The Regents of the University of Michigan, on behalf of the 15-member public university consortia, received a grant of $1.5 million to support investments of the Michigan Initiative for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The Michigan Initiative for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MIIE) is a consortium of Michigan’s 15 public universities designed to translate the research and innovation base of the member institutions — which collectively gather $1.5 billion dollars in outside federal research funding each year — into new Michigan-based enterprises and entrepreneurs. Through its Technology Commercialization Gap Fund, the MIIE identifies promising research ideas and provides resources for prototypes, business plans, market analyses and other critical early stage functions that prepare ideas and technologies developed in universities to be positioned for commercialization.

MIIE also has launched an Industry and Economic Engagement Fund and a Talent Retention and Entrepreneurship Education Fund to support promising university and business partnerships and entrepreneur education activities. These projects spur the exchange of ideas, increase the engagement of students with industry, and advance a culture of entrepreneurship on our campuses and in our communities.

The mission of MIIE is to enable its members to positively impact the economy of the state of Michigan by accelerating the movement of ideas from university labs and workbenches to new job-producing enterprises, and nurturing the talent base within universities to new entrepreneurial activity. Through MIIE, Michigan’s public universities are challenging themselves to invest more deeply in entrepreneurial management; create a culture of risk and venture; prepare new businesses and industries for private investment and launch; build new bridges between venture capital, startups, industry and the university talent pools; stem the flow of knowledge workers and young talent heading out of the state; and build open and transparent relationships between and among businesses and universities.

A $2 million launch grant from the C.S. Mott Foundation allowed the MIIE consortium to form and begin its work. In its first round of grantmaking in July 2008, the MIIE provided grants to 20 projects, averaging $66,000 per project. Some examples from that round include a grant of $100,000 to Wayne State University to commercialize research in molecular medicine and genetics, and a grant to Eastern Michigan University ($65,200) to support an internship program which has students working hands-on with client companies through a state of Michigan small business program. A second round of nine grants totaling $600,000 – funded in part by the $1.5 million grant from New Economy Initiative - was committed in late 2008. New Economy Initiative grant funds also allowed the consortium to make 21 of the 23 awards provided through a third round of competition in March 2009. 


The University of Michigan (U-M) serves as fiduciary of MIIE. The governing board of MIIE is comprised of members of partner institutions, and the consortium has cooperatively developed tools for making strategic investments in projects and proposals, and for managing both the competitions and decision-making in ways that are both rigorous and transparent.

MIIE is channeling the innovation first generated at universities across the state and positioning university research and new technology to earn subsequent venture capital funds that are, so often, unavailable. Early stage, pre-seed funding is critical, as Michigan lacks the significant venture capital base of California or Massachusetts, which allows venture capital money to “bleed backwards” into early stages of preparing research and providing “proof of concept.” The awards supported by NEI take ideas and inventions from the research lab and give them the time, focus and money to move closer to receiving investment capital, and add to the stream of good ideas and technologies that can attract sustainable long-term investment. These awards also invest in encouraging a new generation entrepreneurs and in connecting this entrepreneurial energy with our existing businesses and industries.

A list of Round One, Two and Three recipients can be found at the following links:

• Round One MIIE Recipients
• Round Two MIIE Recipients
• Round Three MIIE Recipients

Key Metrics and Indicators

• Up to 25 grants for pre-seed investments in university technologies and inventions, and campus and community entrepreneurship efforts
• Increased matching and venture capital funds for the promising new startups that emerge from MIIE

For more information, please visit http://www.pcsum.org/aboutthecouncil/partnerships/miie/ .