Yes! Ultimately, we want the fellows to build collaborations and network outside of their silo, so already working with a team works perfectly!

There’s a wide range of what we’ll be accepting! Regardless of where you are in your research, this program has elements to support and help you advance and move forward.

Over the year of the fellowship, you and your mentor will map out an individualized plan, and that plan will involve what comes next. There are a number of opportunities on campus that can bridge with the fellowship that you can work toward over the year, and your mentor can help guide you in the right direction for you and your research or innovation.

There are two communities that will be facilitated through this fellowship program. As the program is geared toward women and historically excluded people, we want all fellows connect with each other and provide invaluable collegiate support through encouragement, motivation, and sharing ideas. With your individual support team, we want to provide a comprehensive innovation navigation team for you, and that starts with a mentor. Your mentor will be someone in your space who we believe can provide you guidance as an academic faculty innovator. You will also have a coach who will help you narrow down your interests and help move your path forward; your interaction will be less than that with your mentor, but they will contribute to your overall mapping plan.  Additionally, through the sponsorship aspect of the program, fellows will be closely aligned with an external figure who can really advocate for and sponsor their invention or innovation in places the fellow’s mentor or those at the university could not reach.

Both, our intent with this fellowship is providing the framework to develop the innovative opportunities from the target group of people, and the vehicle through which we hope to achieve this development is a project or idea. Our goal is to develop innovators, and to do that, we are looking to develop and train faculty in the realm of academic innovation.

We’re planning to have decisions announced by the first week of December with the fellowship starting January 1.

There is not a defined number, but we anticipate offering up to 10 awards, depending on applications.

The budget offered will add up to 25% of your time, and it is offered to compensate your time working on your innovation project. The justification for your budget should outline how you utilize that time.

As this is a 12-month program, we will be covering up to 25% of your time in a 12-month period. If you are on a 8- or 9-month appointment, reach out to Cecilia to create a template to mitigate those effects.

There is a small amount of money (typically ~$5000-6000) offered for prototyping, so we are not able to support a significant amount of computer programming. If there is a significant amount of computer work to be done, we encourage you to define the architecture and talk to the licensing team to see if that architecture can be protected in a particular way. The actual implementation via coding, however, does not have a very large budget beyond the time budget offered.

No, research responsibilities means you have a research program or arm that is sustainable, and you have a plan to move forward with that. Tenure-stream or appointment-stream faculty are both eligible to apply, so long as they are moving forward with innovation.

Around 20% of work in a week (or 1 day a week) is what will likely be needed to provide the programming for you, depending on what stage you are in for your innovation track.

The commitment given by your department or school is to allow you the protected, paid time to participate in this program, including base salary and fringe rate. If there is something separate due to the department, that would need to be justified in the budget.

The Innovation Institute deals with a lot of different departments, from hard technology, gene therapy, computer programming, and engineering medical devices all the way to a copyrighted set of interventions to help promote more effective parenting methods in parents for children. We are looking for innovation potential with our fellows’ work and are looking for it to be sustainable. If you have any specific questions on whether your project qualifies, email Cecilia Yates or Peter Allen.

We have some programs each month that we hope will form a greater sense of connection between the fellows. If you are in person, we would like to see a plan or at least a commitment to attending these events in person to gain the most benefit from the fellowship program.

An innovation pipeline is a plan detailing where you currently are with your idea and where you think you will be in a certain amount of time. We are happy to help you develop that pipeline as it can be very individualized.

This fellowship has a major element of changing the innovation ecosystem, so policy and institutional change is one of the layers of that ecological model. Members in the Pitt EI3 are working on that aspect to see how it fits into the requirements as it is a goal of the university to move innovation forward. Part of the training will help you have a conversation with your dean or department chair and see where it fits in your tenure track, along with your innovation strategic plan, which we hope you can share with them as well to map a sustainable arm of your career.