I-Corps: Virtual Training, Evaluation, and Tracking of Program Impact

I-Corps计划旨在通过使研究商业化，并为科学家和工程师提供开发经济上可扩展的技术商业化模型的技能和经验，来增加NSF研究资金的经济和社会影响。计划参与者专注于学习和使用一个结构化的过程，该过程使他们能够收集用户和潜在客户的意见，以评估和定义从基础研究到具有商业潜力和社会效益的应用程序的转换路径。许多i-Corps团队继续组建公司，在包括健康、能源、材料、农业和信息技术在内的广泛领域开展业务。这一结构化的、可重复的项目吸引了一个全国性的机构和教师社区，以提供能够带来经济成果的培训。通过拟议的工作，VentureWell将支持对另外1500多名i-Corps个人参与者的培训。拟议中的努力还将产生更多的i-Corps教员，以增加教员队伍的多样性，加强项目教学，并在正式参与该项目之前和很久之后立即推进团队的系统数据收集和跟踪。NSF于2011年建立i-Corps培训计划，以培训NSF资助的研究人员如何评估其科学研究的商业潜力。VentureWell对计划结果的评估和对计划影响的系统、及时的跟踪对于规模上一致、有效、高保真的计划的运作以及对长期计划结果的衡量都是至关重要的。这项工作的核心知识价值是对该计划的影响--包括经济成果以及参与者的职业和研究成果--随时间的推移提供了洞察力。为了获得这一洞察力，VentureWell评估每个队列的交付情况，管理纵向结果调查，并独立跟踪风险结果以验证计划影响数据。有效跟踪成果并提供对以技术为基础的企业发展的洞察的流程和数据系统也是这项工作的产物。VentureWell将支持所有培训的转变，使其具有虚拟的提供选项，同时策划和传播教学学习，以使国家i-Corps教员能够进一步发展。VentureWell将继续在国家创新网络(NIN)内工作，传播有效的课程实践、成果和影响，使NIN能够有效地采用这些方法并将其制度化。这一支持将推动NSF推进这一高影响力计划的目标，通过NSF I-Corps在国家创新生态系统中发挥领导作用。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The I-Corps rogram aims to increase the economic and societal impact of NSF research funding by enabling the commercialization of research and by equipping scientists and engineers with skills and experience in developing economically-scalable models for technology commercialization. Program participants focus on learning and using a structured process that enables them to gather input from users and potential customers to evaluate and define a translational path from fundamental research into applications that have commercial potential and societal benefit. Many I-Corps teams go on to form companies operating in a broad range of sectors including health, energy, materials, agriculture, and information technology. This structured, repeatable program engages a national community of institutions and faculty to deliver training that results in economic outcomes. Through the proposed work, VentureWell will support the training of more than 1500 additional individual I-Corps participants. The proposed effort will also generate additional I-Corps faculty to increase the diversity of the faculty pool, enhance the program pedagogy, and advance the systematic data collection and tracking of teams immediately before and long after formal participation in the program.NSF established the I-Corps training program in 2011 to train NSF-funded researchers how to evaluate the commercial potential of their scientific research. VentureWell's evaluation of program outcomes and tracking of program impact in a systematic, timely way has been critical to the operation of a consistent, effective, high-fidelity program at scale, and to the measurement of long-term program results. The core intellectual merit of this work is the insight provided into the program's impact — both economic outcomes and participants' career and research outcomes — over time. To gain this insight, VentureWell evaluates the delivery of each cohort, administers a longitudinal outcomes survey, and tracks venture outcomes independently to verify program impact data. The processes and data systems that efficiently track outcomes and provide insights into the development of technology-based ventures are a product of this work as well. VentureWell will support the transformation of all training to have virtual offering options while curating and disseminating pedagogical learnings to enable further development of the national I-Corps faculty. VentureWell will continue to work within the National Innovation Network (NIN) to disseminate effective course practices, outcomes, and impact enabling the NIN to effectively adopt and institutionalize these approaches. This support will further NSF's goal of advancing this high-impact program providing leadership in the national innovation ecosystem through NSF I-Corps.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.