Volkswagen Sets Up Shop in Tennessee

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Rickey McCallum: So, what are research parks? Why do we need them? What makes collaboration between educational institutions, public entities, and private companies so powerful and finding innovative, adaptive, and real-world solutions? This is the story of the University of Tennessee Research Park, and it's going to talk about that exact thing. So, welcome to the Research Park Chronicles with Rickey McCallum.

Rickey McCallum: Hello and welcome to the very first episode of Research Park Chronicles. I’m your host Rickey McCallum and throughout this podcast, I’m going to take you on a journey through the gateway to collaboration. We’re going to talk about why university research parks are so integral to innovation, how the UT Research Park came about here in Knoxville, Tennessee, and what it’s already accomplished. And in future episodes, we’ll dive in even more to future projects within the park, developments between Volkswagen, which is the power behind the research park in UT, and what research parks mean in the future of scientific discovery, technologies, economies, and consumers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here, so let’s start from the beginning. I know you’re all dying to know, “Rickey, what exactly is a research park, anyway?” Well, I’m glad you asked. University research parks are the physical locations developed and designed to foster an environment of collaboration between universities, the public and private sectors, and the federal research laboratories. In the case of the UT Research Park, the goal is simple: to become a bridge between science and technology companies and the best up-and-coming scientific minds at the University of Tennessee.

These are places established to enable a free flow of ideas between R&D institutes, universities, and research labs in order to solve real-world problems with innovation and cutting-edge solutions. And Volkswagen, the powerhouse German car manufacturer known for leading the industry in innovative developments, wanted to create one right here in little old Knoxville, Tennessee. But why? The answer to that question lies 112 miles south of Knoxville. In 2008, Chattanooga, Tennessee, came into focus when VW chose that scenic southern city as the location of its first U.S. auto plant since the closure of the Westmoreland Assembly Plant in Pennsylvania back in 1988. Now, the Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly plant builds the US-specific VW Passat and the VW Atlas.

With their own assembly plant located just over a hundred miles away, the well-established research-centric UT Knoxville at hand, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory just down the road, how could Knoxville not be the perfect location for researching composite materials?

Of course, I say that as if it makes complete sense, but when I first began researching this podcast and reading about the UT Research Park, all I could think of is, why Knoxville and how did we get so lucky?

But I had a conversation with my good friend of mine, Dr. Leon Tolbert, who works in the electrical engineering and computer science department at the University of Tennessee, and he gave me a little backstory that will put it all of this into perspective.

Dr. Leon Tolbert: So, when Volkswagen first built their plant in Chattanooga, they came to the University of Tennessee—and that was probably more than 10 years ago—and wanted to engage the university because they were looking at hiring graduates of our university, they were looking at working with faculty, and they donated, I think, a pretty substantial sum of money at that time to fund research in engineering. And so, the College of Engineering then gave out grants to faculty who were doing work related to electric vehicles and, I believe, got a couple of those grants, and worked with students on things related to power electronics for electric vehicles. But then, I guess things just kind of coasted along there for a few years, and then, more recently, a couple of years ago, they approached again wanting deeper involvement, and came and looked at the work we were doing already related to electric vehicles, visited our department several times, and then approached us about establishing a Volkswagen fellowship for graduate students, and in that fellowship, they would hire the students to work full-time at Volkswagen while they were pursuing their PhD. And this kind of follows the model in Europe where a lot of the PhD students basically are full-time employees of companies, but they're pursuing a PhD, and they wanted to do something similar here at UT.

Rickey McCallum: And they did just that. VW approached UT and created an incredible program for PhD students to work full time on research projects that directly impact real-world struggles. Now, when these students complete this program, they're going to be ready and have applicable real-world experience to show for all their hard work, and have a foundation of research already in place. So, Dr. Hendrik Mainka, project manager and team lead of UT’s Innovation Hub, told us a little bit more about the PhD program.

Dr. Hendrik Mainka: Yeah, I think that the PhD program probably is pretty unique for the US. I mean, we have a PhD program in Germany at our headquarters where, always, the PhD students are Volkswagen employees. I think that's a huge one, too, a lot of the PhD fellows here and in the US, so PhD fellows you will talk to later, they are all Volkswagen employees, and we’re really working with them as our people to make sure we having this close connection, not only to the university, also for our students to really real-life problems, you know? You're working on a wireless power transfer, for example, that's something we want to see the next years being implemented in our cars. 

And so your PhD research really has a high impact. Same with the research on sizing to optimize our composite parts. That's really applied research on a PhD level, which really helps the company moving forward with the innovations, and also having the students working on real-life problems. I think that's really unique and hopefully, it's beneficial for both sides.

Rickey McCallum: It all already sounds pretty great right? A world-renowned, industry-leading auto manufacturer choosing our Knoxville, Tennessee university to start exploring composite materials for more affordable, energy-efficient vehicles we can make right here in the same state.

Yeah, it’s really awesome, and it gets better. VW didn’t just stop at the UT Research Park. In 2019 they announced that they wanted to use Knoxville as the site of their very first North American Innovation Hub. Now, in a partnership between Volkswagen, UT, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Innovation Hub will be an extension, or rather an expansion of the Research Park, and it will further develop research opportunities for UT doctoral students with a focus on electrical engineering and developing lighter components for composite materials.

And those opportunities have already begun with the v...