$6.01 MM
CATALYST AWARDS
$44.6 MM
CATALYST FOLLOW-ON FUNDING
Fueling Discovery and Innovation:
The Bradley Catalyst Grant Program equips UWM faculty and students to pursue research with real-world applications and commercial promise. The program targets projects that combine rigorous science with the potential to become impactful products or services.
By funding these initiatives, the Catalyst Grant Program fosters a culture of innovation at UWM, encouraging teams to move beyond initial discoveries to explore partnerships with external companies or even launch their own startups. Since 2007, the program’s success is reflected in a 7-fold return on investment through additional grants and follow-on funding.
18
CATALYST STARTUP COMPANIES
114
CATALYST PROJECTS
Researchers:
The UWM Research Foundation opens with a call for abstracts in December/January for the annual Catalyst Grant Program. Supported by generous donors, these grants aim to seed promising research and development projects that have the potential to significantly impact the local economy through commercialization.
Preference is given to projects with a thorough assessment of their intellectual property’s market potential, which can be achieved through customer discovery processes like NSF I-Corps. Researchers who have completed or are currently participating in the I-Corps site program with their Catalyst grant project idea will be automatically invited to submit a full Catalyst proposal.
Phase 18 begins December 2024. Application Details below. Thank you.
Thanks to our Donors:
The Catalyst Grant Program is powered by the generous support of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation, the Rockwell Automation Charitable Corporation, Clarios, GE Healthcare, and in recent years Invenergy. Thanks to their contributions, the program continues to drive impactful change across a range of innovative projects.
Process:
Focus Areas
This program is designed to focus on areas where UWM has the greatest potential to impact the local economy through commercialization activities including science and engineering. This program seeks to emphasize research areas that complement regional capabilities, including:
Any department or area of UWM-based research that demonstrates commercial potential is eligible to apply for this program. Past examples include:
- Biomedical Engineering – including biomedical imaging,
- Advanced Automation – including software, devices, and sensors,
- Connected Systems and Internet of Things
- Data Science
- Materials – including advanced nanomaterials, sustainable materials
- Biochemistry and Drug Discovery,
- Water – including advanced sensors, point-of-use technologies, and sustainable solutions,
- Energy – including novel techniques for energy generation, storage, and sustainable designs,
- NEW 2023: Invenergy has donated $50,000 specifically to support Clean Energy
Sub-categories include:
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- Clean energy – wind, solar, offshore wind,
- Energy storage,
- Energy Transmission,
- Clean hydrogen,
- Clean water/desalination,
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- Healthcare – including software applications and medical devices,
- Other – other program areas based on well demonstrated commercial potential.
Templates
Investigators will be asked to submit a short abstract of one to three pages. A limited number of full proposals will be invited based on assessment of the commercial and intellectual property potential by the UWM Research Foundation. Full proposals will be reviewed by external reviewers. Final recommendations to the funding organization(s) will be made based on external assessments and commercial assessment by the UWM Research Foundation.
Download Grant Materials (click in the circles below):
- Program Summary
- Abstract Template
- Full Application Packet and Instructions
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Application & Instructions (Full Proposal - By invitation) Available in February
**Abstracts should be submitted in PDF form to: catalystgrant@uwmrf.org. This short abstract should not exceed three total pages. Budget, CV and WISPER record are not required at the abstract stage. A complete budget is not required at this stage, as well.
Timeline
Timeline
- 12/21/23: Call for abstracts
- 1/26/24: Deadline for submission of abstracts – by 5:00 PM
- End of March: Invitations for full proposals issued
- 4/2/24: I-Corps Customer Discovery Mini-Course Optional Date 1 –4:30-6:00pm @ LEC, AmFam Studio
- 4/4/23: I-Corps Customer Discovery Mini-Course Optional Date 2 –12:00-1:30pm @ LEC, AmFam Studio
- 4/22/24: Deadline for full proposals – by 5:00 PM
- May 2024: Scientific review of full proposals
- June 2024: Final selection of proposals and begin donor approval process.
- Late July 2024: Target for notification of awards
- Award period: Target beginning 8/1/24
Evaluation Criteria
Qualification Criteria:
- Field of Study – sciences, engineering, healthcare, or other areas identified
- UWM Researchers – project is for UWM-based research;
- Funding Period – funding period shall be for up to one year;
- Amount of Funding – project funding between up to $50,000 for catalyst grants and $10,000 to $30,000 for gap fund awards.
- Intellectual Property – research must relate to an active intellectual property matter with the UWM Research Foundation (disclosure, patent application, or issued patent). Investigators who do not currently have an active matter may submit an invention disclosure along with the abstract.
