Transcript “Western Innovation Initiative” Oregon State University Ronald Adams, Joe Tanous Melissa Appleyard, Kartikeya Mayaram, Robert Wiltbank NSF Award #IIP- 0917948 3 Year Award Start Date: March.

“Western Innovation Initiative”
Oregon State University
Ronald Adams, Joe Tanous
Melissa Appleyard, Kartikeya Mayaram, Robert Wiltbank
NSF Award #IIP- 0917948
3 Year Award
Start Date: March 2007
Key Attributes of our
Innovation Ecosystem:
WII Overview:
The Western Innovation Initiative (WII) is organizing,
coordinating, and managing resources from various
locations for use across the group of participants. It
is leveraging resources as well as existing assets
from participating educational institutions and is also
leveraging resources from financial, service, and
corporate partners.
Oregon State University, University of Utah,
University of Washington, Oregon Health Sciences
University, and Portland State University--have been
involved in programs which have been successful at
significantly improving the number of candidates
achieving successful commercialization.
Questioning & Curiosity:
Exploring unique solutions for research
commercialization
Knowledge,
Experience
&
Risk Taking:
Combining academic, industry, financial and
entrepreneurial resources
Resources
Program Activities:
1. Resources required to commercialize new technologies emerging from universities
a. Experienced Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs) who have demonstrated
significant expertise both in startup ventures and established corporations;
these are essential to fill some of the significant start-up management voices
that exist among the participants.
b. Prototyping capabilities
c. Unique development facilities
d. Analysis, Planning and Implementation Via teams managed by experienced
entrepreneurs
2. Developing an evergreen commercialization fund that enables co-investing with
other venture capitalists and generates an internal rate of return sufficient to
sustain the project without Federal, state, or local funding
3. Knowledge Transfer / Cultural Shift
a. Providing the knowledge and tools needed to identify and prepare research
projects for commercialization
4. Identifying and integrating underserved and under-resourced regional universities
into this collective.
5. Documentation and Support to help other groups and organizations, including
those underrepresented in the nation’s innovation enterprise, to replicate these
achievements
6. Goals and Metrics
a. Doubling of the overall Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM)
ranking of the WII with commensurate economic impact
Oregon State University, University of Utah,
the University of Washington, Oregon Health
Sciences University, Willamette University
and Portland State University
In addition to these university partners, WII is
composed of the following partners: The
Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies
Institute (ONAMI), The Oregon Translational
Research and Drug Development Institute
(OTRADI), Bend Research, University of Utah
nanofab facility), University of Utah Medical
Core Research Facilities, University of
Washington Research Centers
Overcoming competitive forces between resources
Collaboration Across Fields:
Identifying and Coordinating academic, industry,
financial and entrepreneurial resources
Placing Partners in “New
Environments” & “Playgrounds”:
Partnerships formed with over a dozen academic,
industry, financial and entrepreneurial entities have
been formed for mutual benefit
Leading/Inspiring for Surprising
or Unexpected Results:
Top Contributions:
Partners:
Openness:
1. Connecting researchers and scientists to
practicing entrepreneurs and/or experts with
the specific goal of addressing business
formation and the challenge of obtaining
financing
2. Developing Human , Financial and
physical resources and sharing other
unique commercialization facilities
3. Facilitating effective knowledge transfer
Top Challenges:
1. Different and competing cultures
Collectively the WII university participants create
an average of 42 new businesses per year, 1 from
every $52M invested in research
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140 companies created since 2005
Higher rates of success
Private Equity Investments of over $200 million
Over 600 new jobs created
Payroll over $58.5 million
Over 1.3M in State tax receipts
Over $9M in Federal tax receipts
(Illustrative is the combined impact of the University of Utah and the
Oregon State University (which have been utilizing these
methodologies the longest)
2. Lack of Funding
3. Knowledge dissemination
PFI
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National Science Foundation Partnerships For Innovation
Grantee’s Meeting April 25-27, 2010
Arlington, VA
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