New Multi-University NSF Hubs to Foster Entrepreneurial Startups, Broaden Opportunities for Underrepresented Groups

"Fostering the conversion of research discoveries to innovative startup companies is one way that universities can contribute to the regional and national economy,” said Nathan Urban, Lehigh provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “Many new companies and whole industries have been created based on university-invented technologies. Critical to this process is training and mentoring a diverse group of faculty and students to foster an entrepreneurial mindset. We are very happy to partner with the Princeton I-Corps Hub—with its focus on areas that include Lehigh's historic strengths in materials and computer science as well as emerging strengths in areas like health care—to provide best-in-class support for faculty and student founders seeking to grow companies based on the best ideas of Lehigh faculty and students."

The I-Corps Hubs will serve national needs through five areas of responsibility:

• Create and implement tools, resources and training activities that enhance the nation's innovation capacity.
• Identify, develop and support promising research that can generate economic value.
• Gather, analyze, evaluate and utilize the data and insights resulting from the experiences of those participating in local, regional and national I-Corps programs.
• Provide opportunities to diverse communities of innovators.
• Share and leverage effective innovation practices on a national scale to improve quality of life throughout the nation.

“Princeton is excited to lead this initiative to develop the talent and dynamism of our region’s researchers,” Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber 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.”

The hubs will employ the NSF I-Corps entrepreneurship training approach, which focuses on understanding the needs of potential customers, first-hand 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.

The new hubs were formed 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.

Multi-university, inclusive collaboration

“The innovation and entrepreneurship culture at Lehigh has always been strong, but being part of this multi-university team focused on more inclusive innovation will enable us to take it to a new level,” said John Coulter, Lehigh professor of mechanical engineering and senior associate dean for research for the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science. “Through this program we will create not only more entrepreneurial teams, but inclusive better teams poised to handle the inevitable hurdles and pivots that go along with successful innovation.”

Coulter is the lead faculty principal investigator for the I-Corps grant representing Lehigh. Rick Smith, director of Lehigh’s Office of Technology Transfer, will also play a significant role as programs and initiatives associated with the new innovation hub are developed and implemented.

Participation will result in both expanded and enhanced innovation and entrepreneurship programs at Lehigh to catalyze the formation and success of entrepreneurial teams, and more Lehigh-based entrepreneurial teams that will lead to more regionally based startups that benefit the community, Coulter said. Lehigh’s use- and impact-inspired innovation culture spans a broad range of technical areas and application fields, with interdisciplinary emphases on materials, devices, data science, intelligent systems, infrastructure, energy and health being areas where innovation-based team formation is likely to be fostered, he said.

“Lehigh has a strong history of I-Corps project activity dating back to the program's creation,” Coulter added. “A large number of faculty-led teams have participated in the program to date, and through involvement in the newly funded hub many more are still to come.”

Located in the heart of the U.S. northeast, the Northeast region hub will make use of its proximity to “deep-tech industries” that revolve around discoveries in areas such as health care, pharmaceuticals, energy, the environment, financial technologies, agriculture, communications and digital information. It will build on the robust industrial and government relationships of its academic institutions to develop cross-sector partnerships that leverage the investment of federal research dollars in the region’s universities.

The five I-Corps Hubs announced today, and participating institutions, are:

NSF I-Corps Hub: Northeast region

• Princeton University – Lead
• Delaware State University
• Lehigh University
• New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Rowan University
• Rutgers University
• Temple University
• University of Delaware

NSF I-Corps Hub: Mid-Atlantic region

• University of Maryland, College Park – Lead
• Carnegie Mellon University
• The George Washington University
• Howard University
• Johns Hopkins University
• North Carolina State University
• Penn State
• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• University of Pennsylvania
• Virginia Tech

NSF I-Corps Hub: New York region

• The City University of New York – Lead
• Columbia University
• Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
• New York University
• Rockefeller University
• Stevens Institute of Technology
• Stony Brook University
• University of Massachusetts Medical School
• University at Albany

NSF I-Corps Hub: West region

• University of Southern California – Lead
• California Institute of Technology
• Colorado School of Mines
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of California, Riverside
• University of Colorado Boulder
• The University of New Mexico
• The University of Utah

NSF I-Corps Hub: Great Lakes region

• University of Michigan – Lead
• Iowa State University
• Missouri University of Science & Technology
• Purdue University
• The University of Akron
• University of Chicago
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• The University of Toledo
• University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee

For more information, visit the NSF I-Corps website or the Northeast region hub website.