Welcome!
Advanced E-Team grants provide E-Teams with the support they need to bring an innovative product or technology from idea to prototype, and eventually to market. Successful Advanced E-Team grant proposals demonstrate an idea’s technical feasibility, social value, and potential for commercialization. An E-Team should consist of at least two graduate or undergraduate students and a faculty advisor, and a multidisciplinary mix of backgrounds (technical, business, humanities expertise, etc.) on the team is highly desirable. The E-Team faculty advisor is responsible for tracking, directing, and reporting the disbursement of grant funds, and is the principal investigator of record. In addition, the team should include industry and business development advisors and mentors. If members of an E-Team come from different schools, at least one of these schools must be a member of the NCIIA and must administer the grant.

Advanced E-Team grants range in size from $1,000 to $20,000; the grant period is twelve to eighteen months. Annual application deadlines are in December and May. The Principal Investigator will be notified within approximately 90 days of the submission deadline.

Please note: The NCIIA application process requires an Administrative Contact to verify his/her support of your proposal.  As a result, we highly recommend that applicants contact their Office of Sponsored Grants/Research or the equivalent well ahead of our grant deadline to inform them of your interest in submitting a proposal. Many colleges and universities may require a full proposal for administrative review & approval before it can be formally submitted.
 

Who may apply?
Faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students (with faculty advisor) from NCIIA member institutions. If you are from a U.S. university or college, check NCIIA's membership list here.

There should be at least 2 two active students invovled in the project for the duration of the proposed grant period.

Find out what we fund and confirm that your project is a match
NCIIA grant proposals are reviewed by panels of busy professionals who volunteer their time. Please respect their efforts by ensuring that your project aligns with the mission and the requirements of the NCIIA. Read these guidelines carefully and feel free to explore profiles of previously funded grants and our frequently asked questions page. In addition, the links below provide some helpful background information.

Learn more about the NCIIA.
Learn more about the Lemelson Foundation.

What will be funded?
Our definition of a successful Advanced E-Team grant proposal includes projects that:

• Clearly articulate an economically sustainable business model with accompanying project workplan.
• Show a strong likelihood of developing innovations with realistic, well-documented technological and commercial promise.
• Lead to the development of a product or technology designed for affordability, that directly benefits human health or the environment, or that follows a sustainable, socially motivated business model.
• Demonstrate knowledge of the market, a review of the competitive landscape, and evidence of consumer interest.
• Involve a balanced, multidisciplinary E-Team, including students, faculty, and advisors from a variety of disciplines such as science, engineering, business, design, and other humanities disciplines.
• Reflect the diversity of the home institution, and actively engage faculty and students from groups traditionally underrepresented in invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship, including women and minorities.
• Create opportunities for high-quality group learning experiences.
• Create viable collaborative opportunities for participants from both academe and industry.
• Incorporate a plan and a budget that are reasonable, achievable, and sustainable.
• Demonstrate strong team commitment and faculty and institutional support.

NCIIA requires that each funded E-Team participate in an Advanced Invention to Venture (AI2V) workshop (or provide an explanation of an equivalent experience) in order to develop a solid commercialization strategy. The workshop is followed by eight weeks of coaching.  There is a small pool of scholarships for teams that do not have adequate travel funds to participate. These funds are provided on a first come, first served basis.

Required interim and final reports
Reporting is an essential element in the NCIIA grant award process. Principal Investigators for NCIIA grants are responsible for reporting on grant activities within a specified time frame, and are prompted via email to complete reports online. Interim rerports are required every six months, and a final report is required at the end of the grant period. Failure to submit reports may jeopardize your institution’s eligibility for future grants. If you receive a grant, reporting deadlines will be shown in your award letter. Advance planning of your report helps you establish an assessment plan not only for benefit of the NCIIA, but for your own information and reporting to your institution. If you determine ahead of time specifically what you wish to evaluate, you will be able to gather appropriate data while your project is still in progress, rather than relying on anecdotal evaluation at a later date. Click here to preview sample interim and final reports.

Projects that make a difference
The NCIIA places a high value on grant proposals that demonstrate concern for the earth and the health and welfare of humans. We encourage our members to find creative approaches to addressing such issues as poverty, disease, and environmental degradation through affordable design, technologies that solve critical problems and meet basic human needs (such as food, water, shelter, health, safety, and education), and pedagogical approaches that encourage awareness of and interest in these global issues.

How to apply
All proposals must be submitted to the NCIIA online. Create an account and login here. You may start, save, stop and return to the proposal before submitting. The online application process has five steps and will require the following:

Step 1: basic contact information
Step 2: basic proposal information
Step 3: request verification
Step 4: upload required documents (including proposed budget) and other appendices
Step 5: submit

STEP ONE: Submit basic contact information

• Name of the institution you represent.
• Names and contact information of team members, including the Principal Investigator and the Administrative Contact.

