I-Corps: Continuation and Expansion of Training and Evaluation Support

I-Corps计划旨在通过促进实验室技术的转化和实现商业化来增加NSF研究资金和其他研究资金的经济和社会影响。此外，i-Corps计划旨在开始让科学家和工程师掌握开发经济上可扩展的商业模式以实现技术商业化的技能和经验。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。大约50%的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将支持另外2700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，增强项目教学，并推进对立即参与该项目的团队的系统数据收集和跟踪。NSF于2011年建立了i-Corps创业培训计划，以培训NSF资助的和其他研究人员如何评估其科学和工程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评估每个队列的教学交付情况，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。通过从2024财年开始到2026财年结束的拟议工作，VentureWell将支持国家i-Corps计划和战胜困难训练营的虚拟培训，同时促进教学学习的策划和传播，以使国家i-Corps教官能够进一步发展。VentureWell将继续促进国家创新网络(NIN)内的工作，以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。这一支持将进一步推动NSF的目标，即推动i-Corps作为一个基础性的企业家培训计划，接触到全国各地的创新者。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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 program aims to increase the economic and societal impact of NSF research funding and other research funding by facilitating translation of technologies from the laboratory and enabling commercialization. In addition, the I-Corps Program is designed to begin to equip scientists and engineers with skills and experience in developing economically scalable business 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. Approximately 50% of 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 2700 additional individual I-Corps participants. The proposed effort also will generate additional I-Corps instructors to increase the diversity of the faculty pool, enhance the program pedagogy, and advance the systematic data collection and tracking of teams immediately participating in the program.NSF established the I-Corps entrepreneurial training program in 2011 to train NSF-funded and other researchers how to evaluate the commercial potential of their scientific research in science and engineering. 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 instructional 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. Through the work proposed starting in FY 2024 and ending in FY 2026, VentureWell will support the virtual training of the National I-Corps Program and the Beat-the-Odds Boot Camp while facilitating the curation and dissemination of the pedagogical learnings to enable further development of the National I-Corps instructors. VentureWell will continue to facilitate 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 I-Corps as a foundational entrepreneur training program to reach innovators across the country.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.