Vice Provost for Research Dawn Bonnell announced a membership program in partnership with Penn’s Schools to make the Pennovation Center and its programming available to the broader Penn community.

The Pennovation Center’s mission is to support innovators as they translate their discoveries into new solutions and to help them more easily bring their work to the market and to people who need it. This work needs facilities and programming in an atmosphere conducive to innovation. The Pennovation Center is about building relationships and creating an atmosphere for exchanging ideas.

A $50,000 fund was created to support 50% of School purchased memberships for faculty members, post-doctoral associates, graduate and undergraduate students and/or recent alumni. 

A number of membership options offer flexible access to the Pennovation Center with substantive benefit in supporting commercialization of Penn ideas through programming and incubation services.

“Pennovation Center is a collaborative space that allows innovators to encourage one another, share best practices, and build and deepen their networks during and after their time in the incubator,” said Dr. Bonnell. “This community of peers is highly beneficial to new venture success.”  

Examples of those who may benefit from this program:

• Faculty and graduate students with new discoveries that could lead to products

• Junior or senior design projects focused on market-driven applications

• Project based teams within technology or business courses

• Winners and runners up in business plan or technology competitions

• Post docs or research associates wanting to spin out a company

• Recent graduates continuing projects started at Penn

Schools can participate in the program via a short application requesting the number of memberships, describing the proposed activities, and suggesting the benefit from the Pennovation community. Interested individuals should contact their department or school representatives to get more information about this program.