Partnerships for Innovation Building Innovation Capacity | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Partnerships for Innovation - Building Innovation Capacity (PFI BIC) grant opportunity is designed to help move strong, existing university research discoveries toward real-world, market-valued solutions. The program is rooted in the idea that modern economic growth is closely tied to research and technology, and that NSF-funded discovery research becomes more impactful when it is paired with the right partnerships to translate promising findings into innovations. Rather than funding basic research from scratch, PFI BIC begins with a sound scientific or engineering discovery that already exists at an academic institution and supports the early-stage translational work needed to shape that discovery into something that can succeed in the marketplace.

A central requirement of PFI BIC is an active partnership between academe and small technology-based businesses. The lead applicant must be a U.S. accredited academic institution (a university or a two- or four-year college, including community and technical colleges) with a campus located in the United States, submitting on behalf of its faculty. The funded project must include at least two small technology-based business partners, and those businesses cannot be in direct competition with one another. The award funds primarily support the academic institution as it collaborates with these business partners on early translational research activities, meaning work that reduces the gap between a laboratory discovery and a product, process, or service that has credible commercial potential. Because the partnership structure is a core part of the program, it is intended to be more than a simple advisory role; the collaboration is meant to be hands-on and oriented toward practical steps that increase the likelihood of commercialization and broader use.

The program has three main aims. First, it focuses on building innovation capacity among the participants, both within the academic team and within the partner businesses. This generally refers to strengthening the skills, processes, and collaborative habits needed to convert research into usable innovations, such as understanding customer needs, technical validation in application-relevant environments, and managing development pathways. Second, PFI BIC seeks to increase the viability of the participating small business concerns by connecting them to university-based discoveries and by supporting joint work that can create new products, new applications, or new market opportunities. Third, the program emphasizes workforce development, aiming to help train the next generation of innovators by involving students at multiple levels. Students are expected to learn directly through participation and exposure to the innovation-building process, so they gain experience that goes beyond traditional academic research and connects to how technologies are matured and positioned for real market adoption.

Another notable feature is that the academia-business collaboration is encouraged to produce solutions with potential relevance to more than one market. In practice, that means NSF is looking for projects where the core technology or discovery could plausibly be adapted or applied across multiple sectors, increasing the potential economic and societal impact. The program also planned a webinar within about six weeks of the solicitation release to answer questions, with details to be posted on NSF Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP) web pages.

In terms of logistics and funding details, this opportunity was released under NSF Publication/Funding Opportunity Number 12-578. It is a discretionary grant program within the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category, associated with CFDA number 47.041 (Engineering Grants). NSF anticipated making about 13 awards, with an estimated total program funding level of $8,000,000 and an award ceiling of $600,000. There was no cost sharing or matching requirement listed. A Letter of Intent was required and due by September 26, 2012 (by 5 p.m. local time), and full proposals were due December 12, 2012, submitted through the NSF FastLane system. The solicitation also included eligibility and submission limitations, including that collaborative proposals between organizations (in the NSF definition of multiple separate submissions requesting separate awards for a joint project) were not permitted; the lead submitting organization had to be a single academic institution. In addition, the Principal Investigator could not be a PI on a Partnerships for Innovation award that would remain active after September 30, 2013, and a PI submitting to this PFI BIC solicitation could not also submit to the related Partnerships for Innovation - Accelerating Innovation Research (PFI AIR) program.

Overall, PFI BIC is aimed at universities and colleges that already have a credible research discovery and want to build a structured, business-engaged pathway toward commercialization or deployment. It funds early translational work carried out through a partnership model, with explicit goals of strengthening innovation capabilities, supporting small business growth, and creating meaningful, hands-on innovation experiences for students who will make up the future science and engineering workforce.

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