehicle of Sponsored Project with full campus overhead (59%) .