NSF I-Corps Hub (Track 1): New England Region

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Hub project is to provide training to scientists and engineers to support translation of critical emerging technologies. The Hub is a consortium of universities spanning the New England region. Many of these researchers are located in rural and disadvantaged areas lacking access to the resources found in a robust innovation ecosystem.

The Hub aims to reduce this disparity by connecting I-Corps participants with curated resources and mentoring to enhance place-based innovation across New England. The goal is to have an impact on local economies, generating good-paying jobs, revitalizing manufacturing, and accelerating new industries. The Hub will strive to ensure the participation of all Americans, including those from groups traditionally underserved in innovation and entrepreneurship.

In addition, the Hub plans to proactively recruit participants from institutions that are not Hub partners. I-Corps training will form the foundation to grow an entrepreneurially minded professional Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) workforce and develop new products and services to benefit society and increase regional and U.S. competitiveness.

This I-Corps Hub project is based on the development of a regional network that provides STEM researchers throughout New England with inclusive I-Corps entrepreneurial training, mentoring, and support. The goal is to promote and accelerate the translation of fundamental research to products and services that improve societal well-being and drive economic growth.

While participants from all STEM disciplines will be recruited, emphasis will be on the technological national goals in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, as well as those benefitting local communities, such as BlueTech, Forestry, Sustainability, and Biotech/Life Sciences. The Hub will deliver I-Corps training on a large-scale and high frequency to researchers throughout the region via both online and in-person courses reaching higher education colleges and universities.

This training will be accomplished by co-teaching using a regional instructor pool from all partner institutions with continual skill development. In addition, the number of researchers participating in I-Corps is expected to grow and be more diverse, generating significant new deep tech ventures while increasing the odds of commercial success and societal impacts.

Outreach will be a primary activity of the Hub to ensure that all researchers in New England have the opportunity to participate in I-Corps and benefit from this training.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.