About Us

Innovation Partnerships, a unit of the Office of the Vice President for Research, serves as the primary gateway for researchers seeking to increase the impact of their work. We provide this service to U-M faculty by connecting with the private sector through corporate-sponsored research collaborations, licensing discussions, or connections with entrepreneurs and investors to support startup company formation. Our team of licensing, business development, and investment professionals provides comprehensive step-by-step service to faculty starting with invention assessment and intellectual property support, followed by business mentoring and connections to early-stage capital from the Accelerate Blue Fund.

Our team also helps faculty create new research collaborations, allowing us to leverage strong relationships with industry partners, investors, and entrepreneurs to positively impact society and drive economic growth. We provide support to the faculty and researchers at all schools and colleges on the Ann Arbor campus, as well as U-M’s Dearborn and Flint campuses.

We connect your research with those who need it, create companies that pioneer solutions, or simply provide counsel to broaden opportunities. We support the broad dissemination of scholarly output by providing open access channels and open source licensing models.

Our experts champion the creation of corporate research alliances and collaborations to accelerate the development of promising research. We enable the translation, commercial development, and licensing of groundbreaking research discoveries and technologies. We help create new ventures to usher in change.