National Science Foundation Awards $15M to Georgia Tech Led Consortium of Universities for Societal Oriented Innovation and Commercialization Effort

Oct 30, 2024

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a syndicate of eight Southeast universities - with Georgia Tech as the lead - a $15 million grant to support the development of a regional innovation ecosystem that addresses underrepresentation and increases entrepreneurship and technology-oriented workforce development.

The NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Southeast Hub is a five-year project based on the I-Corps model, which assists academics in moving their research from the lab to the market.

Led by Georgia Tech's Office of Commercialization and Enterprise Innovation Institute, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub encompasses four states - Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Alabama.

Its member schools include:

• Clemson University
• Morehouse College
• University of Alabama
• University of Central Florida
• University of Florida
• University of Miami
• University of South Florida

In January 2025, when the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub officially launches, the consortium of schools will expand to include the University of Puerto Rico. Additionally, through Morehouse College's activation, Spelman College and the Morehouse School of Medicine will also participate in supporting the project.

With a combined economic output of more than $3.2 trillion, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub region represents more than 11% of the entire U.S. economy. As a region, those states and Puerto Rico have a larger economic output than France, Italy, or Canada.

"This is a great opportunity for us to engage in regional collaboration to drive innovation across the Southeast to strengthen our regional economy and that of Puerto Rico," said the Enterprise Innovation Institute's Nakia Melecio, director of the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub. As director, Melecio will oversee strategic management, data collection, and overall operations​.

Additionally, Melecio serves as a national faculty instructor for the NSF I-Corps program.

"This also allows us to collectively tackle some of the common challenges all four of our states face, especially when it comes to being intentionally inclusive in reaching out to communities that historically haven't always been invited to participate," he said.

That means bringing solutions to market that not only solve problems but are intentional about including researchers from Black and Hispanic-serving institutions, Melecio said.

Keith McGreggor, director of Georgia Tech's VentureLab, is the faculty lead charged with designing the curriculum and instruction for the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub's partners.

McGreggor has extensive I-Corps experience. In 2012, Georgia Tech was among the first institutions in the country selected to teach the I-Corps curriculum, which aims to further research commercialization. McGreggor served as the lead instructor for I-Corps-related efforts and led training efforts across the Southeast, as well as for teams in Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Republic of Ireland.

Raghupathy "Siva" Sivakumar, Georgia Tech's vice president of Commercialization and chief commercialization officer, is the project's principal investigator.

The NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub is one of three announced by the NSF. The others are in the Northwest and New England regions, led by the University of California, Berkeley, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. The three I-Corps Hubs are part of the NSF's planned expansion of its National Innovation Network, which now includes 128 colleges and universities across 48 states.

As designed, the NSF I-Corps Southeast Hub will leverage its partner institutions' strengths to break down barriers to researchers' pace of lab-to-market commercialization.

"Our Hub member institutions have successfully commercialized transformative technologies across critical sectors, including advanced manufacturing, renewable energy, cybersecurity, and biomedical fields," said Sivakumar. "We aim to achieve two key objectives: first, to establish and expand a scalable model that effectively translates research into viable commercial ventures; and second, to address pressing societal needs.

"This includes not only delivering innovative solutions but also cultivating a diverse pipeline of researchers and innovators, thereby enhancing interest in STEM fields - science, technology, engineering, and mathematics."

U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta, is a proponent of the Hub's STEM component.

"As a biology major-turned-congresswoman, I know firsthand that STEM education and research open doors far beyond the lab or classroom.," Williams said. "This National Science Foundation grant means Georgia Tech will be leading the way in equipping researchers and grad students to turn their discoveries into real-world impact - as innovators, entrepreneurs, and business leaders.

"I'm especially excited about the partnership with Morehouse College and other minority-serving institutions through this Hub, expanding pathways to innovation and entrepreneurship for historically marginalized communities and creating one more tool to close the racial wealth gap."

That STEM aspect, coupled with supporting the growth of a regional ecosystem, will speed commercialization, increase higher education-industry collaborations, and boost the network of diverse entrepreneurs and startup founders, said David Bridges, vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute.

"This multi-university, regional approach is a successful model because it has been proven that bringing a diversity of stakeholders together leads to unique solutions to very difficult problems," he said. "And while the Southeast faces different challenges that vary from state to state and Puerto Rico has its own needs, they call for a more comprehensive approach to solving them. Adopting a region-oriented focus allows us to understand what these needs are, customize tailored solutions, and keep not just our hub but our nation economically competitive."