U. gets $1M from DOE for innovation center

SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Utah has received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to create the Energy Innovation Commercialization Center.

The new effort is designed to help Western universities and research institutions move their university-developed technologies into industry and start-up firms. The center will offer such resources as mentoring, proof-of-concept validation, prototype guidance and access to other U. programs.

Among those is the U.'s Technology Commercialization Office and its Venture Bench Program, which offers services to start-up companies.

The center will help identify the technologies that hold the greatest chance of success while mitigating market risks, and will also develop tools to measure the impact of technologies on job creation, fossil fuel dependence and climate change.

The DOE awarded a total of $5.3 million this week to projects associated with four different universities and a research group in New England in an effort to assist "innovative ecosystems" that will help move such things as renewable energy technologies from university laboratories into the market.

—Linda Thomson