MIIR was established in 2008 as Marshall University’s key vehicle to advancing regional economic development. Scientists at the institute are developing a focused program of biotechnology research dedicated to producing patentable scientific breakthroughs and creating new businesses based on those discoveries.
Mission
A strategic objective of Marshall University is to advance economic development through entrepreneurship and commercialization of scientific discoveries. The Marshall Institute for Interdisciplinary Research was created to help meet this objective. This institute facilitates the transfer of scientific knowledge into applications that have potential for generating business ventures and corporate partnerships. The institute also aims to be a self-sustaining enterprise that creates intellectual property through innovation, enhances economic development, advances intellectual infrastructure and increases employment opportunities in West Virginia.
Strategy
The institute enables commercially relevant bioscience activity by affording companies the opportunity to develop and mature promising new technologies and products within the university environment. Research is directed with licensable endpoints in mind and corporate partners play important roles in selecting and developing projects that have commercial potential. Scientists within the institute monitor scientific progress and obtain extra-mural grant funding to support and accelerate the progress of these projects.
Objectives
- The institute will foster the evolution of spinout companies and joint ventures that benefit Marshall University as a whole.
- The institute will serve as a central platform for academic-corporate research interactions.
- The institute will produce innovative research by hiring creative, productive and externally fundable scientists, often from a corporate background.
- The institute will provide the financial and intellectual support to promote creativity in areas that lead to productive interactions and interdisciplinary work.
- The institute will develop long-term, corporate relationships that lead to sustainable job creation in West Virginia.
- The institute will be supported by university endowments and federal grants awarded to its scientists and laboratories; long-term financing will come from license fees, corporate sponsored research agreements and joint ventures arising out of marketable co-developed projects.
Economic Impact Goals
The institute will:
- Create new jobs in West Virginia, Marshall University and Marshall Health
- Increase state tax revenues
- Produce self-generative and self-sustainable economic growth
- Retain and employ significant numbers of West Virginia college graduates in high-paying positions with benefits
- Help keep the best and brightest West Virginians in the state
- Create educational and occupational ladders in entrepreneurial research and business innovation
- Generate patents from intellectual property developed within the institute/university
- License intellectual property for commercial business development and
- Nurture new economic expansion and enterprise.