NUCATS can help you get your research to market by fostering biomedical innovation and entrepreneurial activity. We offer cross-campus collaborations, award pilot grants and other funding opportunities and help evaluate the commercial potential for research. NUCATS works with you and offers the following services that will help take your research from benchside to bedside.
NUCATS & INVO Translational Research Office Hour (NITRO) Talks
NUCATS and INVO are pleased to host monthly collaborative office hours, designed to support academic innovators across the Northwestern University campus.
Office hours are hosted the last Wednesday of every month, between noon and 1 p.m. Office hours are held in a hybrid format, with both an in-person location and a virtual Zoom room.
- The first 20 minutes will consist of educational content surrounding translational research and commercialization.
- Following the education session, standing topics will include current commercialization resources and programs at the university, as well as funding opportunities.
- The remaining time will be devoted to questions and discussion, include time for individual conversation.
NITRO Talks Schedule
Zoom Registration & Schedule
Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO)
INVO partnered with NUCATS to create the Center for Translational Innovation (CTI), which represents the biomedical arm of the institute. INVO is a Northwestern office that focuses on identifying technologies with commercial potential, increasing the value of those technologies through intellectual property protection and helping in the development and movement toward commercialization through licensing, new ventures and partnering. The INVO team actively scouts for faculty investigations with commercialization potential and offers guidance on their potential commercial development. INVO also frequently hosts campus events and programs to help support the growing culture of commercialization and entrepreneurship at Northwestern.
INVO recently launched a new Inventor Portal that is now available to complete and submit Northwestern Disclosure Forms entirely online.
The Querrey InQbation Lab
The InQbation Lab is Northwestern's hub for resources and space to translate Northwestern’s excellence in research-driven innovation out to the public. A home for early-stage, science-driven startups and the nucleus for a wide range of enabling programming for our university's faculty, researchers, and students, the InQbation Lab accelerates impactful technologies to society. Learn more
- The Q offers a number of programs aimed to help Northwestern students, pre-venture teams, and startups in various aspects of entrepreneurially-focused education and commercialization efforts.
- The Q private and shared spaces, including private offices for resident startups, private and shared labs, foundries, conference rooms, classrooms and collaborative workspaces for the Northwestern community.
INVO Startup Support
Interested in commercializing technologies? Entrepreneurs and inventors can take advantage of INVO startup resources that include mentorship, work space, funding and legal assistance.
INVO sometimes offers teams access to free consultation on securing funds for their startups through Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer contracts or grants. There are also frequent seminars and clinics on the subject.
N.XT Funding
N.XT is a fund designed to foster and support Northwestern’s early stage innovations. N.XT’s purpose is to provide proof of concept resources for product validation, prototyping and market identification.
CBC-HITES
The Chicago Biomedical Consortium Hub for Innovative Technology and Entrepreneurship in the Sciences (CBC-HITES) provides Chicagoland academic innovators with the support needed to develop scientific and technical discoveries into biomedical applications.
CBC-HITES is a proof-of-concept biopharma and health technology center funded by the NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program. Hubs are designed to provide academic innovators with product development education, industry connections, project management, and funding necessary to develop biomedical applications.
CBC-HITES is a non-traditional funding and analytics resource for academic researchers from nine Chicagoland institutions built on the processes and infrastructure created by the Chicago Biomedical Consortium and is housed in Northwestern Medicine’s Comprehensive Transplant Center.
Pilot Grant Funding
NUCATS directly administers several pilot and seed grant funding programs.
Core Facilities
NUCATS investigators also have access to a wide variety of research cores that can help foster their entrepreneurship; browse the links below for more information:
