Tech Development Funds

Through its technology development efforts, the NTI has created new intellectual property, fostered a vibrant environment for new ventures and increased the marketing success of the region both nationally and internationally.NTI technology development consists of two different programmatic elements.

Seed Grants
With its seed grant component, the NTI supports small scale research projects on high-risk/high gain ideas from researchers that have the potential to develop into new programs of interest to the federal funding agencies.

In 2007, the NTI gave out eight seed grants of $30,000 each for a total of $240,000 to faculty representing three different institutions for projects in diverse areas of composites, tissue scaffolding, drug delivery and imaging. Competition for these grants is steadily increasing.

Core Grants
The NTI’s core research projects are designed to be multi-investigator, multi-institutional collaborations. In order to be considered as a core project, research must contribute to new IP, and the technology developed must have significant potential for commercialization and be attractive to industry for corporate sponsorship or licensing.

In 2007, the NTI funded two core projects focusing on biosensors and bioprobes.