New Initiatives in Support of Economic Development
The METACyt Economic Development Committee has developed several new funding opportunities geared toward supporting the development of new companies and intellectual property that correspond with the broad interests of the METACyt Initiative. This expansion is intended to support faculty in the very early stages of company formation, or in the difficult stages of IP validation. These opportunities were created after extensive dicussions with IU faculty, administrators and Indiana-based venture capitalists.
Faculty with an interest in these initiatives should contact Ted Widlanski for an initial discussion concerning the suitability of their projects for further consideration. The amounts of these awards will be negotiable and will be determined based on consideration of projects on an individual basis, but will generally be relatively modest. Faculty with requests that fall outside these areas are still encouraged to discuss the possibility for ad hoc funding with Dr. Widlanski. This initiative is NOT a replacement for existing METACyt funding, but a specific effort to facilitate the formation of new companies based on intellectual property developed at Indiana University.
These initiatives include:
- Funding to hire and/or obtain assistance from consultants, graduate student teams from the Kelley School of Business, or other professional business people to develop business plans and/or conduct market research.
- Funding to provide support for faculty with existing promising provisional patents to develop proof of practice so that the patents and research can proceed forward during the provisional period.
- Funding to provide specific support for research projects that could qualify 21st Century funding, or related funding, provided that this could lead to the development of a new company in the future.
11/16/06
