This award is to the University of New Orleans to support the activity described below for 24 months. The proposal was submitted in response to the Partnerships for Innovation Program Solicitation (NSF-04556).
Partners The partners include University of New Orleans (Lead Institution), Tulane University, Department of the Navy-SPAWAR, Department of the Navy-Stennis, NASA-Stennis, Louisiana Department of Economic Development, City of New Orleans, Jefferson Parrish, Jefferson Parrish Economic Development Commission, Louisiana Technology Council, MetroVision, Idea Village, Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, NVE, Parallel Synthesis Technologies, g.c.r.&Associates, Resurgent Technologies, Science & Engineering Associates, Solutient, Xavier University, Louisiana State University, and Louisiana Tech.
The primary objectives are: The University of New Orleans proposes the creation of a Center For Innovation (CFI) as an effective way to facilitate the transformation of research knowledge and ideas into innovations that create new business opportunities in Southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region. The CFI will bring together scientists with representatives of private businesses, government agencies, and financiers to explore and develop business opportunities. CFI will meet the goals of the Partnership for Innovation by facilitating the transformation of knowledge emerging from researchers into innovations that create new wealth, build strong local, regional and national economies and improve the national well being. The strength of this proposal rests primarily on the novel program. The center will proactively search out faculty with promising ideas for emerging technologies using a network of college representatives and the staff in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. Faculty with emerging technology ideas that are judged to have a high potential for commercialization will be partnered with an Entrepreneurial advisor who will take an active role in educating the faculty member on the importance of protecting intellectual property and working with the faculty member on assessing the potential marketability of their product. Faculty will then be connected with the appropriate partners in the business community. Thus, the Center For Innovation will serve as the conduit for connecting the academic community with these public/private partners to help turn innovations into economically beneficial projects. Novel ideas in the proposal include combining reporting of IP disclosures across multiple universities, which will increase the likelihood of visibility of innovations.
Potential Economic Impact Growing the businesses in the area through collaborative research will provide an economic benefit to the area.
The intellectual merit of the project is the recognition of a need for wealth creation and economic development. This solution, creating a center, is a long-term far-reaching plan to answer the need for new and different jobs. University of New Orleans seeks to create an atmosphere of learning, collaboration, and commercialization. The plan has a variety of partners with similar goals. This proposal provides a vehicle for not only moving university innovations to the market but also partnering with businesses to link appropriate faculty research personnel to business interests.
The broader impacts of the activity concentrate on a Gulf Coast Region initiative. There is a concern for fellow institutions in the area facing similar problems. This is important because in the future when other institutions want to start similar centers there will be a helpful voice from a cooperative university. University of New Orleans does seek to create a template to help other universities create similar organizations for their regions. Also the program goes out of its way to address the inclusion of minority students in the project, which will be easy because of their location.
