Commercializing Technology

A new technology commercialization fellowship helps UW inventions create social and economic impact.

Every day at the University of Wyoming, researchers, professors and students are working on new tools, inventions, products and services. UW’s Technology Transfer Office protects those innovations, and new programs help commercialize them.

Simply put, a patent is a government-granted intellectual property right that gives the inventors exclusive rights to an invention for a set period of time, thus protecting their invention. Inventors at UW reach out to UW’s Technology Transfer Office, which then reviews innovation disclosures, conducts impact assessments, engages in protection and management of UW intellectual property, and charts the path towards economic and social impact.

Technology Transfer Manager Andy Applegate says UW has about 160 active patents in its portfolio. Part of the office’s goal is to turn these patents into products or services that create economic and social impact. This is achieved through working with industry, government and nonprofit organizations to translate university innovations into useful programs, tools, inventions, products and services that help build social and economic prosperity in Wyoming and beyond. The effort is being aided by a new technology commercialization fellowship for graduate students and Honors College students.

Students accepted for the fellowship receive a stipend, form teams and study the portfolio to move innovations forward. The teams are interdisciplinary, such as an MBA student, a law student and an engineer.

“The fellowship will teach students how to carry out technology commercialization,” says Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation Director Robert Macy. “They’ll dig into the university’s patent portfolio, help commercialize inventions and get more of our science out the door.”

Students from any major or discipline can apply.

“It’s a nice thing for their resume and will teach them skills. Plus, they don’t have to fit it into their busy class schedule but can do it in their spare time,” Macy says. “We hope to have 15 to 20 who will make up four to five teams.”

Once the teams identify a patent to explore, they will first look at the industry the inventor originally targeted. Macy will then direct them to explore totally different applications and industries because often that creative thinking is what leads to success. For example, Macy shares the story of a drought-resistant maple tree developed at New Mexico State University. Developers had no luck selling the tree for its drought-resistant properties. However, its leaves turned a bright shiny red. When a team of students looked into how to sell the tree, the art students had the brilliant idea to market it for its ornamental properties. This led to commercial success.

“It was a great invention, but it was actually the side-effect of the process that made it commercially viable,” Macy says. “And it tends to be students who will see these things because they all have different experiences and outlooks.”

The fellowship will be offered each spring, and Macy hopes that, as innovations are moved forward, they will feed into other programs such as the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program, an immersive entrepreneurial training program that facilitates the transformation of invention to impact.

Macy says, “We will also partner with other state resources and hopefully attract more management talent to Wyoming.”

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$6M NSF Grant Aids Research Commercialization Effort

By UW Communications

The University of Wyoming is one of 18 institutions nationwide selected to receive $100 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under its inaugural Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program to accelerate the pace and scale of translational research that will grow the nation’s economy.

UW’s award is for $6 million over four years to re-engineer its research and commercialization enterprise. Other universities receiving funding include Clemson University, Florida State University, the University of Alabama, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Missouri.

“The funding provided by the National Science Foundation through the Accelerating Research Translation grant will allow the University of Wyoming to continue to grow as the driver of translational research and economic development in Wyoming,” UW President Ed Seidel says.

The NSF grant will allow for the creation of the Wyoming Translation Research Accelerator, whose overall aim is to turn UW research into commercial applications. Expected outcomes include an increase in industry collaborations and startups, diversification of the state’s economy and greater preparedness of graduate students and postdoctoral students to enter industry.

“This ART project will catalyze university-wide change to foster and speed up the pace of research-enabled innovation,” says Parag Chitnis, UW’s vice president for research and economic development. “Experiential training will be conducted, with an emphasis on graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Translational research projects will be selected to help diversify and grow the Wyoming economy.”

Seidel, Chitnis and Arun Pradhan, the UW Deputy Director for Research and Economic Development, will implement this project.

In a media release, NSF says the 18 ART recipients will use the funding to identify and build upon academic research with the potential for technology transfer and societal and economic impacts, to ensure availability of staff with technology transfer expertise, and to support the education and training of entrepreneurial faculty and students.

“NSF endeavors to empower academic institutions to build the pathways and structures needed to speed and scale their research into products and services that benefit the nation,” says NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “The Accelerating Research Translation program in NSF’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate identifies and champions institutions positioned to expand their research translation capacity by investing in activities essential to move results to practice.”

The program is authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. Seidel has made it a priority to prepare UW for opportunities presented by the act for spurring innovation in Wyoming.