The Office of Technology Transitions (OTT) is issuing this lab call to solicit proposals for the Energy I-Corps (EIC) program. The goal of EIC is to train researchers at the National Laboratories, plants, and sites to learn about market pathways for their technology. This call solicits proposals from National Laboratory, plant, and site technology transfer offices to participate in EIC, for researchers to develop skills in commercialization, and to investigate the market potential for DOE-funded technologies at a critical juncture on the path toward commercialization.
OTT expects to award up to $500K across Topics 1 and 3 in this instance of the EIC lab call. However, additional funding may be available based on proposals alignment with DOE program office goals. Decisions on Topic 2 funding will be made by individual DOE program offices and partner agencies.
DOE expects to select EIC projects in the following three topics:
Topic 1: EIC Pipeline Development - This topic seeks proposals for projects and programming that have the potential to directly increase participation in EIC Training Cohorts (Topic 2) in future EIC lab calls. Deadline - November 3, 2023; 3pm ET
Topic 2: EIC Training Cohort (Cohort 18) - This topic seeks team applications to participate in EIC Cohort 18. Selected teams of researchers will participate in an intensive two-month, curriculum-based program to learn the principles of the business model canvas, define value proposition, and identify customer segments. Teams will develop hypotheses on these elements and interview at least 75 stakeholders as part of the customer discovery process to iterate on their business model canvas and to better understand the market’s adoption readiness of the lab technology. Deadline - October 27, 2023; 3pm ET
Topic 3: Post EIC - This topic intends to support a small subset of the most promising EIC Training Cohort (Topic 2) graduates and U.S. National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps graduates who have a high likelihood of commercializing their National Lab, plant, site technology. The funds are not meant to support the teams’ full commercialization effort. Instead, the funds are intended to cover costs of the next actionable step in technology commercialization and facilitate the teams in reaching their next source of more substantive support to continue their commercialization journey. Deadline - November 3, 2023; 3pm ET