The Innovation Acceleration Program (IAP) has been established to provide a means to encourage and support innovation and entrepreneurship between the health care sector and researchers.
Applications are now open for 2022.
The Innovation Acceleration Program (IAP) is a joint initiative between Western Health and the University of Melbourne established to encourage and support innovation and entrepreneurship between the health care sector and research teams. This exciting opportunity links compelling problems and unmet needs from the health sector with world-class research and commercialisation expertise at the University of Melbourne.
The first challenge is to identify a real unmet need in the health system requiring an innovative solution.
You are not expected to have the solution, only to have identified the problem.
Value proposition for clinicians and researchers
- Researchers will have the opportunity to work on solutions to recognised heath sector problems and receive seed funding (between $10,000 to $100,000) to develop their concept.
- Clinicians will gain experience in collaborating on a specific research concept, working closely with an expert research team to help develop a solution to a key problem that they care about.
- Both researchers and clinicians will receive focused mentorship and guidance from an experienced team of advisors throughout the program, and will develop a level of commercial literacy in areas including pitching, IP management and commercial strategy development.
The objects are:
- To support clinicians, health care staff, researchers and commercialisation experts to form teams and progress ideas towards real-world solutions.
- To provide support and mentorship as unmet needs are articulated, developed, IP protected, commercialisation plans made, proof of concepts tested, and partnerships developed.
- To foster productive engagement between health care staff and researchers, resulting in innovative new biomedical products and services with global impact.
Please click here to submit an application.
Applications close on the 4 September 2022.