The Texas Innovation Center provides faculty, researchers, and students in the College of Natural Sciences, Cockrell School of Engineering, and McCombs School of Business access to financial resources, mentoring, and programming to pursue their entrepreneurial endeavors.
Whether you are at the early stages of considering a startup venture or have established a company, we welcome you to apply. The awards below are intended to help your ideas and concepts move forward to evaluate their commercial potential. This ranges from exploring product feasibility to conducting market analysis for understanding customer demands to developing a proof-of-concept derived from a class project or lab research. Example uses of the awards include:
- Make, test, or demo prototype
- Register and travel to a conference
- Travel to meet with key potential customers and investors
- Validate market and pricing models
- Assess customer demand
Awards range from $1,000 to $25,000, with funding renewals considered based on achieved milestones and progress toward goals. Please confirm your eligibility for each award.
Applicants will find more information about the awards below and via this link: Texas Innovation Center Awards.
Traditionally underrepresented groups, defined by geographic regions, specific community or student organizations, and economically disadvantaged families, are encouraged to apply.
These awards from the Texas Innovation Center (TxIC) are available to all graduate students in the Cockrell School of Engineering and the College of Natural Sciences. Students are encouraged to use these funding sources in exploring, developing, and moving forward entrepreneurial efforts and commercialization of university-based research and intellectual properties.
Awardees are provided funding and support from TxIC’s resources to help advance their startup formation and launch endeavor. The support will help you explore product feasibility to conduct market discovery to understand customer demands and create a proof of concept.
*Please login to see full application for additional materials.
Application Includes:
- Basic pitch deck (10 to 12 slides)
- Budget and budget justification
- Letter of Support
- Pitch / Intro Video (max 2-minutes)
The video is used to tell us about you and your team, the project, utilization of funding, outcomes, and anything else you want to communicate.
The letter of support must come from an external subject matter expert willing to advocate for the proposed project and describe the impact of the technology on society and the economy.
The budget must detail the project expenditures and explain why it is required to complete and achieve milestones.
The pitch deck must include the following slides or a combination of slides:
- Title Slide
- Problem/Unmet Need
- Solution
- Solution Delivery/Product – product and how it works
- Market Size (TAM, SAM, SOM)
- Competitive Advantage and Matrix
- Market/Go-To-Market Strategy – proof that users love your product
- Business Model – how you make money
- Financials – plan going forward, hires, cost of things
- Team
- The Ask – what will you accomplish with the Innovation Grant
LIST OF AWARDS
Malcolm Milburn Endowed Scholarship and Award in Entrepreneurial Studies
- Open to all graduate students throughout the Cockrell School of Engineering
- Awards up to $4,200
Inspire Commercialization Award
- Open to all graduate students in the Cockrell School of Engineering and the College of Natural Sciences for supporting students pursuing commercialization of technology derived from UT research and intellectual property
- Awards of up to $20,000
The Lodge Innovation Scholars Program provides awards for MBA, MS, or Ph.D. students pursuing practical knowledge and applications of how innovations are transformed into thriving businesses. Students will participate in a funded investment analyst internship at the Texas Innovation Center to gain experience with technology commercialization and business development of startup companies within UT's portfolio. Students will also be mentored by Stuart Lodge to learn startup financial modeling best practices.
Lodge Scholars will acquire skills and experience, including financial model development, go-to-market strategies, market & customer discovery, and productivity tools (such as Pitchbook, LivePlan, etc.) while working with TxIC staff, Stuart Lodge, and startup founders.
*This is a paid internship to gain technology commercialization experience and mentorship.
Eligibility
- Open to current graduate students from the McCombs School of Business enrolled in an MBA, M.S., or Ph.D. program
Award
- $5,000 per semester
The TxIC Innovation Grants are part of the Texas Innovation Center’s resources for helping faculty better prepare their technologies and discoveries for commercialization. The grants enable projects with well-defined milestones to overcome hurdles, moving toward the marketplace. These awards aim to help source other funding and continue creating a company.
Award amounts range from $5,000 to $25,000. The scope of use for the grant must be completed within six months, with any unused funds returning to the Innovation Grant program. Awardees may apply for a one-time 6-month extension per grant as needed. Applicants may apply for an Innovation Grant each semester and only hold one active grant.
Grants may not be used for basic, fundamental, or exploratory research, to fund the general operation of a research lab, for journal publications, the cost to secure or protect IP, or for faculty salary.
The Innovation Grant funds are for direct project costs. A partial list of allowed uses includes:
- Make, test, or demo prototypes
- Register and travel to conferences or meet with customers & investors
- Validate market and pricing models
- Assess customer demand
- Graduate student support
Eligibility:
1) College of Natural Sciences or Cockrell School of Engineering faculty or researcher with principal investigator status
2) UT Intellectual property:
- An invention disclosure related to the application subject matter was submitted at least 45 days prior to the submission date of this application
- OR a UT provisional patent related to the application subject matter
- OR a UT issued patent related to the application subject matter
Application materials include:
- Basic pitch deck (10 to 12 slides)
- Single-page concept paper
- Budget and budget justification
- Letter of Support
- Pitch / Intro Video (max 2-minutes)
The video is used to tell us about you and your team, the project, utilization of funding, outcomes, and anything else you want to communicate.
The letter of support must come from an external subject matter expert willing to advocate for the proposed project and describe the impact of the technology on society and the economy.
The budget must detail the project expenditures and explain why it is required to complete and achieve milestones.
The concept paper (single-page, 11 pt. font, 1-inch margin) should include:
- Project title & PI name
- Proposed project overview
- Description of methodologies and key personnel
- Justification for support
- Background putting research and innovation into perspective
The pitch deck must include the following slides or a combination of slides:
- Title Slide
- Problem/Unmet Need
- Solution
- Solution Delivery/Product – product and how it works
- Market Size (TAM, SAM, SOM)
- Competitive Advantage and Matrix
- Market/Go-To-Market Strategy – proof that users love your product
- Business Model – how you make money
- Financials – plan going forward, hires, cost of things
- Team
- The Ask – what will you accomplish with the Innovation Grant
Download Information Handout: link