Last week, the leaders of several area entrepreneurship centers announced that they'd received a $600,000 grant from the NSF to help local researchers commercialize their technology. The "Innovation Acceleration Partnership", led by Ken Harrington at WashU's Skandalaris Center, will pair researchers with a specially trained cadre of postdoctoral fellows focused exclusively on tech transfer. Each fellow will focus on those aspects of the commercialization process that researchers may not have the time or expertise to focus on, all the while receiving mentoring from Harrington and others.

Besides Harrington, the other co-investigators named in the grant are Marcia Mellitz (CET), Michael Nichols (UMSL), William Peck (Innovate St Louis / WashU) and Samuel Wickline (Kereos / Wash U). The participating institutions include WashU, UM-Rolla, and SIUE, plus a number of local for-profit and non-profit organizations.

Cool idea, especially the regional focus, but is this something that could have been incorporated within the existing tech transfer offices already in place? Or are those still seen as needing reform? Also, there seems like these fellowships are pretty attractive for someone looking to gain experience in tech transfer (Hell, I'd do it), but are the more steady hands going to want more than a grant stipend? Plus, if the tech works its way out into a company, who gets the equity - The researcher? The fellow? Or the Partnership? Interested to see how this one turns out.

(...more from stltoday.com)