LSU students, faculty and local business partners will be eligible to receive grants ranging from $2,000 to $3,000 to help bring their business plan to fruition, as LSU is among 51 universities and research institutions across the country to be named a National Science Foundation Innovation Corps Site.
With the designation, announced this morning, LSU will be able to award the funds via a $100,000 annual grant from NSF, which will be awarded for three years.
“The support from NSF builds upon the existing innovation and research commercialization in the region while stimulating new opportunities for university-based research to become commercially viable technologies,” reads a prepared statement from Andrew Maas, director of the Office of Innovation & Technology Commercialization, who will oversee LSU’s I-Corps Site program.
Those selected to receive a grant will participate in six to eight weeks of training. The funds can be used for a variety of needs, including purchasing materials for prototypes or traveling to consult with experts.
“The ultimate goal of the LSU I-Corps Site program is to strengthen the pipeline of faculty, students and community members who can feed into the Louisiana Business & Technology Center, or LBTC, and be more competitive for LSU Leveraging Innovation for Technology Transfer, or LIFT2 grants, the NSF I-Corps Teams program, which is a $50,000 grant opportunity and national Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR agency programs,” reads a news release from LSU.
LSU has complete details on the NSF award and how its students, faculty and business partners can participate.
