National Science Foundation Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) Program
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline for Research Partnership Track: October 28, 2019 by 11:30 AM
FAS/OSP Deadline: December 23, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: January 8, 2020
Award Amount: up to $250,000 for 18-24 months for the Technology Translation Track; up to $550,000 for 36 months for the Research Partnership Track

The Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) Program within the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP) offers researchers from all disciplines of science and engineering funded by NSF the opportunity to perform translational research and technology development, catalyze partnerships and accelerate the transition of discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace for societal benefit. This solicitation offers two broad tracks:

1. The Technology Translation (PFI-TT) track offers the opportunity to translate prior NSF-funded research results in any field of science or engineering into technological innovations with promising commercial potential and societal impact. PFI-TT supports commercial potential demonstration projects for academic research outputs in any NSF-funded science and engineering discipline. This demonstration is achieved through proof-of-concept, prototyping, technology development and/or scale-up work.
2. The Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) track seeks to achieve the same goals as the PFI-TT track by supporting instead complex, multi-faceted technology development projects that are typically beyond the scope of a single researcher or institution and require a multi-organizational, interdisciplinary, synergistic collaboration. A PFI-RP project requires the creation of partnerships between academic researchers and third-party organizations such as industry, non-academic research organizations, federal laboratories, public or non-profit technology transfer organizations or other universities.

The intended outcomes of both PFI-TT and PFI-RP tracks are: a) the commercialization of new intellectual property derived from NSF-funded research outputs; b) the creation of new or broader collaborations with industry (including increased corporate sponsored research); c) the licensing of NSF-funded research outputs to third party corporations or to start-up companies funded by a PFI team; and d) the training of future innovation and entrepreneurship leaders.

Eligibility: All proposals submitted to the PFI program must meet a lineage requirement under one of the following two paths:

• NSF-supported research results: The PI or a co-PI must have had an NSF award that ended no more than seven (7) years prior to the full proposal deadline date or be a current NSF award recipient. The proposed technology development project must be derived from the research results and/or discoveries from this underlying NSF award.

OR

• NSF-supported customer discovery results through the NSF I-Corps Teams Program: The PI or a co-PI must have been a member of an award under the NSF I-Corps Teams Program. The PI or co-PI must have fully completed the training provided under the I-Corps Team award within the past four (4) years. The customer discovery activities performed under the NSF-funded I-Corps award must be based on the technology that is proposed to be translated within the PFI proposal.

Please Note: There is no limit to the number of applications to the Technology Translation Track but Harvard is limited to submitting only one application to the Research Partnerships Track. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research will conduct the internal competition to select the Harvard nominee for the Research Partnerships Track. To be considered for the Harvard nomination for the Research Partnerships Track, potential applicants must submit an internal pre-proposal via the link above. The NSF solicitation for the PFI program is available here.