A collaboration between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health will give NIH-funded researchers training to help them evaluate their scientific discoveries for commercial potential, with the aim of accelerating biomedical innovations into applied health technologies.
I-Corps at NIH is a pilot of the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program specially tailored for biomedical research. Academic researchers and entrepreneurs with Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) Phase I awards – awards that establish feasibility of proof of concept for commercializable technology – from participating NIH institutes will be eligible to apply to I-Corps at NIH. NIH will begin outreach to the small business research community with a June 25 program briefing at the 2014 BIO International Convention in San Diego, and a webinar on July 2.