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

国家大学生发明家和创新者联盟(NCIIA)将在其针对国家科学基金会(NSF)资助的PI的i-Corps计划的扩大的基础上，使用急切的资金来试验和评估针对生命科学研究人员的i-Corps新课程的有效性。该项目将研究利用国家科学基金会-S国家创新网络的潜力，以帮助支持由国家科学基金会和美国国立卫生研究院(NIH)资助的SBIR PI的培训。拟议的EIGER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10周的生命科学课程的工作；进行评估研究，在交付期间完善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，从而加快有益于社会的新技术和发现的商业化。为了让美国实现其基础研究投资的新潜力，并保持在STEM创新方面的世界领先地位，研究人员需要接受正规培训，以帮助他们评估他们的发现和发明是否能够切实转化为应用程序并最终实现商业化。

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.