AUTM Updates

Academic Institutions Across the Nation Receive More Than $100 Million in NSF ART Awards 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced the first-ever Accelerating Research Translation (ART) awards to empower academic institutions to speed and scale translational research. 

The award program, heavily supported by AUTM, was first announced in early 2023 and is part of the first new NSF directorate in more than 30 years to focus on innovation, use-inspired research, technology and partnerships. Importantly, only certain types of institutions—those who will benefit most from additional support to expand their research translation capacity—were eligible for these awards, to be consistent with the Planning and Capacity Building section (10391) of the CHIPS and Science Act. AUTM leadership worked extensively to get 10391 included in the legislation, and we are proud to see it come to fruition. 

Awardees include: 

  • American University  
  • ​Boise State University  
  • Clemson University  
  • Florida State University  
  • George Mason University  
  • Illinois Institute of Technology  
  • Lehigh University  
  • Montana State University  
  • New Jersey Institute of Technology  
  • SUNY Binghamton  
  • The University of Alabama  
  • The University of Central Florida  
  • The University of Oklahoma  
  • University of Delaware  
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst  
  • University of Missouri  
  • University of Southern Mississippi  
  • University of Wyoming  

Each ART awardee will receive up to $6 million over four years to identify and build upon academic research with the potential for technology transfer. Investing in capacity will ensure availability of staff with technology transfer expertise and support the education and training of entrepreneurial faculty and students. Each ART awardee institution will benefit from having a partnership with a mentoring academic institution that already has a robust ecosystem for translational research.  

“AUTM has fiercely advocated for Section 10391 of the CHIPS and Science Act because we understand the importance of fully resourcing technology transfer offices to maximize the development of early-stage innovations into the products and services of tomorrow," said AUTM CEO Stephen J. Susalka, PhD. “The ART Program is an excellent example of focused investment under that Section – for the benefit of us all.”  

The ART program is part of NSF’s new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate, which is designed to accelerate discovery and innovation to rapidly bring new technologies to market to address the pressing societal and economic challenges. 

Throughout the fall NSF partnered with AUTM to host roundtables at AUTM Region Meetings. The discussions centered around various models for successful industry-university collaborations, with a particular focus on novel and mutually beneficial approaches to intellectual property (IP) management.  

“[University of Southern Mississippi] is an active partner in Mississippi’s growing knowledge-based economy,” say, Brian Cuevas, PhD, Director of the Office of Innovation Management at USM. "This award will not only support the development of innovation programs, but also fund seed translational research projects demonstrating the university’s capabilities to translate its research into technology-based startups.”

To read more about the awards, visit https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USNSF/bulletins/37fc1fe.