The University of Iowa’s Office of Innovation serves all UI faculty members regardless of department or title. Our guidance, insight, and support are here to help inventors, even if they’re not sure where their ideas may go.
 

Iowa Impact offers a unique support system for innovators. We’ll help you identify your biggest needs, whether they involve securing funding or bringing a product to commercialization, and we’ll support you every step of the way as you make your idea into a reality. Our university’s innovation center is here to help with:

• Expertise, advice, and insight
• Mentoring
• Networking
• Business formation
• Company office and laboratory space
• Design and prototyping
• Connections to external and internal resources
• Funding
   

Commercialization is the process by which an idea develops into a product, service, or company that generates economic value, and can take many possible forms. You don't have to know what form that might be to get started, or even believe your idea has commercial potential. Our team is trained and experienced to uncover those opportunities with you.

If you are a faculty member interested in seeing your invention impact patients, an industry, or consumers, commercialization is a mechanism to see your research transformed into impact. Everyone has great ideas, but executing a brilliant idea is challenging. Either via a startup company or by licensing inventions to industry, commercialization can have a tremendous impact on society and can be extremely fulfilling personally, professionally, and financially.

The Office of Innovation consists of five innovation hubs. We regularly partner with other UI, community, or state organizations focused on developing Iowa’s entrepreneurial and innovation economy, including:

• UI Ventures
• MADE
• Protostudios
• UI Research Park
• UI Research Foundation 

To learn more about our innovation centers, click here.
 

Yes. You can take your idea from a simple sketch to something tangible with the help of Protostudios’ state-of-the-art rapid-prototyping facility.

Yes. Our university research foundation is ready to partner with you to find the right funding for your project.

Absolutely. Our partners have been through this process and are ready to help inventors refine their vision and see its full potential, even if they can’t see that far quite yet. UI Research Park provides a business incubator that can help you bring your concept to life.
 

We invite you to help our community benefit from your expertise—become a mentor to new innovators and share your story.

Get started by learning more about our innovation centers today. Whether you are interested in research funding, technology commercialization, or mentorship, when you reach out to University of Iowa Office of Innovation, we can connect you with the university innovation centers and resources that will help you find forward momentum.