Cleveland Clinic seeks to establish a National Science Foundation I-Corps Hub in collaboration with the recently established NIH Center for Accelerated Innovations at Cleveland Clinic (NCAI-CC), which is supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health are leveraging the I-Corps and NCAI Programs to enhance the education and mentoring of researchers, clinicians, and developers, with the goal of moving technologies faster and more effectively to the market so they may benefit patients. The commercialization of life sciences technologies requires consideration of specific needs, which are not addressed in "general" entrepreneurship and innovation education. This project will help fill the associated gaps in the curriculum augmentation and delivery. Cleveland Clinic will deliver the I-Corps training program with a special focus on life sciences technologies, including diagnostics, devices, therapeutics, and health care information management. The I-Corps-CC team is uniquely positioned to create and implement an I-Corps life sciences curriculum by leveraging its well-established and successful biomedical technology commercialization organization. The project holds considerable promise for broad implementation of the I-Corps curriculum across different stages in the maturation of IP development. The ultimate goal of the program is to make investigators and clinicians more effective innovators, which will ultimately result in new products and solutions that can benefit millions of patients. The I-Corps-CC research and education will be specifically tailored to meet the needs of life sciences innovators and provide intellectual contributions to NSF's I-Corps program's National Innovation Network.
The establishment of an I-Corps Hub at Cleveland Clinic will help educate investigators to use the Lean Launchpad Business Model in exploring intellectual property that is specifically tailored to life sciences. The objectives of the program will be: 1) to establish and implement an I-Corps program curriculum at Cleveland Clinic (I-Corps-CC) to enhance the entrepreneurial and innovations skills of clinicians and life science researchers at the institution; and 2) to integrate the I-Corps program with the skills development mission and activities of the NCAI-CC program. The I-Corps Hub will initially be focused as a single institution training program at Cleveland Clinic; directing skills development and education to the large organization of over 200 principal investigators and their staffs in life science research at the institution, the majority of which have been funded by NSF/NIH. The I-Corps training methodology enhanced for life sciences technologies will: add an important element to the educational resources being offered by Cleveland Clinic, support the skills and education program of the NCAI, and be made available to the broader NSF I-Corps community.
