The program was initially established with Western Health to leverage off the innovation and key learnings derived from the collaboration of A/Prof Dr Forbes McGain, Western Health anaesthetics with Prof Jason Monty, Head of School, Mechanical Engineering on the McMonty Hood.
This is the program for you if you can see an unmet need in the healthcare system and want to develop an innovation solution as part of a well-supported, expert team!
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.
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 to 100k) 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.
Objectives
- 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.
Key Contacts
UoM
- Chris Laughlin, IAP Lead – chris.laughlin@unimelb.edu.au
Western Health
- Bill Karanatsios, Research Program Director, Western Health – bill.karanatsios@wh.org.au