I-Corps EAGER: Piloting and Evaluating a new Life Sciences Curriculum for I-Corps Training

国家大学发明家和创新者联盟（NCIIA）将在其为国家科学基金会（NSF）资助的pi扩大I-Corps项目规模的基础上，利用EAGER基金对面向生命科学研究人员的I-Corps新课程进行试点和评估。该项目将研究利用国家科学基金的潜力。美国国家科学基金会（NSF）和美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）资助了美国国家创新网络，以帮助支持SBIR pi的培训。拟议的EAGER项目有两个目标：为教学大纲设计新的内容，并管理向科学家和工程师提供为期十周的生命科学课程；并进行评估研究，在交付过程中完善I-Corps课程，并评估其在NSF/NIH受资助者中更广泛实施的价值和潜力。拟议的培训将使研究人员能够避免通常导致初创企业失败的许多陷阱，从而加速有利于社会的新技术和新发现的商业化。为了让美国实现其基础研究投资的新生潜力，并在STEM创新方面保持世界领先地位，研究人员需要接受正式培训，帮助他们评估他们的发现和发明是否可以实际转化为应用并最终实现商业化。

The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) will build upon its scale-up of the I-Corps program for National Science Foundation (NSF) funded PIs and use EAGER funds to pilot and evaluate the efficacy of a new I-Corps curriculum for researchers in the life sciences. The project will study the potential for leveraging NSF?s National Innovation Network to help support the training of SBIR PIs funded by NSF and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The proposed EAGER project has two goals: to design new content for a syllabus and manage the delivery of a ten-week Life Sciences curriculum to scientists and engineers; and to conduct evaluation studies that refine the I-Corps curriculum during delivery and assess its value and potential for broader implementation among NSF/NIH grantees. The proposed training will enable researchers to avoid many of the pitfalls that commonly cause start-up enterprises to fail, thus accelerating the commercialization of new technologies and discoveries that benefit society. In order for the U.S. to realize the nascent potential of its investments in basic research and remain a world leader in STEM innovation, researchers need formal training that helps them evaluate whether their discoveries and inventions can realistically be translated into applications and eventual commercialization.