Federal Funding for Innovations

Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) promotes university-industry partnerships by making project funds or fellowships/traineeships available to support an eclectic mix of industry-university linkages. Special interest is focused on affording the opportunity for:

• Faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students to conduct research and gain experience in an industrial setting
• Industrial scientists and engineers to bring industry’s perspective and integrative skills to academe
• Interdisciplinary university-industry teams to conduct research projects

Solicitation for these grants tends to emphasize high-risk/high-reward research, with a focus on fundamental research, new approaches to solving generic problems, development of innovative collaborative industry-university educational programs, and direct transfer of new knowledge between academe and industry. GOALI seeks to fund transformative research that lies beyond that which industry would normally fund.

ITHS offers funds for novel, innovative, and collaborative translational and clinical research. We also engage in collaborative partnerships with non-ITHS programs that provide funding for more targeted research opportunities. Please check each funding opportunity for specific eligibility criteria, which are dependent on the requirements of the funding sources. These criteria may be based on topic area, academic affiliation, geography (e.g., Puget Sound area, WWAMI region), or other factors.

The Population Health Initiative seeks to create a world where all people can live healthier and more fulfilling lives. In support of that vision, the initiative is pleased to offer population health pilot research grants that are intended to encourage the development of new interdisciplinary collaborations among investigators – and with community-based partners – for projects that address critical challenges to population health.

The overall objective of the Partnerships for Innovation: Accelerating Innovations Research-Technology Transfer (PFI:AIR-TT) program is to provide funding that will enable research discoveries to be translated onto a path toward commercial reality while engaging faculty and students in entrepreneurial and market-oriented thinking. The PFI:AIR-TT solicitation supports research to overcome technology barriers/knowledge gaps in the translation of NSF-funded fundamental science and engineering discoveries toward market-valued solutions. It provides an opportunity for investigators to conduct the necessary research to develop a proof-of-concept, prototype, or scale-up of the prototype that addresses real-world constraints and provides a competitive value in a potential application space.

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, collectively dubbed “America’s Seed Fund,” are US government initiatives designed to support startups and other small businesses in developing and commercializing innovative technologies in the national interest. SBIR and STTR provide more than $2.5 billion in grants and contracts each year to small businesses and startup companies to develop new products and services based on advanced technologies.

The CoMotion SBIR/STTR Application Support Program helps UW research teams and spinoffs pursuing Phase I grants and navigating the application process, providing tools and expert guidance on how to develop a competitive proposal. Email Ryan Buckmaster, associate director of innovation investments at CoMotion for application information.