The University of Chicago’s Innovation Fund gives private individuals, foundations, and corporations a unique opportunity to seed the next wave of potentially game-changing innovation.
Discoveries made at US research universities have propelled many of the products that shape the world in which we live. But many don’t get the chance to prove themselves, for no better reason than that their inventors lack the time and knowledge to convert their bright idea into a product prototype, or because such work falls outside the scope of their research grants. It’s called the “valley of death”—the chasm between a promising scientific discovery and a marketable prototype that can attract the external funding needed to bring it to market.
The Innovation Fund is designed expressly to bridge the valley of death by providing a pool of $10 million to $20 million to fund the work needed to assess the commercial viability of early-stage discoveries.
Innovation Fund awards, typically between $25,000 and $100,000, will be made to ten or more projects a year by an external panel of reviewers selected for their expertise in assessing early stage technology.
The Innovation Fund will provide no financial returns for donors, but they will receive:
- a sneak peek into early-stage scientific discovery
- access to the intellectual firepower of a leading global academic research center
- an opportunity to invest in the next generation of scientific entrepreneurs
The Innovation Fund is part of an exciting new chapter in the evolution of one of the world’s foremost research institutions. It forms a central pillar of Chicago Science, a strategic initiative to cement the University of Chicago’s leadership in today’s critical scientific fields and address the key challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Core to this is a commitment to translating groundbreaking scientific discoveries into high impact products.
To find out more about the Innovation Fund, contact Brian Ibsen at 773.834.8268 or bibsen@mcdmail.uchicago.edu, or Valerie Conn at 773.702.8939 or vconn@uchicago.edu.