Advanced E-Team guidelines and apply

NCIIA places a high value on grant proposals that demonstrate concern for the environment and the health and welfare of humans. We encourage creative 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.

The links below provide some helpful background information:

Learn more about the NCIIA
Learn more about the Lemelson Foundation

Advanced E-Team grants fund the parallel development of technology innovation/design and a viable business model (including a plan for manufacturing/licensing/marketing/sales distribution channel).

Our definition of a successful Advanced E-Team grant proposal includes projects that:

• Demonstrate a technology innovation’ technical feasibility, market demand, strong potential for commercialization, positive social value, and the ability to scale.
• Clearly articulate an economically sustainable business model with accompanying project workplan.
• Show a strong likelihood of developing technology 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 with both business and technical expertise.  They team may include 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 a venture development 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.

Here are some examples of projects that are NOT strong candidates for Advanced E-Team grant funding:

• Pure research projects without any defined commercial applications or potential.
• Projects with no student involvement.
• Projects without clear technology innovation.
• Proposals that don't address a path to commercialization.
• Projects without an obvious social/environmental impact.
• Proposals that are difficult to understand and/or are heavy on the technical jargon without explanation.

Faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students from NCIIA member institutions are eligible to apply.

If you are from a U.S. university or college, check NCIIA's membership list here.

There should be at least two active students involved in the project for the duration of the proposed grant period. In addition, the team should include industry and business development advisors and mentors.

Teams must identify a faculty advisor, who will be responsible for tracking, directing, and reporting the disbursement of grant funds, and is the principal investigator of record. Students cannot serve as principal investigators.

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 and recommended documents (including the narrative, 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 administrative contact is someone in your institution's Office of Sponsored Research or an administrator able to manage grant funding within a department or school. The Principal Investigator and the Administrative Contact CANNOT be the same person.

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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.

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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.

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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. Include the following:

• Problem: What problem(s) are you are trying to solve? Why is your innovation needed?
• Solution: What is your solution? What is the value proposition?
• Design: Does your solution work (yet)? how does it compare to what's already out there? What stage are you at with regard to concept/prototype/testing? What will it cost?
• Distribution: Assuming the technology will work and there is market demand, what is the commercialization plan and how will you take this to scale? Have you talked to potential customers?
• Team: Who is on your team? Who is focusd on the technology and who is focused on the business development? Who are your outside advisors?
• Work plan and outcomes: What does success look like any how will you measure it? Please create a work plan in a table or spreadsheet format and be explicit about the milestones you hope to achieve by the end of the grant period. This table can be uplaoded as one of your appendices.

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

Required Appendices

1. Budget Template with Budget Justification. NCIIA requires you to use a 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. 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. Please note that NCIIA will typically not fund the purchase of equipment that is considered part of a college or university infrastructure.  Proposed funds for equipment should be less than 1/3 the total proposed budget. NCIIA funding cannot cover institutional overhead.

Be sure to explain your proposed budget expenses in the "justifications" section in the budget template or in a separate document. Use the following guidelines for the proposed budget.  We also recommend listening to the podcast on putting together an effective budget, which can be found here.

2. Résumés. Resumes should be no more than three pages, and are required for each key 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 strongly 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 1 to 2 minute 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 the team's idea from those presented in other proposals.  We recommend keeping the video pitch to under 2 minutes. State the problem, the innovation, and the impact of the team's solution. Simple language and even humor is acceptable! To view some samples, watch the top videos submitted as part of NCIIA's annual Open Minds competition.

3. Additional supporting documents. This could include drawings, photographs, websites, etc. We also stronlgy encourage teams to conduct a survey of the competitive landscape and include the results of this research as an appendix.

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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.

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 timeframe, and are prompted via email to complete reports online. 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. Teams may also be required to submit a two to five minute video about their project as part of their final written report. 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. Click here to preview sample interim and final reports.

Advanced E-Team grant deadlines occur two times per year, in May in December. RFPs typically open six to eight weeks prior to the deadline. Submission deadlines are posted on the Advanced E-Team webpage.

To start an application, login here.