Oregon State University One of Eight Universities To Receive an NSF I-Corps Hub Grant

New Funding Will Establish a Northwest Region Hub for Innovation Impact

Oregon State University is one of a consortia of eight universities to receive a National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps Hub grant, which provides $15 million, spread across the institutions over five years, to bolster their innovation training programs. Co-Principal Investigators are Dean Staci Simonich from the College of Agricultural Sciences and Karl Mundorff, Executive Director, Innovation and Entrepreneurship from the Division of Research Advancement.

OSU will contribute two significant parts to the grant, with the OSU Advantage Accelerator providing a regional entrepreneurial training program for all colleges/university teams in Oregon which are utilizing their school's intellectual property, and OSU will lead the grant’s overarching research topic of the path from I-Corps Regional Trainings to Professional Investment. This significant research project is led by College of Education’s Associate Dean for Research, Jana Bouwma-Gerhart.

OSU's portion of the $15 million budget is $2.55 million with slightly more than that going to research. NSF I-Corps Hubs form the operational backbone of the National Innovation Network and works collectively to build and sustain diverse and inclusive innovation programs across the country.

The new Northwest Region Hub (NWR) is one of three grantees this cycle and joins 10 existing regional I-Corps Hubs. NWR institutions will focus specifically on medical technology, agricultural and food technology, blue technology and energy, environment, and clean technology. OSU’s partners include lead Institution University of California – Berkeley, as well as the University of Alaska – Fairbanks, University of Washington, and University of California campuses in Davis, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Irvine.

These funds will support the Advantage Accelerator, the OSU Advantage signature innovation impact training and education program helping researchers, staff, students and the broader OSU community take their ideas to impact. The program involves weekly instruction, customer discovery interviews, practice pitches, office hours, and mentorship, with the goal of positioning teams for further development and fundraising and driving economic impact across our richly diverse region.

The Northwest Region I-Corps Hub helps OSU and all of our Oregon colleges and universities harness the impact of ideas which helps to expand OSU's continued effort to develop the innovation economy across Oregon and beyond. OSU is ranked as the most innovative university in Oregon (according to US News & World Report, Most Innovative Schools, 2024).

OSU has been a part of the NSF Innovation Corps program since 2015 and has seen the impact it has had on the university culture of innovation and entrepreneurship among the faculty, students and staff. Being a Hub partner makes OSU a gateway to the National Science Foundation by sending many qualified teams to the national I-Corps program for further training and follow-on funding.

Since 2015, the OSU Advantage Accelerator has supported over 450 business concepts and companies which has led to over 120 graduates who have gone on to gain nearly $240 million in follow-on funding, generating nearly $25 million in revenue and creating over 400 jobs.