In order to address the eligibility issue, that would be a significant advancement forward, allowing colleges the opportunity to actually lead research opportunities. As a case in point, a lot of research today has major partnership and collaboration grants with universities being the lead. Quite frankly, for this committee and your deliberations, colleges are very often seen as simply a checkbox to be achieved in order for the university to get the grant. We have a lot more to bring to the table. In fact, given the applied nature of the research we do, industry very often approaches us first. Then we're finding a university partner.
Can the committee and the federal funding model rethink the relationship so that colleges can be the lead and universities be the partner? It's the colleges that have been approached by industry to solve a real problem, not an investigator-led problem. That would be a very practical solution.