Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2025-13

• Special Announcements
• Grant Opportunity Alerts
• Recent Research Grant and Contract Awards
• In the News
• Webinars and Events
• Research Grant Opportunities
  • National Science Foundation
  • National Institutes of Health
  • Department of Defense
  • Department of Energy
  • NASA

Want to know?

How to get a patent (IP) on your research and bring your innovation to applications and market for societal benefits?

How to develop an innovation partnership for additional funding opportunities in translational research?

How to form a start-up and follow up on tech transfer with NJIT IP and Technology Transfer Office?

Want an opportunity to network with NJIT Trustee Elisa Charters and other Trustees and industry leaders?

Then join us with your students at the

CTR Workshop on

Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer in Translational Research - Value Creation in Partnerships

Sponsored by

NSF ART (Accelerating Research Translation) Program at NJIT

National Academy of Inventor (NAI) – NJIT Chapter

Date and Venue: April 3, 2025, 9.00 AM – 3.30 PM; Atrium, Campus Center

(light lunch will be served)

Registration Requested: Please Click Here to Register by March 31, 2025

Full Announcement and Additional Information: Click here 

Brief Description: The Center for Translational Research is committed to promoting excellence in collaborative research, innovation partnerships, entrepreneurial pathways, education, training and infrastructure development to translate technology into applications with a high societal and economic impact. To follow up on the CTR mission to enhance the research, innovation and technology entrepreneurship ecosystem at NJIT, we have initiated a series of workshops on pathways to translational research and innovation partnerships, with panel discussions and breakout sessions giving faculty, postdocs and students an opportunity to interact with experts on early and advanced translational research, tech transfer, licensing and funding strategies for entrepreneurial activities.

The CTR Workshop on Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer in Translational Research - Value Creation in Partnerships on April 3, 2025 will focus on the processes of acquisition of Intellectual Property and technology transfer (such as licensing or formation of start-up companies) activities towards potential commercialization for value creation and innovation translation to market for societal benefits.   

Who Should Attend: Faculty, research staff, undergraduate and graduate students and postdocs and external partners who are pursuing or are interested in pathways to translational research and innovation with technology development for use-inspired applications and societal benefit should attend and would be benefited from the workshop.

Why You Should Attend: You will have the opportunity to learn about expectations and perspectives of inventors, innovation partners and stakeholders in academia and industry for successful technology transfer in translational research towards commercialization. The distinguished keynote and panel sessions will present recent trends, challenges and pathways for developing seamless partnerships in value creation to bring technology innovations to market for societal benefits and economic impact. The workshop will also highlight the recent developments at the USPTO towards streamlining the IP acquisition processes including patent application submission. The participants will also have an opportunity to participate in the breakout session to learn about the NJIT’s new Technology Transfer Office with open discussion on licensing and enterprise development processes.

Registered attendees will be able to submit their questions for the breakout sessions for experts to follow up with open discussion. 

Agenda

9.00 AM – 10.00 AM:   General Registration and Meet & Greet Networking with Breakfast

10.00 AM – 10.15 AM: Welcome Remarks and Program Outline

Atam Dhawan, Senior Vice Provost and Executive Director – CTR

Teik Lim, President, NJIT

10.15 AM -11.00 AM:   Distinguished Keynote Presentation

Elisa Charters, Founder, Juego.Juegos and Trustee, NJIT Board of Trustees 

11.00 AM - 12.00 PM: Distinguished Panel Session: Translational Research and Tech Transfer Processes in Academia and Industry

Jeffrey Cartmell, Senior Director, Intellectual Property and Grants, MTF Biologics

Yuhong Jiang, CEO, Purenanotech, Inc.  

Somenath Mitra, Distinguished Professor, CES and Executive Director, York Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, NJIT

Judith Sheft, Executive Director, NJ Commission on Science, Innovation & Technology

12.00 PM - 12.45 PM:   Lunch with Experts – Roundtable Assigned Seats Networking

12.45 PM - 1.30 PM:     Breakout Session -1: Technology Transfer and Licensing Translation     Research - NJIT IP Acquisition

Cesar Bandera, Leir Chair in Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Management; Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship

Shawn Chester, Associate Vice Provost for Research Collaborations

Sherie Dodson, Associate Director for Technology Transfer & Intellectual Property

Sanjiv Chokshi, Esq, Associate General Counsel

·      Overview of IP Protection

·      Invention Disclosures

·      Provisional Patent Applications

1.30 PM – 2.15 PM:      Breakout Session -2: Technology Transfer and Licensing in Translation      Research - NJIT Tech Transfer and Licensing 

Chang Yaramothu, Assistant Professor, School of Applied Engineering & Technology; CEO/CTO, OculoMotor Technologies, Inc.

