Enhancing NSF's Impact on STEM Translation and Commercialization Success

该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一个全面的创业培训计划，为参与者提供科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）翻译和商业化成功所需的知识和技能。随着全球经济竞争越来越多地由创新驱动，各级政府都在积极寻求加强工业和社会部门创新的途径。其中积极寻求的是促进基于大学和研究机构开发的早期技术的高增长初创企业。然而，大学里的教师和学生研究人员往往缺乏知识和技能来启动创业，将他们的技术商业化。像I-Corps项目这样的项目已经被证明是确定技术的商业利益和商业可行性的一个很好的起点，但数据显示，I-Corps参与者缺乏创业的基本知识和信心，这可能会阻碍创业的形成和未来的创业成功。创业本身就是高风险的，而深科技创业公司的失败率甚至更高。拟议的项目将为研究人员提供创业培训和指导，超越I-Corps培训，为学术研究人员提供创业所需的信息和信心，使他们能够将自己的技术商业化。此外，拟议的程序可能有助于降低启动失败率。最初的目标是促进大学开发的技术的翻译和商业化，特别是在缺乏这些资源的地区，并将该计划扩大到政府资助的小企业创新研究（SBIR）和小企业技术转让（STTR）公司，以及社区中开发商业应用技术的其他公司，以加强美国的经济竞争力。这个项目的智力价值是基于一个创业培训计划的发展，以加强和补充国家科学基金会目前的I-Corps计划。拟议的计划建立并扩展了I-Corps计划，该计划使用客户发现过程来验证客户细分和价值主张，并引入商业模型画布的其他方面，以提供启动初创企业以实现技术商业化所需的知识和技能。拟议的项目旨在在I-Corps培训之前和之后提供额外的创业培训。课程涵盖的主题包括验证商业模式、组建创始团队、商业注册、知识产权许可和保护、资金来源、向投资者推销以及为创业公司的成长和退出策略做准备。此外，该项目将包括一个加速器组件，为成功完成培训的胚胎阶段公司提供额外的支持服务，包括针对特定行业的指导和为开发和测试最低可行产品的额外研究提供资金。拟议的计划包括一项概念验证研究，该研究将使用准实验设计对多个比较组进行现场测试，并使用短期、中期和长期间隔的客观和主观测量来影响结果指标。该项目可能有助于提高大学开发的技术的翻译和商业化，推动未来创业培训的研究，并有助于对创业成功的先决条件的实证理解的发展。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is the development of a comprehensive entrepreneurship training program to equip participants with the knowledge and skill set needed for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) translation and commercialization success. As global economic competition becomes increasingly innovation-driven, governments at all levels are intensely searching for ways to increase innovation across industry and societal sectors. Among those being actively pursued is promoting high-growth startups based on early-stage technologies developed at universities and research institutions. However, faculty and student researchers at universities often lack the knowledge and skill set to launch a startup business to commercialize their technology. Programs such as the I-Corps Program have proven to be an excellent starting point to determine commercial interest and commercial viability of the technology, but data show that I-Corps participants lack fundamental knowledge and confidence on starting a business, which may inhibit startup formation and future startup success. Startups are inherently high-risk, and failure rates among deep technology startups are even higher. The proposed program will provide researchers with entrepreneurial training and mentoring that goes beyond I-Corps training to give academic researchers the information and confidence they need to launch a startup to commercialize their technology. In addition, the proposed program may help reduce startup failure rates. The initial goal is to facilitate translation and commercialization of university-developed technologies, especially in regions of the country that lack these resources, and to expand the program to government-funded Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) companies, and to others in the community developing technologies for commercial applications, strengthening U.S. economic competitiveness.The intellectual merit of this project is based on the development of an entrepreneurial training program to enhance and supplement NSF’s current I-Corps Program. The proposed program builds on and extends the I-Corps Program, which uses the customer discovery process to validate customer segments and value propositions as well as introduces other aspects of the Business Model Canvas, to provide the knowledge and skills needed to launch a startup business to commercialize the technology. The proposed program is designed to provide additional entrepreneurial training both before and after I-Corps training. The topics covered will include validating the business model, founding team formation, business registration, intellectual property licensing and protection, sources of capital, pitching to investors, and preparing for startup growth and exit strategies. In addition, the project will include an accelerator component to provide embryonic-stage companies that have successfully completed training with additional support services including industry-specific mentoring and funds for additional research to develop and test a minimum viable product. The proposed plan includes a proof-of-concept study that will be conducted to field test the program’s effectiveness using a quasi-experimental design on multiple comparison groups and impact outcome indicators using both objective and subjective measures at short, medium, and longer-term intervals. This program may help to increase translation and commercialization of university-developed technologies as well as advance future research on entrepreneurship training and contribute to the development of an evidence-based understanding of the antecedents of startup success.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.