The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) will build upon its scale-up of the I-Corps program for National Science Foundation (NSF) funded PIs and use EAGER funds to pilot and evaluate the efficacy of a new I-Corps curriculum for researchers in the life sciences. The project will study the potential for leveraging NSF?s National Innovation Network to help support the training of SBIR PIs funded by NSF and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The proposed EAGER project has two goals: to design new content for a syllabus and manage the delivery of a ten-week Life Sciences curriculum to scientists and engineers; and to conduct evaluation studies that refine the I-Corps curriculum during delivery and assess its value and potential for broader implementation among NSF/NIH grantees.
The proposed training will enable researchers to avoid many of the pitfalls that commonly cause start-up enterprises to fail, thus accelerating the commercialization of new technologies and discoveries that benefit society. In order for the U.S. to realize the nascent potential of its investments in basic research and remain a world leader in STEM innovation, researchers need formal training that helps them evaluate whether their discoveries and inventions can realistically be translated into applications and eventual commercialization.
