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3 Ways Anyone Can Access The World's Best Scientific Research

Another vastly underutilized resource is the national labs, which are some of the most prestigious scientific institutions in the world. Here again, despite the impressive credentials, the labs are open to you as a resource and, in fact, have developed a number of programs to help you access them more easily. For example, Argonne National Laboratory has developed three programs specifically to engage with the private sector. The ACCESS program is focused specifically on next generation batteries, Nano Design Works offers a more wide ranging set of services and Chain Reaction helps to incubate new technologies for the marketplace. Andreas Roelofs, who heads up many of these efforts at Argonne, stressed to me that they are eager to hear from you. "If you want to improve your business by creating better materials, more efficient chemical processes, more advanced electronics or whatever, chances are we can help or at least point you in the right direction. Even more importantly, we want our work to be useful and to make an impact," he told me. Read More

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HPC Cloud Startup Launches 'App Store' for HPC Workflows

A University of Chicago Startup Parallel Works is based on the open source Swift Parallel Scripting language that company founder and CEO Michael Wilde helped guide the development of at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory circa 2005-2006. Parallel Works and any other company can use Swift and contribute back to its open source code base, thus helping to ensure the technology’s sustainability for all users. Wilde feels that this is the kind of win-win technology transfer that many entrepreneurial incubation programs like the NSF I-Corps, the DOE Lab Corps, and DOE/Argonne’s new program “Chain Reaction Innovations” are helping to nurture. Read More

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February Tech-to-Market Newsletter: Re-imagining Clean Energy Innovation

Chain Reaction Innovations: The Illinois Science & Technology Coalition took a closer look at Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in a recent question and answer session with CRI Director, Andreas Roelofs. In the piece, Roelofs discusses how startups benefit from the tremendous resources CRI offers, as well as how the entrepreneurs in the CRI program enrich the ANL community. Click here to read the conversation. Read More

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An Inside Look at Argonne’s Startup Incubator

Known for its strengths in supercomputing and clean energy, Argonne National Lab has a long tradition bringing together some of the world’s foremost scientists and most advanced facilities to take on many of the world’s biggest challenges. Continuing the tradition of collaboration and scientific advancement, Argonne recently announced the launch of its first-ever in-house startup incubator, Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI). Read More

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Purdue Innovator Selected For Argonne’s First Entrepreneurship Program; Discovery Park-Based Purdue Foundry Also To Serve In Mentorship Capacity

A Purdue graduate student who is developing technology that could turn nuclear waste into energy, has been selected as one of five innovators in a newly embedded entrepreneurship program at the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. Ian Hamilton, a graduate student in Purdue's School of Nuclear Engineering, was selected for Argonne's Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) program. Read More

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Innovators join first entrepreneurial program at Argonne National Laboratory

The Midwest’s first entrepreneurial program to embed innovators in a national laboratory announced its inaugural group of entrepreneurs and mentor partners, including the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Developers of energy, transportation and aerospace technologies will join Chain Reaction Innovations based at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory. Read More

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Midwest startups compete for clean-tech investment funding

Clean Energy Trust is also currently accepting applications for its 2017 CET Challenge, which will award up to $1 million of this kind of “patient capital” to early-stage, Midwest-based, clean-tech companies. Last month, DOE launched a similar, Illinois-based initiative aimed at boosting prospects for young entrepreneurs in clean energy. Chain Reaction Innovations awards up to $550,000 to five early-stage innovators and embeds them at Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont, Illinois. Read More

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Midwest startups compete for clean-tech investment funding

Last month, DOE launched a similar, Illinois-based initiative aimed at boosting prospects for young entrepreneurs in clean energy. Chain Reaction Innovations awards up to $550,000 to five early-stage innovators and embeds them at Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont, Illinois. Read More

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Innovators Drawn to Illinois By Argonne's First Embedded Entrepreneurship Program

In an event today with U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz and Senator Dick Durbin (D-III) at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI), the Midwest’s first entrepreneurship program to embed innovators in a national laboratory, announced the selection of its first members and mentor partners. Read More

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Maximizing the local economic impact of federal R&D

Federally funded research and development (R&D) is a hallmark of the U.S. economy. Two-thirds of the most influential technologies of the last 50 years were supported by federal R&D at national laboratories and universities.1 Smartphones, autonomous vehicles, personalized medicine and other transformational innovations owe key technical components to public R&D. Moreover, this federal commitment does more than produce new products. By fostering innovation, it translates into productivity growth, the most important mechanism for ensuring economic growth and broadly shared prosperity. In Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab are working with the University of Chicago to further the mission of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in its efforts to develop new research-based startups in the city. Read More