The National Science Foundation has awarded a $225,000 grant for a , called AWARE: ACCESS: Building Innovation Capacity through Diversity. UofL is the lead institution for the grant.

“Women and underrepresented researchers have great ideas that need to be translated into the marketplace” said Rob Keynton, UofL’s director of research initiatives and lead investigator of the program. “Unfortunately, these innovators have had limited success in securing federal business grants and other funding. We hope to change that with this new program.”

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, woman-and minority-owned small businesses receive less than 16 percent of federal grants (SBIR/STTR) to move their research and technology to the marketplace.

“Increasing the participation of women, African-Americans, and other underrepresented groups in the technology industry is an important social and economic challenge in America. AWARE: ACCESS will help lay the foundation for making significant progress on this issue,” said Malcolm Townes, associate director of Missouri S&T’s Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development.

The pilot program has four major goals for women and minority academic innovators:

• Identify, engage and mentor them to pursue entrepreneurship as a career
• Expand educational, experiential and networking opportunities
• Enhance their competitiveness for federal grant applications
• Create a regional ecosystem for entrepreneurs and sharing of best practices by UofL, IU and Missouri S&T

“We are thrilled to help Midwestern female and minority entrepreneurs become better equipped to compete for federal funding through this regional grant from the NSF,” said Padma Portonovo, program manager at the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.

NSF Program Director Jesus Soriano said “The National Science Foundation recognizes the tremendous potential of women and underrepresented groups in innovation. We hope the AWARE: ACCESS program will enable more underserved groups to achieve their technological and commercial potential and enhance U.S. leadership in science and engineering discovery.”

AWARE: ACCESS is an acronym for Advancing Women And UnderRepresented Entrepreneurs: ACCelerating Entrepreneurial SucceSS.

According to Angelique Johnson, an African American female researcher who received one of those grants for a flexible cochlear implant that could help deaf people hear, being a minority can be a hurdle for obtaining private investments.

“People aren’t familiar with us,” she said.

UofL is trying to change that by applying for a federal grant and implementing a new program to provide mentoring and help for minority and women faculty to try and get their research discoveries to market.

“Part of the problem, just as with anything else in society, is you need role models, you need mentors. You need to look out there and see somebody that looks like you, somebody to emulate, somebody that will teach you. We’re trying to create that next generation,” said William Pierce, UofL’s Executive Vice President of Research and Innovation.

See more about UofL’s goal to “create that next generation” of women and minority researchers in the video below.