About Us
Catalyzing mutually beneficial relationships
UC Santa Cruz carries out the UC mission of teaching, research, and public service with a strategic emphasis on advancing student success and supporting research excellence to drive transformative change and societal impact.
The Innovation & Business Engagement Hub supports these objectives by facilitating partnerships, securing extramural funding, transferring innovations, providing programming, and enhancing the visibility of the university and its assets. We act as the point of entry for industry partners, investors, and entrepreneurs to connect with the university’s discoveries, innovation, resources, and talent. Across our four units, the team facilitates comprehensive relationships and coordinated engagement across campus academic, research, administrative, business units and the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem based on interest alignment and strategic opportunities.
Innovation Transfer
This unit evaluates, protects, markets, licenses, and manages university intellectual property with the objective of transferring innovations to external parties that can drive development, adoption, implementation, and commercialization.
Industry Alliances
This unit develops and stewards industry research collaborations and leads strategic initiatives to diversify research funding and accelerate innovation.
Business Engagement
This unit fosters and facilitates comprehensive engagement with key corporate partners to enhance support and build lasting, mutually beneficial relationships.
New Ventures Development
This unit provides targeted funding and resources, facilitates the formation and growth of new ventures, and supports entrepreneurial skills development to advance the implementation and adoption potential of early-stage innovations.
Our Extended Network
The Innovation & Business Engagement Hub Advisory Council is as an external consultative group providing the Innovation & Business Engagement Hub with industry and investor perspectives on university collaborations and strategic partnerships. Members of the Advisory Council offer market intelligence, insights on industry needs and opportunities, input on experiences with other research institutions, and perspectives on external stakeholder expectations to inform activities, programs, initiatives, and plans. The Advisory Council plays an important role as liaison and champion for the Innovation & Business Engagement Hub and UC Santa Cruz more broadly within the community, business networks, and innovation ecosystems.
The Innovation Champions Network is a collaborative platform and forum for information sharing, strategic planning, and coordination of special initiatives among the Innovation & Business Engagement Hub team and those involved in core innovation and entrepreneurship efforts at UC Santa Cruz.
The Corporate Relations Roundtable is a forum for groups across campus that regularly engage with corporations to share best practices, discuss current trends, exchange ideas, coordinate relationship management, and identify opportunities for collaboration.
The Innovation & Business Engagement Hub has established partnerships with several external organizations including Bay Area I-Corps, Bay Area Nucleate, and Santa Cruz Works, to enhance collective outcomes and organize programmatic activities.