Scientific Evaluation:
Scientific reviewers will be asked to prioritize all reviewed proposals and rank proposals against national standards (top 10%, next 40%, bottom 50%)
- Quality – Excellence and novelty of concept, approach, and methodology; clarity and appropriateness of project plans; desirability and impact of potential results on the national and international scholarly community
- Return – Return on investment (ROI) through extramural funding or commercialization [expectation: 3X requested seed funding from external sources, potential for intellectual property, licensing revenue, corporate partnerships, start up companies and other commercial return measures]
- Risk – Availability of necessary skills and experience, likelihood of achieving the intended outcomes; probability of securing extramural funding or engaging in commercialization; and potential for self-sustainability after the seed investment phase
Investor Evaluation Criteria for Gap Fund Applications:
Applications will be reviewed by entrepreneurs and/or investors and asked to rank proposals based on the following criteria:
- Commercial Return – Ability of the project to advance a technology toward commercialization – through a key proof of concept, prototype development, cooperative research effort with a company or other means. Commercialization may be measured by completion of a license agreement, launch of a startup company or ability to secure outside investment.
Programmatic/Commercial Criteria:
Qualifying grants will be reviewed by the UWM Research Foundation following the program’s goal of fostering economic development and made based on the following criteria:
- Intellectual Property – current intellectual property, potential for future patents, freedom to operate, strength of potential intellectual property claims
- Market Assessment – total market size, addressable market, other market dynamics
- Licensing Potential – potential licensees, assessment of license revenue potential
- Corporate Partnerships – potential for corporate partnerships and/or startups, tie-in with regional industrial clusters
Commercialization
One of the goals of the program is to foster the development of intellectual property and the commercialization of UWM technologies. It is a requirement of the program that the proposed work be directly related to an active intellectual property matter with the UWM Research Foundation. This may include an invention disclosure already submitted to UWMRF, a new invention disclosure related to the proposal (new disclosures should be submitted in advance of the abstract deadline), an active patent application (provisional or utility application), an issued patent managed by UWMRF or an active copyright matter.
New invention disclosures should be submitted through the UWMRF Inventor Portal here.
Questions?
Confirmation: You should receive a confirmation that your abstract has been received within one business day of submitting it. If you do not receive a confirmation email, please contact the UWM Research Foundation immediately.
Questions should be directed to the UWM Research Foundation: Robin Kroyer-Kubicek, robin@uwmrf.org 414-906-4684; or Jessica Silvaggi, jessica@uwmrf.org, 414-906-4654.
Past Awardees:
Bradley/Herzfeld Catalyst Grant
Rockwell Catalyst Grant
GE Healthcare Catalyst Grant
Chemistry/Biochemistry Catalyst Grant
Water Catalyst Grant
Commercializing Ideas through
the NSF I-Corps Program
NSF I-Corps Program at UWM
The National Science Foundation (NSF) established the Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program to accelerate the transfer of academic research into the marketplace. By adapting the “lean launch” methodology, leading entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley have equipped faculty nationwide with tools to better understand the markets for their technologies.
In 2015, UWM and the UWM Research Foundation were awarded a three-year NSF grant to bring this transformative program to Milwaukee, establishing the first NSF I-Corps Site in Wisconsin. This methodology perfectly complements the Catalyst Grant Program, which pairs robust science with strong commercial potential. I-Corps helps researchers validate and understand the commercial viability of their work.
Several teams funded by Catalyst Grants have leveraged I-Corps to navigate their path to market more effectively. Today, I-Corps is an integral part of the Catalyst Grant Program, used at the front end to ensure projects are market-ready.
VISIT THE MILWAUKEE I-CORPS WEBSITE
UWM Success Stories
Dr. Junhong Chen received one of the first catalyst grants in 2008, and his Catalyst Grant award in 2011 was instrumental in refining the sensor platform that is the basis for his startup company, NanoAffix Science, LLC., that is working to bring a novel sensor technology patented and licensed by the UWMRF to market. Since then, Dr. Chen has attracted more than $7.7 million in grants and received more than a dozen awards from the National Science Foundation for his innovative research.
Dr. Dave Clark’s Catalyst Grant in 2014 was a pilot project to examine ways to create software tools to serve a need he had identified among regional companies. Dr. Clark participated in the NSF Milwaukee I-Corps Program as well as the national I-Corps program where he and his team conducted more than 200 customer interviews. Informed by the valuable market insight, Dr. Clark is using his 2016 Catalyst Grant to create the first marketable product.
Catalyst Grants (2012 and 2014) were instrumental in the creation of UWM’s latest startup company, SafeLi, LLC., launched in 2017 by Dr. Carol Hirschmugl and Dr. Marija Gajdardziska-Josifovska. Through the NSF I-Corps entrepreneurial training program, the team was able to define a target market for their technologies. They have recently completed a license agreement with the UWMRF, and are pursuing support to prove the technology in battery applications.