Award Levels
There will be two levels of awards available. The levels depend on the maturity of solutions and scope of proposed work described in the applications: Validation Awards and Accelerator Awards.
Validation Awards
The goal of the Validation Award is to demonstrate that a solution can overcome issues that may stop it from becoming a commercial success and prove that a viable path forward to patient care exists. It is not hypothesis-driven research, but may include technical experiments. “Business Activity” research is also included, but will only be funded through the industry-match. See more on matching requirements here.
The results are intended to demonstrate the commercialization potential of an innovation sufficiently to give enough confidence to subsequent funders, be they TRISH or other government, philanthropic, or commercial, that the potential for clinical impact is significant enough to invest.
Activities included in a Validation Award may support the team members and/or external resources, such as consultants, and include such things as rapid prototyping for use in customer validations, manufacturability and reliability assessments, supply-chain projections, IP Freedom-to-Operate and patentability assessments, validating regulatory and reimbursement pathways, etc. While the plans may include some of the Business Activities, the budgets will make it clear that the associated costs will be borne by the cost-share and not from TRISH funds.
Funding will be up to $100K per Validation Award, plus the 100% match in addition. The duration is expected to be between three to six months. The award amounts are total costs. Budgets should include direct and indirect costs. If you are using an indirect cost rate, it must be a federally negotiated rate.
Accelerator Awards
Accelerator Awards are meant to successfully move an innovation forward towards sufficient commercial funding to launch sales and/or a NASA specific deliverable. Such projects are expected to be sustained post-award through commercial funding with a focus on product introduction and creating revenues. These projects are largely scientifically and technically de-risked, but require further development and investment of money and/or business development expertise to attract further company internal funding or interest from an entrepreneur or commercial entity for licensing and commercialization.
Funding will be up to $250K per Accelerator Award, with a 100% match in addition, and duration is up to one year. The award amounts are total costs. Budgets should include direct and indirect costs. If you are using an indirect cost rate, it must be a federally negotiated rate.
Note: if approved in advance, awards in excess of the $250K cap will be allowed. Please contact Dr Steve Schachter at sschacht@bidmc.harvard.edu.