Interdisciplinary Innovators Exchange
Interdisciplinary Innovators Exchange
USF Faculty Forward: Partnering with Industry for Impact
USF Faculty Forward: Partnering with Industry for Impact—the theme of the inaugural Interdisciplinary Innovators Exchange series—spotlighted the power of collaboration between academia and industry to drive
meaningful change.
Designed to equip faculty with practical knowledge, real-world insights, and essential
resources, this series will explore how researchers can deepen industry engagement,
enhance readiness for collaborative innovation and commercialization, and amplify
research impact across sectors.
This monthly webinar series began September 2025 and was complemented by a downloadable toolkit and dedicated office hours for faculty interested in exploring these topics in more depth.
Interdisciplinary Innovators Exchange Toolkit
Unlock the full potential of your industry partnerships with the Interdisciplinary Innovators Exchange Toolkit—a resource packed with actionable strategies, institutional insights, and real-world examples to help USF faculty amplify research impact and navigate industry collaborations with confidence. Whether you're new to industry engagement or ready to scale your efforts, this toolkit is your go-to guide for turning ideas into innovation.
Sessions spotlighted best practices, introduced institutional resources, and featured real stories from USF faculty who have successfully partnered with industry to advance research, innovation, and student impact.Throughout the series, participating faculty explored and discussed:
- Diverse pathways to industry engagement
- How to navigate university resources and support systems
- Actionable strategies for building and sustaining industry relationships
- Entrepreneurial mindset development and commercialization readiness
- Communicating research value to external partners with confidence
- Opportunities to connect with peers and industry leaders for collaboration
- Funding pathways, including SBIR/STTR, philanthropic, and corporate sources
The series was facilitated by the USF Research Development Institute, in close collaboration with key partners across the university’s vibrant innovation ecosystem, including the Florida High Tech Corridor, USF CONNECT, the https://www.usf.edu/research-innovation/pl/index.aspx, the NSF I-Corps Hub: Southeast@USF, the USF Foundation, and others