Innovation Corps
The U.S. National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) program is an immersive, entrepreneurial training program that facilitates the transformation of invention to impact.
The University of Kentucky is a partner in the Mid-South I-Corps Hub.
I-Corps Hubs provide experiential entrepreneurial training to academic researchers across all fields of science and engineering. Hubs form the operational backbone of the National Innovation Network — a network of universities, NSF-funded researchers, local and regional entrepreneurial communities and other federal agencies — that help researchers translate fundamental research results to the marketplace.
The University of Kentucky’s regional I-Corps program is Launch Blue’s UAccel program.
Visit the UAccel page to learn more about the regional program.
We encourage all members of a team to actively participate in the program. I-Corps teams are encouraged to assign team members to the roles of Entrepreneurial Lead and Technical Lead, which are:
Technical lead: Typically, a faculty member who is the technology inventor and serves as principal investigator, or a postdoctoral researcher who has deep expertise in the core technology area to be evaluated for market potential.
Entrepreneurial lead: Typically, a graduate student or postdoctoral researcher who leads the team and is committed to commercialization.