The University of Southern California (USC) Office of Research & Innovation (OORI) has established a competitive program to support USC undergraduate or graduate students and their faculty mentors to pursue groundbreaking use-inspired research and early-stage entrepreneurship that translates student intellectual property for social and economic good. Faculty mentors are responsible for submitting the proposal for teams that must include student researchers who represent multiple disciplinary domains. Teams may also include postdoctoral researchers and high school students.
The Student Empowerment Award has two programs:
Innovation Prize. The Innovation Prize track funds multiple $15,000 awards. Innovation Prize projects must promote use-inspired research. Pasteur's Quadrant (first Figure) shows that research can be classified by whether it advances human knowledge by seeking a fundamental understanding of nature, or whether it is primarily motivated by the need to solve immediate problems. The Quadrant argues that one-dimensional research endeavors (i.e., those primarily focused on achieving basic research goals, or solely focused on creating applied research outcomes), will result in no real traction towards achieving both discovery and invention. Funded Innovation Prize awards track must focus on use-inspired research that also promotes greater fundamental understanding of an underlying domain.
Entrepreneurship Prize. The Entrepreneurship Prize track funds multiple $15,000 awards. Entrepreneurship Prize. Entrepreneurship Prize projects must pursue the commercialization of intellectual property (IP) created by student inventors (second Figure). These efforts include, but are not limited to idea generation, business plan development, market data gathering, product development, and proof-of-concept validation. In accordance with USC’s Intellectual Property Policy (4/3/2001), if the student work contains software, patentable subject matter, inventions or other IP and the student uses a significant amount of USC facilities, funds, resources and supplies in those works, the University owns the underlying IP in the student works. However, support under an Entrepreneurship Prize award is not sufficient to claim USC ownership of the IP or form the basis of a claim for University equity in a resulting student-founded company.
For additional information, and to download the Request for Proposals, please click here.
If you are experiencing technical issues submitting your proposal or have additional questions, please contact: rii@usc.edu.
This portal requires information about the PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.
FY25_RII_SEA
The University of Southern California (USC) Office of Research & Innovation (OORI) has established a competitive program to support USC undergraduate or graduate students and their faculty mentors to pursue groundbreaking use-inspired research and early-stage entrepreneurship that translates student intellectual property for social and economic good. Faculty mentors are responsible for submitting the proposal for teams that must include student researchers who represent multiple disciplinary domains. Teams may also include postdoctoral researchers and high school students.
The Student Empowerment Award has two programs:
Innovation Prize. The Innovation Prize track funds multiple $15,000 awards. Innovation Prize projects must promote use-inspired research. Pasteur's Quadrant (first Figure) shows that research can be classified by whether it advances human knowledge by seeking a fundamental understanding of nature, or whether it is primarily motivated by the need to solve immediate problems. The Quadrant argues that one-dimensional research endeavors (i.e., those primarily focused on achieving basic research goals, or solely focused on creating applied research outcomes), will result in no real traction towards achieving both discovery and invention. Funded Innovation Prize awards track must focus on use-inspired research that also promotes greater fundamental understanding of an underlying domain.
Entrepreneurship Prize. The Entrepreneurship Prize track funds multiple $15,000 awards. Entrepreneurship Prize. Entrepreneurship Prize projects must pursue the commercialization of intellectual property (IP) created by student inventors (second Figure). These efforts include, but are not limited to idea generation, business plan development, market data gathering, product development, and proof-of-concept validation. In accordance with USC’s Intellectual Property Policy (4/3/2001), if the student work contains software, patentable subject matter, inventions or other IP and the student uses a significant amount of USC facilities, funds, resources and supplies in those works, the University owns the underlying IP in the student works. However, support under an Entrepreneurship Prize award is not sufficient to claim USC ownership of the IP or form the basis of a claim for University equity in a resulting student-founded company.
For additional information, and to download the Request for Proposals, please click here.
If you are experiencing technical issues submitting your proposal or have additional questions, please contact: rii@usc.edu.
This portal requires information about the PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.