Advanced E-Team Grant Guidelines Deadlines: Friday, December 5, 2008 and Friday, May 8, 2009
Scope of NCIIA E-Team grants 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 E-Team grant proposals demonstrate an idea’s technical feasibility, social value, and potential for commercialization. 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.
Video pitch opportunity You are invited to develop a 60-second "elevator pitch" describing your project. This will help differentiate your proposal in the minds of the NCIIA reviewers. Simply upload a video of your pitch to YouTube™ (or a similar site) and notify us of the URL as part of your submission. Define the problem you are trying to solve, your solution and why your team is well qualified to move the idea to prototype and eventually to commercialization. For great ideas on creating a strong elevator pitch for your project, check out some of the resources below! Good luck! For great ideas on creating a strong elevator pitch for your project, check out some of the resources below! Good luck! Resources General information websites MIT 100K StartUp Nation Business Know-How Microsoft Small Business Center Fast Company Idea Sandbox Elevator Pitch Essentials Growing Venture Blogs to watch out for... Tumbling Duke How to Change the World Who Has Time for This...

Who may apply?
Faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students (with faculty advisor) from NCIIA member institutions. To check if your institution is a member or to join/renew your membership, please click here.

What will be funded?
Our definition of a successful grant proposal includes courses and programs which:

• 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 and evidence of consumer interest
• Involve a balanced, multidisciplinary E-Team, including students, faculty, and advisors from technical, business, and 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

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. The links below provide the background information you will need.

About the NCIIA>>
About The Lemelson Foundation>>
Searchable database of all NCIIA Course and Program grants>>

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. Course and program grant proposals may focus on introducing these issues to students through a design course, by adding socially-focused E-Teams to an existing entrepreneurship course, or developing an entirely original program to engage students in problem-solving endeavors.

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 submission deadline is 5 pm EST Friday, May 9, 2008. Start early! The online application process has five steps and will require the following:

STEP ONE: Submit basic contact information

• Name of the institution you represent
• Names and contact information of team members (résumés up to 3 pages each will be required as attachments), including principal investigator (PI) and administrative contact (AC). 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 PI and the AC cannot be the same person.

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

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.

STEP FOUR: Upload required documents

• An attached narrative (see description below)

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 with page length guidelines: 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?
  

Evaluation and sustainability plan: Please address how you will know if you have succeeded, and describe your internal measures of success. 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. A formal written report is required of every grant recipient; failure to report may jeopardize your institution’s eligibility for future grants. If you receive a grant, the reporting date 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.

Appendix requirements (maximum of ten appendices, up to 5MBs each)

1. Budget template with budget justification (NCIIA requires you to use the 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. The E-Team faculty advisor is responsible for tracking, directing, and reporting the disbursement of grant funds, and is the principal investigator of record. An E-Team should consist of at least two graduate or undergraduate students and a faculty advisor. 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.

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 (no more than three pages each) of participating team members
3. Letters of support
4. IP policy
5. URL link to your Elevator Pitch online (optional)

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 and The Lemelson Foundation take no financial or ownership interest in the projects funded by these grants. We supply copies of the grant agreement on request.

5. Other optional supporting documents, such as drawings, photographs, websites

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.