APLU Announces Inaugural Cohort for the HBCU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Collaborative

15 HBCU Teams Chosen to Lead the Implementation of Innovation and Entrepreneurship on Their Respective Campuses

February 12, 2014—The APLU Office for Access and Success (OAS), National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA), the United State Patent and Trademark Office and the United Negro College Fund today announced the inaugural cohort for the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Innovation and Entrepreneurship Collaborative (IEC). The HBCU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Collaborative is a cohort of 15 HBCUs (both public and private) that are committed to participating in a multi-year collaboration to foster innovation, commercialization and entrepreneurship on their respective campuses. This collaboration, which The Lemelson Foundation and the Lumina Foundation are funding, will build off of the momentum that was established by the 2013 HBCU Innovation Summit held at Stanford University that was co-organized by UNCF, the NSF-funded National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter) and the Stanford Center for Professional Development.

Selected universities will have the opportunity to participate in a collaborative community seeking to increase innovation and entrepreneurship across disciplines (i.e., agriculture, business, science, mathematics, engineering and technology, etc.) in order to build an innovation ecosystem among institutions, administrators, faculty and students, the federal government and private industry. This cohort of HBCUs will be able to access current and future funding opportunities that will be available only to those universities that commit to participate in this unique collaborative.

Forty-four HBCU’s submitted competitive applications for the limited number of spaces in the initial cohort. Institutions were rated on the following criteria:

• Institutional Commitment

• Institutional Capacity (i.e., tech transfer office)

• Federal Research Engagement (i.e., level of federal research funding, etc.)

• Intellectual Property Engagement (i.e., number of patents, etc.)

• Faculty Innovation Potential (i.e., significant levels of research funding or an intellectual property portfolio (i.e., patents, licensures, inventions, etc.).

• Cross-Disciplinary Impact (i.e., participants across disciplines (i.e., Agriculture, Business, Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology, etc.).

The 15 institutions that were selected are:

• Clark Atlanta University
• Fayetteville State University
• Florida A&M University*
• Hampton University
• Howard University
• Jackson State University*
• Morehouse College
• Morgan State University*
• North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University*
• Prairie View A&M University*
• Tuskegee University*
• University of Maryland Eastern Shore*
• University of the Virgin Islands*
• Virginia State University*
• Xavier University of Louisiana

*APLU member institutions

The institutions that were selected to participate will kick off their participation at the 2014 HBCU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Collaborative Symposium in conjunction with OPEN 2014-the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA’s) 18th Annual Conference– being held in San Jose, California on March 21and 22. This pre-conference symposium is funded by The Lemelson Foundation and is being hosted jointly by APLU, the NCIIA, the United Negro College Fund, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Several partnering organizations will also be working with on this initiative, including:

• ACT
• American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU)
• Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)
• Association of Governing Boards (AGB)
• Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU)
• College Board
• Diverse Issues in Education
• Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy/Workforce Management Office (DOE)
• ETS
• Griffin Rodgers and Associates
• HBCU Center for Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship (ICE) at UNCF
• HBCU Digest
• HBCUStory
• Jumpstart
• The Lemelson Foundation
• The Lumina Foundation
• Microsoft
• Mozilla Corporation
• Monsanto Corporation
• National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO)
• National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter)
• National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA)
• National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Alumni Associations (NHBCUAA)
• National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA)
• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• NorTech
• Prime Source Technologies, LLC.
• teelaspillerinc
• Thurgood Marshall College Fund
• TTG+Partners
• United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)
• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
• United States Department of Energy (DOE)
• United States Department of Veterans Affairs (USVA)
• White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans
• White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities