Research & Innovation Funding at the University of South Florida

The Corridor and USF Research & Innovation are partners on two pilot programs that are creating meaningful research opportunities for undergraduate students and helping faculty further develop their early-stage innovations. Although these initiatives are currently available only for the USF community, they model the types of partnerships we hope to replicate across the region.

By focusing on earlier stages of the innovation pipeline, our goal is to strengthen the region’s workforce and drive the translation of cutting-edge technologies from lab-to-market. These programs also lay the groundwork for industry collaboration through The Corridor’s Matching Grants Research Program.

Undergraduate Research Initiative

The Undergraduate Research Initiative supports meaningful research experiences for undergraduate students at USF to fuel future innovations and build the high tech workforce pipeline.

Each USF college may request up to $10,000 (total for 2022-2023 school year) from The Corridor to provide new and expanded research opportunities for undergraduate students.

This program is intentionally flexible, allowing each college to design a program that best serves their students and existing administrative structures, from scholarships focused on community-engaged research to paid summer research opportunities.

USF college administrators may view the Undergraduate Research Initiative Guidelines to learn more.

Early-Stage Innovation Fund

The Early-Stage Innovation Fund supports early-stage innovations and applied research with significant commercial potential. These funds are meant to seed technologies developed by USF faculty that could lead to industry investment, startup creation or licensing opportunities.

USF faculty or faculty teams may request up to $25,000 to support USF research expenses associated with further development of the target innovation.

USF faculty may view the Early-Stage Innovation Fund guidelines to learn more.

Contact

Please direct questions about these funding opportunities to:

Elizabeth Nelson
Program Director, University of South Florida System
ernelson1@usf.edu