Subcommittee Discusses NSF’s I-Corps Program
(Washington, DC) – Today, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on Research and Science Education held a field hearing in Chicago, IL on Innovation Corps (I-Corps), a new National Science Foundation (NSF) program to promote technology innovation and leverage the federal government’s investment in scientific research.
Launched in 2011, I-Corps is a public-private partnership that helps propel scientific and engineering discoveries into useful technologies, products, and processes. Through I-Corps, academics bring their technology ideas to an intensive, hypothesis-driven curriculum in which venture capitalists and entrepreneurs walk those academic scientists and engineers through the customer discovery process. The course is based on the Lean LaunchPad method developed and taught at Stanford University by Silicon Valley entrepreneur-turned-teacher Steve Blank. I-Corps participants learn by doing, as they “get out of the building” and speak to scores of potential customers in order to assess the market for their technology. I-Corps participants can also use their grants to support additional proof-of-concept development of their ideas as they explore scalable business models.
I-Corps awards are for $50,000 and are made to teams consisting of a Principal Investigator (chief scientific researcher), an Entrepreneurial Lead (typically a graduate student or post-doc), and an I-Corps Mentor (an experienced business person). Testifying before the Subcommittee were Dr. Thomas Peterson, Assistant Director of the Directorate for Engineering at NSF; Mr. Steve Blank, a lecturer at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley and the lead instructor for the I-Corps institute; Mr. Neil Kane, President of Illinois Partners Executive Services, LLC, and an I-Corps Mentor; Dr. Gabriel Popescu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an I-Corps Principal Investigator; and Dr. Andrew Mazar, the Director of the Program for Developmental Therapeutics and Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Innovation and New Ventures Office at Northwestern University.
The first two I-Corps cohorts, consisting of 45 teams in total, were taught out of Stanford University. In July 2012, a total of 54 teams will begin the program at Georgia Tech and the University of Michigan. Another 50 teams will go through I-Corps in the fall.
Ranking Member Dan Lipinski (D-IL) said in his opening statement, “Although it’s only about one quarter of 1 percent of NSF’s budget, I think this program will yield disproportionate benefits. By giving scientists who have already been awarded NSF research grants the education needed to push their work outside of the ivory tower into the marketplace, we are helping turn NSF’s research investments into jobs.”
“The I-Corps program does not pick winners and losers,” said Mr. Steve Blank, the lead instructor for the I-Corps institute. “It doesn’t replace private capital with government funds. Its goal is to get research the country has already paid for to the point where a team can attract private capital in the shortest period of time. That’s why we teach the class with experienced Venture Capitalists. The marketplace, not the government, will decide whether their new venture will win or lose. I-Corps is an extraordinarily efficient use of taxpayers’ money. It will pay us back with jobs and a competitive edge.”
Mr. Lipinski and witnesses discussed the importance of providing academic researchers with the tools to evaluate the commercial potential of the technology they have developed, the need to boost innovation to enhance job creation and competitiveness, and the need to monitor and evaluate the results of I-Corps to ensure the program works as efficiently and effectively as possible. They emphasized the importance of leveraging the knowledge and skills of NSF researchers to develop the U.S.’s innovation capabilities.
“To build a national ‘culture of innovation’ we not only need sustained research investment but also skillful and deliberate catalysts to hasten the application of scientific discoveries,” said Dr. Thomas Peterson. “A robust innovation ecosystem could also help us conceive novel research questions and shift science and engineering (S&E) knowledge paradigms altogether. That, in effect, is what we seek to accomplish through the Innovation Corps program.”
Mr. Neil Kane said, “The I-Corps program helps prepare a new generation of researchers for the realities of today’s economy regardless of whether they become entrepreneurs. The professors who go through the program develop a deeper appreciation for the relevance of their research, which improves their effectiveness. And NSF is investing in a network of mentors who, over time, can help to materially move the needle in improving the global competitiveness of the commercial entities that become the stewards of NSF-funded research.”
Another topic of discussion at the hearing was how I-Corps relates to NSF’s mission. Mr. Lipinski said, “I strongly believe that the I-Corps program embodies NSF’s original mission of both promoting the progress of science and advancing the national prosperity. Let’s not forget that second part, especially when we are looking to maximize the efficiency of or federal investments.” He went on to quote Vannevar Bush, who was instrumental in the founding of NSF, writing about the need for NSF and how it could help increase U.S. employment: “We do not know yet how we shall reach that goal, but it is certain that it can be achieved only by releasing the full creative and productive energies of the American people.” Mr. Lipinski also described a provision in the American COMPETES Act Reauthorization of 2010 that stipulates that the Broader Impacts criterion used in evaluating NSF grant proposals must include the “increased economic competitiveness of the United States” and “increased partnerships between academia and industry.”
“The way I see it, this is not a situation where either universities do this on their own, or the private sector does it, or the federal government steps in,” said Mr. Lipinski. “This is a partnership among all three, and all three have a role to play, resources to contribute, and benefits to reap.”
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