Entrepreneurial ecosystem to drive commercialization of discoveries

Researchers on South Dakota State University's campus will now have a framework to help turn innovative discoveries into viable commercial products through a five-year, $14 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Great Plains Innovation Corps.

The hub will include a number of partners including the University of South Dakota, the University of North Dakota, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Dakota State University, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Wyoming and North Dakota State University as the lead institution.

NSF’s I-Corps program began in 2011 to train an entrepreneurial workforce, nurture an innovation ecosystem and bring cutting-edge technologies developed in university laboratories to market. I-Corps hubs provide experiential and immersive training to research teams to help bring those ideas to market by preparing scientists to extend their focus beyond the university laboratory and accelerate the economic and societal benefits of research projects and discoveries.

Over the course of eight weeks, the teams receive entrepreneurial education, mentoring and funding to accelerate their research into emerging products and services that can attract subsequent third-party funding. NSF has set up other regional hubs with the goal of creating a diverse and inclusive innovation network across the country.

Most recently, the West Region Hub was launched and is led by the University of Southern California and includes the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Colorado Boulder; the University of Utah and others among its institutional partners.