Shawn Chester, Associate Vice Provost for Research Collaborations

Sherie Dodson, Associate Director for Technology Transfer & Intellectual Property

Sanjiv Chokshi, Esq, Associate General Counsel

·      Post-Provisional Strategies

·       Customer Discovery

·       Licensing vs. Startup

·       Development Plans

·       Commercialization Plans

2.15 PM – 3.00 PM:  Breakout Session 3 – NJII Venture Studio

Michael Van Ter Sluis​​​​, Vice President, Entrepreneurship, NJII

Mary Jane Durkin, Director NJII Entrepreneurship and Venture Studio

·      Overview of NJII’s Venture Studio

·      Investor Readiness

·      Faculty Engagement with Venture Studio

3.00 PM - 3.30 PM:       Closing Remarks

Please register today and encourage your students and postdocs to register. This is a good opportunity for everyone to learn essential steps for successful translational research roadmap to entrepreneurship to bring your innovation from lab to market.  

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New Jersey Water Resources Research Institute (NJWRRI) Funding Opportunities

Graduate Student Grants-In-Aid - Fiscal Year 2025

Up to four (4) awards of up to $6,250 each will be funded. These funds are intended to allow graduate students to pursue research that is not supported by other grant funds, or to carry out preliminary research to develop fundable thesis projects. The funds can be used for research assistant support, travel, supplies, or other direct research expenses. The student will be expected to present the results of the research at a regional or national scientific meeting. Proposals are selected for their relevance to New Jersey's water resources and for the scientific merit and the promise of future productivity.

Junior Faculty-Initiated Projects – Fiscal Year 2025

Up to three (3) projects of up to $25,000 each will be funded. This funding is intended to support junior faculty (i.e., assistant professor level) for a major study. The investigator should indicate how the funding will act as a "seed grant" to spur the development of a larger research program on water resource problems and what other sources of funding may be availble or may be sought to continue the research. All projects are selected based on their relevance to New Jersey's water resources.

The call for proposals is OPEN. The deadline for submission of proposals IS Friday, April 18, 2025 by 12PM, NOON.

• FY2025 Call for Proposals (PDF)
• FY2025 Project Proposal Template (Word )
• FY2025 Budget Template and Supporting Materials (Zip)

NSF: Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences

NIH: Investigator Gateway Awards for Collaborative T1D Research (R03)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI)

Department of Energy: 2025 Exploratory Research for Extreme-Scale Science

NASA: Several Pending ROSES 2025 RFPs; ROSES 2024: A.52 Advanced Component Technology

Trump calls on OSTP to ‘blaze a trail’ in global tech dominance and R&D: Maintaining a competitive advantage in emerging technology fields will be among the primary goals for the 2025 White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as outlined in a letter President Donald Trump sent to newly-confirmed OSTP Director Micheal Kratsios on Wednesday. Trump outlined three key challenges for the office to address: how the U.S. can secure its position as the “unrivaled world leader” in critical and emerging technology; how the U.S. science and tech enterprise can be further enabled to achieve breakthrough discoveries and innovations; and how U.S. scientific discoveries can be leveraged to benefit all Americans.  He further drew a contrast between what his administration’s plans are versus how the previous Biden administration’s OSTP navigated emerging tech policy. Trump cited his signing of the initial National Quantum Initiative Act in 2019 as an action that spurred U.S. quantum information sciences’ research and development, and the creation of the U.S. Space Force as an effort that continues to push frontiers in space exploration. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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DOD cuts $580M in programs, contracts and grants: The Pentagon is eliminating over $580 million in programs, grants and contracts across the department that it called “wasteful spending,” with a long-stalled software modernization program accounting for almost half of the cuts. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the spending drawback in a memo released on Thursday, writing that the terminated expenditures were “inconsistent with the priorities of the DOD.” In addition to the topline figure, Hegseth also wrote that the move would result in approximately $170 million in estimated savings which could be reallocated across the department. The most noteworthy termination was a human resources software development program and its associated active contracts. DOD said the initiative was intended to help streamline a significant portion of the department’s legacy HR program but has become bogged down by hefty cost overruns and delays. The program started in 2018 and was expected to be completed in one year at a cost of approximately $36 million. It is now six years behind schedule and the total cost has soared to more than $280 million over its initial estimate. More information is posted on the NextGov website.