{"id":142544,"date":"2018-10-17T08:01:19","date_gmt":"2018-10-17T12:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=142544"},"modified":"2018-10-17T08:30:09","modified_gmt":"2018-10-17T12:30:09","slug":"new-industry-academic-program-seeks-grow-entrepreneurial-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2018\/10\/new-industry-academic-program-seeks-grow-entrepreneurial-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Industry-Academic Program to Grow Entrepreneurial Know-How"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new industry-academic initiative to increase entrepreneurial education and output among the state\u2019s top researchers has been launched recently by the University of Connecticut, Unilever, Quinnipiac and Wesleyan Universities, and The Jackson Laboratory<\/a>, with funding through a grant from the CTNext Higher Education Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund.<\/p>\n

The goal of the initiative is to increase the number of successful ventures coming out of universities in the state; launch new products and\/or business lines with corporate partners; attract investment and partnership deals for these startups and products; and improve the entrepreneurial ecosystems at these institutions to better attract and retain researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased to mark another milestone in our mission to foster entrepreneurship and innovation across Connecticut,\u201d says Glendowlyn Thames, executive director of CTNext. \u201cThis industry-academic initiative is well positioned to increase collaboration and partnership among our state\u2019s higher-education institutions and our state\u2019s most important industries. We look forward to following their progress as execution and implementation begins.\u201d<\/p>\n

CTNext is Connecticut\u2019s go-to resource for entrepreneurial support. Its mission is to build a robust community of entrepreneurs and to accelerate startup growth by providing access to talent, space, industry expertise, services, skill development, and capital to foster innovation and create jobs in Connecticut. Launched in 2012, the organization currently has more than 2,800 members in its network.<\/p>\n

The new industry-academic initiative, which is part of the second funding round of CTNext\u2019s Higher Education Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund, will provide targeted training modules to attract and retain high-value researchers, and encourage engagement in Connecticut\u2019s growing innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. Program leaders anticipate that participants will come from early to mid-stage companies, including university startups, and corporate labs.<\/p>\n

Radenka Maric, vice president for research at UConn and UConn Health, says the new initiative fills a need. She says many of the training opportunities that are currently available are primarily focused on Connecticut\u2019s student entrepreneurs. \u201cWhile these programs are extremely valuable, they miss the distinct and high-value players in our ecosystem, namely researchers from industry and academia, and those in leadership roles who have a major impact on an organization\u2019s culture,\u201d Maric says. \u201cWe\u2019re very grateful to CTNext for giving us the needed funding to provide these high-potential individuals with customized training to help their technologies turn into businesses and products.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program is designed to prepare aspiring entrepreneurs working as academic or industry researchers who may lack the needed business training to move high-potential innovations to market. With the proper support, program officials hope that more researchers will be better positioned to form new startups with help from existing programs like UConn’s Technology Incubation Program<\/a> or seek successful licensing deals with support from tech transfer experts at the participating institutions.<\/p>\n

The multifaceted program will include entrepreneurship workshops and retreats for a select group of faculty and researchers interested in commercialization, as well as Connecticut-based executives and promising employees, to learn more about entrepreneurship within a corporate setting. A marquee \u201cPresidential Executive Workshop\u201d would bring these various stakeholders together to learn from experienced venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, investors, and executive leaders.<\/p>\n

The initiative also seeks to integrate business mentorship and executive networks around the state to better identify, screen, match and manage mentors from within the participating organizations and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Jackson Laboratory looks forward to participating in the CTNext program and exploring opportunities that may rely on our intellectual property,\u201d says BJ Bormann, vice president for translational science and network alliances at JAX. \u201cDeveloping a peer group of mentors, financiers, and entrepreneurs across the state will provide us all with an excellent network, and an important forum for advice and \u2018live\u2019 commentary.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, CTNext has funded 12 projects through the Higher Education Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund. To learn more about the initiative and CTNext, visit https:\/\/ctnext.com\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This program is jointly operated by the UConn Office of the Vice President for Research and the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at UConn.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new program will provide aspiring entrepreneurs working as academic or industry researchers with customized training to help turn their technologies into businesses and products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":87004,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1731,2076,1862,179,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2140],"class_list":["post-142544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entrepreneurship","category-research","category-busn","category-uconn-health","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 22:03:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142544"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142771,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142544\/revisions\/142771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/87004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142544"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=142544"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=142544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}