The University of Texas at Austin’s Discovery to Impact initiative offers a compelling look at how a TTO can align storytelling, strategy, and stakeholder engagement to elevate research commercialization. Central to this effort is a thoughtfully developed annual report that goes beyond metrics to showcase momentum, mission, and future direction.
Launching Discovery to Impact at the Right Moment
In 2022, Discovery to Impact was launched as a new name for research commercialization at The University of Texas at Austin (UT). Then in 2025, we launched a new online presence for UT’s Discovery to Impact team because we felt it needed refreshing to match the ambition of its core audiences — innovators, entrepreneurs, industry partners, and investors. The new website and social media channels set the stage to bring more awareness to our impactful startup stories and technologies while serving as a resource for UT innovators to engage with our team. We ended the fiscal year with Discovery to Impact’s first
annual report to showcase the incredible momentum of research commercialization at the university. The report highlights the impact of our programs and resources, including new spaces for innovation, but most importantly where we are headed and how UT is best positioned to shape what lies ahead.
Aligning with UT’s Broader Research and Economic Development Goals
Discovery to Impact was built to accelerate the impact of UT’s world-class research. The University of Texas at Austin is ranked No. 1 among U.S. universities for conducting the most research supported by the National Science Foundation. UT also ranked No. 5 in the nation in research financed by the Department of Defense and No. 6 for Department of Energy research. We like to think of our team as the bridge between campus innovators and their breakthrough research to industry and the investment community. We have an amazing team that is dedicated to helping move UT research discoveries into the commercial sector through licensing, startup formation, and industry collaborations that ultimately turn into products and solutions that impact the world.
Rethinking What Success Looks Like
It was important for us to showcase how all the pieces of the innovation flywheel work together to drive real impact and how the work we do gets reinvested back into UT’s research enterprise. It’s really about the way we tell the university’s stories – from a faculty member disclosing an invention to the different pathways it can take to become a product or solution that makes its way out of the lab and into the world.
Building Alignment Across UT's Innovation Ecosystem
These initiatives had to start at the top. We have a deep culture of innovation and entrepreneurship at UT which is supported by leadership and fostered across our colleges and schools. Part of this includes the President’s Commercialization Advisory Board. This board brings together prominent leaders in business, academia, and venture capital to advise on the advancement of research commercialization and technology transfer at the university. As such, Discovery to Impact plays a central role in advancing the university’s innovation agenda and working alongside Deans, our Faculty Ambassadors, and many other leaders and units across campus.
The Evolution of Faculty Expectations Around Commercialization
Faculty often have different incentives in their career, promotion, and tenure, etc. As we have elevated the efforts of Discovery to Impact across campus, we have opened more conversations with Deans and faculty around the idea that traditional research is the backbone to the engine of discovery – and one of the wheels that this engine turns is technology transfer and research commercialization. Faculty members are more aware today about the expectations from funding and grant sources to focus on mission-driven solutions and research translated into impact, beyond just focusing on the science. Expanding the foundations of knowledge leads to new ways of thinking and ultimately new discoveries that, when applied in the right way can benefit society and lives, stimulate economic development, and support the overall research enterprise.
Addressing Barriers to Faculty Engagement
You can imagine with a university the size of UT, that some faculty don’t yet know about the Discovery to Impact office, so this past year we piloted a new
faculty ambassador program to advance innovation across the university. Faculty members in the program serve as trusted academic champions of innovation within their academic units. They highlight opportunities for students to engage in entrepreneurship while inspiring their peers to pursue pathways that bring research to market. We’ve had great engagement in the program within the college of engineering and are now expanding it to other areas across campus. These ambassadors will serve for a two-year term, to allow for others to step into the role of innovation champion.
Building an Innovation Culture Without Overburdening Faculty
It’s important to remember that we are first and foremost an educational institution – which means our goals are educating and disseminating knowledge for the benefit of society. One of the ways that knowledge can be disseminated is through a commercial application of new technologies. Because of this, we often remind faculty of the broader mission and the impact their work can have out of the lab and into the world in the form of products and services. We want faculty to know they have a team behind them with resources to support the journey and make it as easy as possible to commercialize their discovery.
Aligning Leadership, Faculty, and External Partners
Discovery to Impact’s annual report has been a helpful tool to bring to meetings with faculty and industry partners. We’ve used the report as marketing material to supplement events and other programs, so that audiences can learn more about the work and mission and understand the depth and breadth of UT technologies we are bringing to the marketplace. It’s also being used to inspire the next generation of student and faculty entrepreneurs by showing them what’s possible.
Advice for TTOs Launching Similar Initiatives
Obviously, the work we do each year to assemble data for AUTM was a great starting point. It was also important to think about the compelling stories of innovation across the university that touched upon UT’s strengths in AI, computation, life sciences, material sciences, robotics, and more. The report was an opportunity to highlight new spaces for innovators like our Innovation Tower, Innovation Labs for life sciences, and new initiatives like the faculty ambassador program, and our work prototyping AI tools to streamline the tech transfer process. The content within the report is now being shared across different university channels and departments and amplified on social media throughout the year. This is critical so that the report is not a “one and done” initiative. It is constantly being used to promote, inform, and engage the university community.