Funding and Support

GW’s Technology Commercialization Office (TCO) is the bridge between on-campus laboratory researchers and companies, entrepreneurs, investors and other unique external resources. In addition to helping you commercialize your research, TCO and the university also offer other pathways to funding opportunities that can support your research program.

• TCO Funding Opportunities
• Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Funding Opportunities
• Public Sector Funding Opportunities
• Private Sector Funding Opportunities

TCO Funding Opportunities

• Technology Maturation Awards

  TCO’s Technology Maturation Awards (TMA) are designed to help GW faculty develop the commercial potential of their promising but as-yet unlicensed technologies through proof-of-concept, prototyping, technology development and/or scale-up work. Successful TMA-supported projects generate the validation necessary to attract experienced licensees.

  Learn more and apply for the Technology Maturation Awards.

• TCO Innovation Competition 

  TCO’s Innovation Competition gives GW inventors the chance to pitch unlicensed, patent-pending GW technologies to potential partners and investors and compete for prize money. Early stage investors, entrepreneurs, and people and organizations who are sources of technical, legal and financial support for startups attend and judge the competition every year.

GW Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Funding Opportunities

GW’s Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (OIE) serves as a focal point for entrepreneurship at GW, providing programming around innovation, education and venture creation, while also making connections to support GW entrepreneurs and the mid-Atlantic startup community through programs like the I-Corps and the New Venture Competition.  Contact OIE.

• I-Corps™ at GW

• I-Corps is a National Science Foundation program designed to foster, grow and nurture innovation ecosystems regionally and nationally. The program provides real-world, hands-on training on how to incorporate innovations into successful products. ​Those accepted into the national program receive $50,000 to assist with customer discovery and to cover the expenses of all team members attending the opening and closing workshops. The ultimate goal is to create a new venture or licensing opportunity for program participants and to learn the valuable process of business model generation and customer discovery. Learn more about I-Corps™ at GW.

• New Venture Competition

• The GW New Venture Competition (NVC)–the largest collegiate entrepreneurship competition in the country–provides GW students, faculty, and alumni with real-world experiences in entrepreneurship that can’t be replicated anywhere else. Students have the opportunity to bring an idea to the table and compete in multiple tracks for different business types. Students work with mentors to craft and pitch their idea, and vie for cash and non-cash prizes totaling up to $500,000. Learn more about the NVC.

Public Sector Funding Opportunities

Government funding agencies operate programs to fund promising, impactful research with commercial potential. Learn about a few of those here.

• National Science Foundation’s Partnerships for Innovation

• The Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) program offers researchers and innovators two funding track opportunities: Technology Translation and Research Partnerships. Both tracks fund projects pursuing one or more of the following goals:
  • Translational research toward proof-of-concept of a future product, process or service
  • Technology scale-up
  • Demonstration of commercial potential

• Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation

  The Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation’s Commonwealth Commercialization Fund provides grants to Virginia’s public and private colleges and universities to support a more advanced stage of commercialization and technology readiness level. GW researchers with programs on the Virginia Science and Technology Campus are eligible to apply.

Private Sector Funding Opportunities

TCO can help connect university researchers with businesses and entrepreneurs. Companies may offer financial support, in the form of sponsored research agreements, to faculty who conduct research in relevant fields. Faculty members who are interested in finding out the types of technologies companies and investors are looking for should contact us. We can help provide guidance. 

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