The Missouri S&T EMC Consortium is comprised of companies designing high-speed digital electronics that fund research in the EMC Laboratory at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. The benefits of the consortium structure for industry partners are:

• pooled resources
• reduced indirect costs
• a common legal agreement
• protection of company proprietary information
• timely research and reporting
• students and research scholars.

The consortium fee is $60,000 for a one-year membership that is renewable annually at the discretion of an industry partner. The funding from all industry partners is pooled to address fundamental EMC design issues that include PCB level EMI mechanisms, DC power bus design, routing through connectors, shielding enclosure design, differential signaling, low-cost filtering design at I/O connectors, full-vehicle EMI resulting from automotive electronics, IC packaging and layout, as well as development of an EMC advisor for PCB layout. Member companies share in all research results of the consortium, and are able to realize value beyond sponsorship of a single university project. Further, the university has reduced indirect costs for funding through the industry consortium that allows for the largest fraction of the funding to be devoted to accomplishing the research objectives.

The legal agreement for the EMC Consortium is common for all industry partners. The agreement provides industry partners a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use intellectual property developed by the university within the framework of the EMC Consortium. Company proprietary information, however, is strictly protected. All students sign an agreement to protect company proprietary information as part of their research assistantship in the laboratory, and non-disclosure agreements are also signed by the university with each company.

Research is reported on a quarterly basis through several research progress briefs in each of the focus areas. The reports are delivered through the EMC Consortium's password protected web page. In addition, there are two annual EMC Consortium meetings of all the industry partners at which research progress is reported. Research focus areas and directions are determined by the industry partners in conjunction with Missouri S&T EMC Laboratory faculty at the consortium meetings. In addition to research progress reporting, an email listserv comprised of Missouri S&T faculty and students, as well as industry engineers connected to the university research, allows for focused discussion on EMC issues and research directions.

A final benefit of the Missouri S&T EMC Consortium is early access to students and visiting scholars, who may be potential job candidates at a company. Industry engineers work closely with students in many cases to provide guidance and direction on projects, and have an opportunity to assess various student's skill level. Many graduates of the Missouri S&T EMC Laboratory are currently working for companies that are members of the Missouri S&T EMC Consortium.