Aiming to accelerate the transformation of scientific discoveries into technologies that improve everyday lives, Princeton University announced Wednesday that it will lead a consortium of regional universities to form the Northeast hub of a new innovation network, the NSF Innovation Corps.
The hub, one of five announced this week, is supported by a $15 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
Princeton will be the principal institution in the new hub, with Rutgers University and the University of Delaware serving as partner institutions. New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rowan University (along with Lehigh University, Temple University and Delaware State University) will serve as affiliate universities. Organizers said they plan to expand by adding additional affiliates each year.
The goal of the program is to accelerate the economic impact of federally funded research — delivering benefits in health care, energy and the environment, computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced materials and other areas — while building skills and opportunities among researchers from all backgrounds, including those historically underrepresented in entrepreneurship.
With funding from NSF over five years, the hub will provide entrepreneurial training, mentoring and resources to enable researchers to form startup companies that translate laboratory discoveries into breakthrough products and services.
As the lead institution, Princeton will provide overall governance of the hub under the guidance of Dean for Research Pablo Debenedetti, the Class of 1950 Professor in Engineering and Applied Science and a professor of chemical and biological engineering.
Rodney Priestley, Princeton’s vice dean for innovation, and Julius Korley, director of entrepreneurship and strategic partnerships in the College of Engineering at Delaware, will serves as co-directors.
I-Corps Hub leadership
Co-Director Rodney Priestley: He is vice dean for innovation at Princeton University. Priestley is the co-founder of several startups based on research developed in his laboratory at Princeton, and leads Princeton Innovation, an initiative to broaden entrepreneurial activities based on university discoveries.
Co-Director Julius Korley: The director of entrepreneurship and strategic partnerships in the College of Engineering at the University of Delaware, Korley is an experienced entrepreneur and nationally certified National Institutes of Health I-Corps program instructor.
Lead Instructor Christina Pellicane: A nationally certified National Science Foundation I-Corps instructor for eight years, she previously managed the University of Delaware I-Corps Site as the founding director of commercialization, and earlier managed the NYC Regional I-Corps Node. She is the chief operating officer of a chemical tech startup spun out of the University of Delaware.
Faculty leadership
Faculty leadership at the principal and partner institutes will include:
- Jannette Carey, Princeton
- Dunbar Birnie, Rutgers University
- Daniel Freeman, Delaware
- Jeffrey Robinson, Rutgers
- Michael Ehrlich, New Jersey Institute of Technology
- Nidhal Bouaynaya, Rowan University
- John Coulter, Lehigh University
- Michael Casson, Delaware State University
- To be determined, Temple University
Princeton and the two partner institutions, Rutgers and Delaware, will assemble entrepreneurial instructors for training programs, recruit mentors and offer entrepreneurial programming for teams of scientists who apply to participate with the goal of transitioning a technology into the marketplace.
The hub will employ the NSF I-Corps entrepreneurship training approach, which focuses on understanding the needs of potential customers, firsthand exploration of industrial processes and practices, and confronting the challenges of creating successful ventures based on scientific discoveries.
The I-Corps program is based on the “lean startup” methodology, in which innovators rapidly iterate on their products and business plans based on customer feedback and market needs. The new hubs will extend the capability of the NSF I-Corps program, which started a decade ago, to grow the societal and economic benefits arising from federally funded research in science and engineering.
Princeton President Chris Eisgruber said the school is eager to take on the challenge.
“Princeton is excited to lead this initiative to develop the talent and dynamism of our region’s researchers,” he said. “I am especially pleased that the hub will assist those who historically have faced barriers to opportunity and expand the societal impact of new discoveries and innovations.”
Rutgers President Jonathan Holloway said the consortium should spur innovation in areas it is needed most.
“Rutgers is excited to partner in forming this hub, which speaks both to our region’s excellence in scientific research focused on our nation’s most urgent challenges and to its incredible diversity,” he said. “This will help us provide opportunity to a new generation of researchers and spur growth in our innovation ecosystem.”
Organizers say the hub will make use of its proximity to “deep tech industries” that revolve around fundamental discoveries in areas such as health care and pharmaceuticals, energy, the environment, earth- and water-friendly “green and blue” technologies, financial technologies, agriculture, communications and digital information.
The hub will build on the robust industrial and government relationships of its academic institutions to develop a network of cross-sector partnerships that will leverage the investment of federal research dollars in the region’s universities.
Princeton and the partner and affiliate universities are home to numerous industry-funded research centers and entrepreneurial business accelerators and incubators. Three of the hub universities (Rutgers, Delaware and NJIT) were funded previously by NSF as I-Corps sites providing training to hundreds of teams of entrepreneurs.
The organizers said the hub will demonstrate its commitment to inclusivity and diversity by training the next generation of innovators from all backgrounds.
Activities that promote diversity include building a mentor network of successful and diverse individuals throughout the startup lifecycle, ensuring that hub instructors and mentors reflect the diversity of the region, and enhancing efforts to recruit participants belonging to groups historically underrepresented in entrepreneurship.
Affiliate institution Delaware State, a historically Black university, will co-lead the hub’s efforts to establish new partnerships with minority-serving institutions.