Please note that résumés NO MORE THAN 3 pages each will be required as appendices for all team members, except the Administrative Contact.

Who can serve as my Administrative Contact?

The NCIIA defines the administrative contact as a grants administrator or fiscal officer authorized to commit the institution to the terms of the grant. Often, the AC works in the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs or the Office of Contracts and Grants. The Principal Investigator and the Administrative Contact CANNOT be the same person.

back to top

STEP TWO: Submit basic proposal information

• Project Title.
• An abstract (250 words or less) with the top three objectives (in bullet format) of the program.

back to top

STEP THREE: Request verification

• The following people must verify their support for your proposal: Administrative Contact (grants administrator or fiscal officer authorized to commit the institution to the terms of the grant), Department Chair, and the Principal Investigator (this is waived if the PI is also the applicant). To ensure timely approval of your proposal by your institution, apprise them of your intention to submit 3-4 weeks advance of the deadline and share your proposal with them prior to submission.
• When you have entered their e-mail addresses, each of the above administrators will receive an automated e-mail address requesting their verification of support. Allow 2-3 days for them to respond.
• The proposal cannot be submitted until your administrators have responded to the request for verification.

back to top

STEP FOUR: Upload required documents and other appendices

Proposal Narrative
Your proposal narrative may not exceed five pages in length. Prepare the narrative in Microsoft Word, using 12-point Times font.

Suggested narrative format (maximum length may not exceed five pages):

• Introduction: What problem(s) or needs are you addressing?
• History and context: What have you done so far? Do you have drawings and/or a protoype?
• Team: Who is on your team and why? What role will each team member play? Who are your outside advisors?
• Work plan and outcomes: What educational and commercial outcomes do you hope to achieve? What processes will you follow? What will happen at the end of the grant period (might the project continue if successful? Why do you think the project will succeed?) Please put the work plan in a table or spreadsheet format.
• Evaluation and sustainability plan: Please address how you will know if you have succeeded, and describe your internal measures of success.

Appendices (maximum of ten appendices, up to 5MBs each, PDFs preferred)

Required Appendices

1. Budget Template with Budget Justification. NCIIA requires you to use this budget template, which you can download here.

Use of Grant Funds: Advanced E-Team grants support later-stage development of an idea and planning for its commercialization. E-Teams may form as part of a course or on the independent initiative of students, faculty, or other representatives of member institutions. Grant funds are used for supplies, equipment, and/or expenses related to advanced stages of project development, including certain legal fees and student stipends. The grantee institution owns any equipment purchased with an Advanced E-Team grant. NCIIA funding does not cover institutional overhead.

Eligible expenses

• Equipment
• Supplies
• Travel
• Technical services
• Expenses related to performing patent searches, disclosures and applications, or creating marketing or business plans

Ineligible expenses include, but are not limited to:

• Overhead
• Faculty salaries
• Stipends totaling over $3,000 per person or $7,500 per project
• Publicity expenses
• Legal and other expenses of business formation and operation

2. Résumés. Resumes should be no more than three pages, and are required for each participating team member. We do not need resumes for Administrative Contacts.

3. IP policy/IP requirements. The NCIIA fosters student invention and entrepreneurship with the expectation that some student innovators will commercialize their services or products. The agreement states in part that ownership of discoveries or inventions resulting from activities financed by NCIIA grants will be governed by grantee institutions’ intellectual property policies. If a school does not have an intellectual property policy, then the institution must develop an E-Team agreement that establishes ownership of ideas resulting from E-Team work. The NCIIA takes no financial or ownership interest in the projects funded by these grants. We supply copies of the grant agreement on request.

Optional Appendices

1. Letters of support. Letters of support are recommended as a way to demonstrate to reviewers that there is institutional support for your project and/or to verify partnerships discussed in your proposal narrative.

2. URL link to a video pitch. Student E-Teams are encouraged to submit a 30-60 second video "pitch" for reviewers.  A link to the video may be added as an appendix item. These video pitches will not be scored, but they will help reviewers differentiate between the team's idea and those presented in other proposals.  We recommend keeping the video pitch to 60 seconds or less. State the problem, the innovation, and the impact of the team's solution. Simple language and even humor is acceptable!

3. Additional supporting documents. This could include drawings, photographs, websites, etc.

back to top

STEP FIVE: Submit

When you are sure Steps 1-4 have been completed and advisors have verified their support, please click submit. You will receive an email confirming the submission of the proposal.

back to top

Check upcoming submission deadlines

To start an application, login here.

Address questions to the NCIIA at (413) 587-2172, or email us: info@nciia.org