University of Maryland, College Park and two other East Coast schools will share $3.75 million from the National Science Foundation to develop a regional hub for turning university research into marketable products and services.
University of Maryland will be working with George Washington University and Virginia Tech to create an Innovation Corps for the mid-Atlantic region. The initiative will aim to draw out the best research ideas from students and faculty members and bring them to the commercial market.
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The partnership with George Washington and Virginia Tech is the university’s most recent effort to increase the number of new companies launched from university research. College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore recently merged their tech transfer offices to create UM Ventures. The initiative is intended to increase the number of new companies that are launched out of researcher ideas by seeking out promising ideas rather than waiting for professors to come forward.
The National Science Foundation program entails researchers participating in a seven-week program that teaches about key aspects of entrepreneurship like talking to potential customers, using feedback to shape the product or service development, building prototypes and creating scalable business models.
Up to 100 research teams from across the country will be selected to participate in the Mid-Atlantic Innovation Corps. The National Science Foundation and the program’s leadership would each get to choose up to 50 research groups to participate in the program.
The project is one of three innovation corps programs the National Science Foundation announced Feb. 22, with a total of $11.2 million in funding. Others will be based in New York and California. The foundation has previously established innovation programs at Georgia Tech and University of Michigan. The programs are part of the foundation’s effort to create a National Innovation Network that will push for bringing more university research to the commercial market.
