Purpose
NCInnovation’s (NCI’s) mission is to unlock the innovative potential of North Carolina’s research universities catalyzing inventions to move from the lab to the market and promoting economic development across the state. NCI supports this mission by providing university researchers with grant funding and support services to help commercialize research breakthroughs and accelerate the transition from academia to industry. At its core, NCI is a regional economic development initiative centered on our world-class university system. Specifically, the organization:
- Provides grant funding for university applied researchers to mature a proof of concept to the point of commercial viability.
- Supports the transition of applied research and new technologies from academia to industry with funding for comprehensive business development and other support services, coupled with ongoing coordination between universities and the private sector.
- Identifies innovation opportunities in key industry sectors, helping guide university research and resource allocation to best position viable projects for commercialization.
- Will forge a new path to unleash North Carolina’s innovation potential, supporting economic opportunity in all regions of the state.
NCInnovation’s programming and funding will drive lasting economic and technological growth across NC, ensuring that the UNC System universities remain national leaders in innovation.
Program Description
NCI offers grants to university researchers so they can advance their research breakthroughs to the point of commercial viability. To do this, NCI’s grants focus intensely on the middle phase of the R&D process – after proof of concept has been achieved, but before a technology is mature enough to attract private investment. Developing technologies to an inflection point, where a license for the intellectual property or a new startup company can be formed. Focusing on this phase maximizes the probability a promising research initiative can be commercialized.
Government and private investors sometimes use a matrix called Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) (see table below, sourced from GAO) to define each phase of a research endeavor, from the very earliest idea generation (TRL 1) to end-stage market entry (TRL 9). NCI assesses research projects using this matrix to gauge their readiness for commercialization. NCI focuses on the middle phase – TRLs 3-6, – often referred to as the ‘valley of death.’ TRLs 3-6 are often the most challenging and most expensive. It’s in this phase that researchers mature their technology, consistently testing and improving such that it can work in more realistic settings. The description of this middle phase as the ‘valley of death’ captures the fact that without this funding, many promising innovations fail to reach commercialization. At this stage, there’s still much work to be done before a technology is commercially viable.
Those steps are expensive. Some universities may have resources for researchers working at TRL-3 or TRL-4, but funding to get through the valley of death is usually the hardest money to come by, especially outside of mature innovation ecosystems like the Research Triangle. NCI focuses exhaustively on the valley of death, supporting North Carolina university researchers at the critical R&D stage where the academic phase begins transitioning through proof of concept toward commercialization.
