Page 3 - PITT Innovation Institute 2017 fiscal year in review

Fiscal 2017 was another year for the record books for University of Pittsburgh innovators.
The University posted all-time highs for startups (15), patents (102) and invention disclosures (329) — all tangible signs of the University community’s ongoing commitment to the strategic goal of engaging in impactful research and translating resulting innovations into impactful outcomes through commercialization.
These numbers demonstrate that
Pitt faculty are increasingly taking the nal step with their research by seeing it translated from the lab to the market, or from Innovation to Outcome. The numbers also re ect the
increased resources
available to fund and
launch their innovations.
In total, Pitt innovators received more than $4.2 million in pre-commercialization funding from sources across the University, including the Innovation Institute’s First Gear commercialization program; the Chancellor’s Innovation Commercialization Funds; idea pitch competitions such as the Wells Competition, Kuzneski Innovation Cup and the Randall Family Big Idea Competition.
Student entrepreneurship is also ourishing. In addition to the 15 University spinouts in FY17, students launched another 14 startups of their own.
The Blast Furnace student idea accelerator offered a new fellowship for its spring cohort, providing ve teams $10,000 each toward launching a startup.
Expanding partnerships
An important function of the Innovation Institute in growing the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at Pitt is engaging with external partners — accelerators, investors, entrepreneurs, economic development agencies and others — who can provide resources and expertise to help our innovators achieve impact. The Innovation Institute added several new partnerships and collaborations during the scal year to accelerate commercial translation of Pitt innovations, including:
• Through our af liated Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence we extended our impact into the region with two federal grants. The POWER grant
from the Appalachia Regional Commission is helping communities impacted by the reduction of coal mining by spurring small business creation, while a grant from the Economic Development Administration is creating a Lean Manufacturing Accelerator inside Pitt’s Manufacturing Assistance Center in Homewood, where small businesses can develop new products in conjunction with our Swanson School of Engineering.
• A multifaceted collaboration agreement with the sleep and respiratory care division of Dutch Electronics and healthcare company Philips for commercialization of Pitt research.
• A partnership with local idea incubator Idea Foundry for evaluating promising early-stage life sciences technologies.
• A partnership with Philadelphia-based Science Center’s Phase 1 Ventures providing funding and management assistance for select Pitt innovations.
Our efforts did not go unnoticed. The nonpartisan Milken Institute recently recognized the work of Pitt innovators by ranking Pitt No. 24 among the nation’s best universities for technology transfer, based on averages of 2012–2015 indicators. And the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association ranked Pitt at No. 27 among global universities and research institutes for the number of U.S. patents issued.