Enhancing NSF's Impact on STEM Translation and Commercialization Success

增强 NSF 对 STEM 转化和商业化成功的影响

• 批准号: 2337688
• 负责人: Joseph Cheng
• 金额: $ 498.58万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-15 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2337688&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Enhancing; NSF; Impact; STEM; Translation

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.

该项目更广泛的影响/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以创新为驱动力，各级政府都在积极探索如何提高行业和社会部门的创新能力。其中一个积极追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公司。 然而，大学的教师和学生研究人员往往缺乏知识和技能，无法启动创业公司，将他们的技术商业化。 I-Corps计划等计划已被证明是确定该技术的商业利益和商业可行性的绝佳起点，但数据显示，I-Corps参与者缺乏创业的基本知识和信心，这可能会抑制初创企业的形成和未来的创业成功。 创业公司本来就是高风险的，深度技术创业公司的失败率更高。 拟议的计划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启动创业公司将其技术商业化所需的信息和信心。 此外，拟议的计划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，特别是在该国缺乏这些资源的地区，并将该计划扩展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人。加强美国的经济竞争力。该项目的智力价值是基于企业家培训计划的发展，以加强和补充NSF目前的I-Corps计划。 拟议的计划建立在I-Corps计划的基础上，并对其进行了扩展，该计划使用客户发现流程来验证客户细分和价值主张，并介绍了商业模式画布的其他方面，以提供启动创业所需的知识和技能，从而将技术商业化。 拟议的方案旨在在I-Corps培训之前和之后提供额外的创业培训。所涵盖的主题将包括验证商业模式，创始团队的形成，企业注册，知识产权许可和保护，资本来源，向投资者推销，以及为创业公司的增长和退出战略做准备。此外，该项目将包括一个加速器组件，为已成功完成培训的胚胎阶段公司提供额外的支持服务，包括特定行业的指导和资金，用于开发和测试最低可行产品的额外研究。 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和影响结果指标进行实地测试，并在短期，中期和长期间隔内使用客观和主观措施。 该项目有助于提高大学开发的技术的转化和商业化，推进未来的创业培训研究，并有助于发展对创业成功的先决条件的循证理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。