Partnerships & Commercialization
Increasing the likelihood of commercial and health impact.
Partnership and commercialization efforts within the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship apply expertise and seed funds to promising university innovations that address real market needs but require further support to develop and validate a commercialization strategy. Through a series of strategies and activities, the team helps stakeholders translate their innovations out of an academic setting, secure investments and strategic partners, and capture early market traction.
Collaboration Management
The innovation and entrepreneurship team streamlines the process of understanding goals, expectations and stakeholder needs within challenging academic-industry partnerships.
With the goal of assisting Dell Med faculty and staff in their collaborative efforts with industry partners, the office identifies value for all stakeholders and distills critical insights, creates an actionable and achievable strategic plan for partnerships, and implements support and future collaborative planning.
Benefits at a Glance
For many partnerships, the hardest part of strategic planning is getting initiatives off the ground and executing change within organizations. The innovation and entrepreneurship team supports this critical effort by bringing together key stakeholders and elements to build a common language and by setting clear expectations for implementation along with success metrics that can be tracked.
The innovation and entrepreneurship team brings clinical, technology and business teams together to help foresee issues and opportunities, and provide increased value for both the industry partner and university.
By presenting a clear roadmap and strategy to leadership teams on all sides of a project early on in the process, the team gauges levels of commitment, recruits executive team sponsors and increases the likelihood of receiving necessary approvals for partnership.
Many projects fail because of challenges in structural framework, especially since this is customized based on the needs and constraints of an organization. The innovation and entrepreneurship team helps identify the right mechanism — such as a joint venture, sponsored research or gift — and clarifies the type of partnership agreement that works for all sides.
During the implementation phase of a project, the innovation and entrepreneurship team provides project management services as needed to ensure streamlined operations.
Often, partners invest significant amounts of time building relationships only to discover that they have no future beyond a specific project. By addressing general organizational elements early and transparently, the innovation and entrepreneurship team’s roadmapping process improves the durability of relationships and lays the foundation for future projects.
The innovation and entrepreneurship team’s roadmaps help make projects more efficient and streamlined, improving return on investment both in terms of time and money.
Additionally, the team can help prioritize projects based upon the value they generate for the university and industry partner. Should a roadmap identify insurmountable barriers that result in a no-go decision, industry partners can make an early decision to shelve a project and save a resources that are better applied toward different opportunities.
How It Works
Over four steps, the innovation and entrepreneurship team facilitates stakeholder needs within academic-industry partnerships and ensures a project’s collaborative success.
- Detail levels of support with respect to project details in an initial consultation.
- Host general discussion sessions with industry partners for alignment and planning followed by detailed strategy sessions to define clear goals and next steps.
- Develop and present a project roadmap to stakeholders that identifies the most optimal pathway to value for all parties. The team also helps faculty and staff define budgets and agreements that adequately cover a project’s scope.
- Support partners in every step of implementation through continued project management and future collaboration strategies.
Get Involved
Innovators, corporate partners and investors can email Ruben Rathnasingham to further identify partnership and commercialization opportunities — from defining effective go-to-market strategies to promoting deliverables such as sponsored and collaborative research, new intellectual property, grant support and strategic investment.