Innovation and Technology Transfer Fund

Funding requests will be accepted from all fields of research.
Any staff or student member at UWISTA may serve as Team Leader and submit a funding request to the ITT Fund.

The innovation or technology which forms the basis of the funding request should be in the technology readiness level range 5-9. You can find definitions of Technology Readiness Levels here.
The Team Leader must ensure that an invention disclosure form and/or a legal agreement has been submitted to the STACIE disclosing the intellectual property (IP) upon which the funding request is based, either prior to or concurrent with the application to the ITT Fund for funding consideration. Learn more about IP disclosure here
The intellectual property (IP) which forms the basis of the funding request must be owned or co-owned by The UWI. Learn more about IP ownership here

The maximum amount that can be requested in a single funding request is TT$1M and the maximum possible duration of a project is 18 consecutive months.

Eligible Expenditure Items Include:

Consultancies/short-term contracts;
Inputs/ingredients, chemicals and other materials related to the conducting of experiments and/or sample testing;
Project-related equipment;
Product and service design/ development/ differentiation;
Prototype development/optimization;
Sales and general business operating expenses, manufacturing and distribution;
Independent evaluations of commercialization potential;
Independent valuations of start-ups and licensable technologies;
Business plans, market research and development.

Ineligible Expenditure Items Include:

Consultancies or short-term contracts for persons who are already full-time employees of The UWI;
Consultancies or short-term contracts for persons who are full-time employees of other institutions shall be consistent with the policies in force at those institutions or shall otherwise be deemed ineligible;
Honoraria and/or appearance fees for guest speakers at meetings, conferences or other project-related events;
Travel to attend academic conferences or present research findings;
Publication costs;
Reimbursements for personal funds spent on project-related items or activities;
Personal telephone bills, ICT tools and/or products such as cell phones, laptop computers, etc.

The Team Leader shall firstly submit an Application for Funding Consideration outlining the basis of the funding request for evaluation by the ITT Fund Evaluation Committee. The template for the Application for Funding Consideration is available here.

Additional details on the application process as well as the evaluation criteria can be found in the Fund’s Operational Guidelines, available here.

Grantees will be expected to abide by the Fund’s reporting requirements, detailed in Section 7 of the operational guidelines which are available here.
Successful Team Leaders must demonstrate significant investment in learning about strategies for commercializing their intellectual property and increasing their business management skills.