Maryland Fund Aims for 40 New Discoveries a Year

A new fund established to capitalize on Maryland's leadership in R&D seeks to move 40 new discoveries and innovations out of the lab and into the marketplace each year through a partnership between the state and five universities. The Innovate Maryland initiative is seeded with $5 million in the FY13 budget with additional funds from the participating universities to provide grants to researchers. The Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO) will administer the fund. The goal of the fund is to promote commercialization of university research, encourage universities to partner with federal labs, and facilitate tech transfer from universities to commercial industries. Participating universities are Johns Hopkins University, Morgan State University, University of Maryland Baltimore, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and University of Maryland College Park. Each university will contribute between $100,000 and $200,000 on an annual basis. The initiative was unveiled in January as part of Gov. Martin O'Malley's 2012 legislative agenda (see the Jan. 25, 2012 issue of the Digest). The bill is available at: http://mlis.state.md.us/2012rs/bills/hb/hb0442t.pdf.