School:University of Alabama at Birmingham

Overview

The University of Alabama at Birmingham offers an abundance of resources to facilitate entrepreneurship. Several of the assets available to university students to help start or grow an idea are the iLab (Innovation Lab), the Innovation Depot, and The Edge of Chaos. The iLab is an area located within the Innovation Depot, a start up incubator for the greater Birmingham area, where university students can grow ideas and collaborate with other young entrepreneurs. Lister Hill Library provides a creative space, The Edge of Chaos, for students and faculty to step beyond the core curriculum and explore topics that they may find interesting or essential in understanding topics necessary for academic growth.

Seed funding sources available to UAB students include Velocity and the Clinton Global Initiate. Each of these is located through the Innovation Depot and the UAB Service Learning department, respectfully. The Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship offers the UAB Research Foundation as an asset to students when dealing with technology transfer. The UAB Office for Undergraduate Research also helps in providing sponsorship and funding for newly developed initiatives while assisting in technology transfer.

Grant writing, legal, and venture assistance is well established in the university’s ecosystem. The Honors College’s Science and Technology Honors Program provides direct support to students and training in how to write grants while also connecting students with faculty that are trained in such activities. The Center for Clinical and Translational Science also provides resources for students looking for assistance in research related topics when dealing with publications and planning clinical trials. All in all, UAB provides an ample amount of resources to help and encourage students to move ideas and services along their path to completion.

Promoting Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship

eClub
iLab
Entrepreneurship Minor
Business Research Certificate Program
Wicked Problem Case Competition
Graduate Certificate in Technology, Commercialization, & Entrepreneurship
Alabama Launchpad
eClub Innovation Competition
REV Birmingham Pitch Competition
Funding Emerging Art with Sustainable Tactics (FEAST) - public micro-granting supper
The Education Scrimmage
Innovation Week Birmingham

Encouraging Faculty Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Coming in at #21 in total funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) among all universities, UAB has a substantial amount of resources (over $160 million in grants from the NIH alone) for faculty to pursue innovation in a research context. Faculty are encouraged to pursue ideas and are frequently recognized for their innovative work both on-campus, by campus-wide publications such as UAB Magazine and GreenMail, and off, by news features at the local, regional, and national levels.

With Birmingham’s entrepreneurial landscape exploding in the last few years, UAB has recently begun developing partnerships with leaders in the entrepreneurial community, as evidenced by the collaboration between the Innovation Depot (a local startup incubator) and the Collat School of Business to form the iLab, a student business incubator. These partnerships provide opportunities for both students and faculty to gain the tools needed to potentially launch their products into the market.

But herein lies the metaphorical albatross around our neck—the intellectual property (IP) rights of students and faculty, not just at UAB but across the entire University of Alabama system, are non-existent. Quoted from the University of Alabama System’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT), “When University support makes the research effort possible or when it provides support for the development of a patentable invention, it is reasonable for the University to participate in the fruits of such development, including reimbursement for its costs.” IP rights reform is needed to ensure that both our students and faculty are encouraged to innovate and disseminate their innovations into market at large.

Related Links

Rohit Borah

Trea Ladner

Forrest Satterfield

John Shelley