NSF Funds USC's National Network to Launch New Technologies.

Business Editors

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 24, 2001

The prestigious National Science Foundation awarded the University of Southern California a $600,000 grant to support a $1.2 million project to establish a National Technology Transfer and Commercialization Network.

"The network will pool the resources and knowledge of academic institutions across the U.S. to bring their intellectual property to market through partnerships with venture capital, public/private companies, communities, and government agencies," announced Dr. Kathleen Allen, a professor in the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies of the Marshall School of Business at USC.

Allen is co-principal investigator on the NSF grant with Max Nikias, dean of the USC School of Engineering.

The grant proposal arose out of the USC Technology Commercialization Alliance, a collaboration of the Marshall School of Business, the Keck School of Medicine and the School of Engineering, and founded by Allen and co-directors Dr. George Bekey and Dr. French Anderson to facilitate the commercialization of USC technologies.

"Schools around the nation began asking us to help them implement such a coalition, so we decided to make it a national effort," said Allen.

The NSF grant creates and implements the national network with partners PricewaterhouseCoopers, law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Caltech, Claremont Graduate University, University of Pittsburgh, Cornell University, California State University Fresno, University of Arkansas, University of Nevada-Reno, the Greif Entrepreneurship Center, the National Collegiate Innovators and Inventors Alliance (NCIIA), research laboratory NASA Ames, California Technology Trade and Commerce, and the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation.

The network will give partners, especially under-served schools, access to resources they could not generate on their own, including rapid prototyping and commercial assessment, distance education in commercialization skills, knowledge-exchange conferences, and visual collaboration technology.

Private sector partners supply needed technology, resources, and financial and legal expertise. National labs and state and local governments assist in building and evaluating the program. Academic partners supply vital content and structure.

"USC is the hub of the National Commercialization Network and the driving force behind the project, but this is a highly collaborative effort with many important partners," said Allen.

Central to the new network's activities will be the partnering of MBAs with inventors to develop new products, and to potentially become stakeholders in resulting new commercial ventures. Through the Commercialization Network, West Coast students and faculty will be able to team with students and faculty from schools around the nation and visually collaborate.

The NSF award also provides for small grants to minority and women-owned businesses in Los Angeles' South Central community to tap into the network.

"With network grants, they can buy services at schools like USC such as faculty assistance, technology, and rapid prototyping," Allen said.

Allen announced the NSF award last night at an awards banquet honoring biotech pioneer George Rathmann as 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year. The event was hosted by the Marshall School's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, a partner in the NSF proposal.

About the USC Marshall School of Business

USC's Marshall School of Business provides the foundation for a process of lifetime learning and business practice. Both U.S. News & World Report and Business Week rank Marshall's programs among the top 25.

For more than 80 years, Marshall has provided world-class research and scholarship, preparing students for the future of business. Marshall with its many research centers and Leventhal School of Accounting focuses on a core set of skills and on strengthening its position as a global center of business education and research at the graduate, undergraduate and executive levels.