UW Holds Forum to Catalyze NSF ART Program Efforts

The University of Wyoming recently took an important step in its efforts to bolster a culture of innovation and translational research among its research faculty and postdoctoral fellows to translate their research into practical and economically beneficial solutions that contribute to the growth of Wyoming’s economy.

UW’s Technology Transfer Office hosted a two-day event called the National Science Foundation (NSF) ART Ambassador Forum last month to educate and inform more than 40 ambassadors who are volunteers from within and beyond the campus. These ambassadors are tasked with building and sustaining awareness of ways to maximize potential of UW research for outcomes that benefit local, regional and statewide communities of Wyoming.

ART, which stands for “Accelerated Research Translation,” is a relatively new NSF funding program designed to support research institutions such as UW that seek to broaden and improve their ability to make academic research beneficial to the public.

“Identifying and training NSF ART ambassadors at UW is a crucial step for us to ensure we are making the most of our research when it comes to applying it for community benefit,” says Parag Chitnis, UW vice president for research and economic development. “This forum helped us educate and inform people we will rely upon to be champions of research translation for UW in the months and years ahead. This is a crucial effort that will increase the pace and scale of making UW research relevant and useful to Wyoming residents.”

UW’s ART program is supported at the highest levels of campus leadership: UW President Ed Seidel and Chitnis are its co-principal investigators. The university currently has three ART grant projects funded as part of NSF’s first ART program investments that were announced in September. These projects are already helping to catalyze campuswide change to foster and speed up the pace of research-enabled innovation by including graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

The ART Ambassador Forum, which took place Feb. 20-21, covered topics such as roles and responsibilities of ART ambassadors; resource requirements; examples of the benefits of commercializing research output; and understanding how to work with businesses and industries to successfully turn research into economically beneficial enterprises. These presentations and discussions were led by people from Colorado State University and the private consulting firm Apio Innovation Transfer (APIOiX) -- UW’s partners in the NSF ART grant and the Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine.

The event wrapped up with a final presentation by Seidel and Chitnis on the importance of building and sustaining an “innovation culture” at UW. The forum will be followed by online programming regarding ideation, use-inspired research and transferring translational research outcomes for impact.