Program Administration

The Innovation Academy was administered by a program manager, who was an FFMI staff member dedicated to the program that reported to FFMI’s Director of Commercialization Education. The Innovation Academy was advised by two FCVC faculty leads (cardiology and vascular surgery), with oversight by an FCVC Director.

Recruitment and Idea Generation

The program was open to any clinical or research (basic, translational, or clinical) faculty, staff, or trainee with a care improvement or product idea with potential to affect cardiovascular care. Recruitment targeted any areas that participate cardiovascular care and research, including cardiac surgery, cardiology, vascular surgery, nursing, molecular and integrative physiology, anesthesiology, pharmacology, and radiology.

Recruitment into the Innovation Academy was accomplished by a combination of one-on-one conversations with faculty, staff, and trainees and, in its first year, a formal ideation workshop. Targeted contacts included but were not exclusive to: faculty with a research appointment, faculty who had submitted a recent invention disclosure, faculty that had applied for commercialization funding available to U-M investigators, trainees that were participating in research projects, and nursing unit leadership that could inform nursing staff that had interest in innovation. The FCVC faculty leads also encouraged colleagues to participate.

In the first year, over 30 consultations were held in the four months prior to the course start date to help program manager understand the ecosystem of who would benefit from the program. In the second year, approximately 12 consultations were held; fewer consultations were necessary to fill the class as the program manager further understood the ecosystem; and the program had established awareness in the FCVC community.

Experience from previous educational programming administered by FFMI, along with instructor feedback, determined that maximum enrollment would be six project teams per cohort to allow for meaningful participation and mentorship. The enrollment process involved a brief online application and meeting with the program manager and course instructor. During these meetings, it was confirmed that the team had a focused idea and, when applicable, had taken appropriate steps with the OTT to protect the invention. At this stage, participants were invited to join the Innovation Academy, referred to the OTT invention disclosure process, and/or connected to a subject matter expert or relevant unit at U-M.

One month prior to the Innovation Academy course start date in its first year, the program facilitated a workshop practicing design thinking methodologies [13–Reference Altman, Huang and Breland15] while examining patient-provider communication within FCVC units. There were three goals of this workshop: (i) to provide education on design thinking methodologies, (ii) to serve as a patient-centered ideation mechanism for the Innovation Academy, and (iii) to recruit roles that were close to patient care, such as nursing, technical staff, patients, and families, that were not reached by the other recruitment efforts. The program manager reached out to supervisors and managers in FCVC units to describe the workshop and gauge interest. Units that were targeted included cardiac surgery, the cardiac intensive care unit (ICU), the cardiovascular ICU, the diagnostic vascular unit, vascular surgery, and the FCVC outpatient clinic. Interested individuals were asked to recruit colleagues from their units, and identify former patients or family members to participate in the workshop. The program manager worked with the U-M Office of Patient Experience to invite patients and family members. In this workshop, faculty and staff were grouped by FCVC unit with former patients and family members who had received care from the same unit. An expert facilitator led groups through the design thinking stages of empathizing, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. The workshop educated five teams comprising 26 participants identifying as faculty, nurses, technicians, specialists, and administrative staff. Participants were invited to join the Innovation Academy.

Education

The objectives of the Innovation Academy course were to (i) teach major concepts of innovation and entrepreneurship, such as value proposition, customer discovery [Reference Ries16], and pitch development and (ii) develop existing ideas through workshops where enrollees applied these concepts to their projects. To accomplish these objectives, the course was designed to include a combination of lectures and workshops (Table 1).

Table 1.

Innovation academy course curriculum

* Indicates sessions where class was divided over two days to allow for time for feedback on presentations; each participant only attended one session that week.

The course curriculum was based on an existing commercialization program [Reference Servoss, Chang, Olson, Ward, Mulholland and Cohen8] developed for surgery faculty with two major modifications. The first modification was to adjust the syllabus to support both new product and care improvement projects, while ensuring efficient use of participants’ time. To do this, didactic topics were divided into two tracks: (i) general innovation topics (not commercialization-specific) and (ii) those primarily relevant to innovations intended to leave the university as commercially viable projects. Attendance was optional at commercialization-specific lectures as not all participants were interested in details of commercialization. The second modification was to ask participants to perform at least one customer discovery interview outside of class and report on observations (Session 7/8).

During workshops, participants presented stakeholder maps, customer discovery reports, and pitch drafts. They received feedback from both the instructor and fellow participants. The workshops provided individualized assistance with development of the rationale and plan for each team’s idea and enabled group learning where participants could see the process applied to other projects.

An important aspect of the course was the development of a 10-minute pitch. Pitches typically focused on asking for development funding or support from department leadership to execute on the idea. A pitch template was provided that required presenters to describe the problem being solved, customers/stakeholders, solution, value, market, competition, intellectual property, regulatory strategy, business strategy, and relevant milestones. During sessions where participants presented iterations of their pitches, discussion focused on the rationale for the proposed innovation and the necessary milestones and resources needed to advance the idea. The pitch showcase served as the course finale, where participants presented their pitches in a forum open to FCVC leadership and other faculty, staff, and trainees.

Participants attended one of two workshop days; dividing the class allowed for in-depth feedback, practice, and discussion while limiting participants’ time commitment. The class reunited for the final pitch practice and pitch showcase. The course was held two evenings each week from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. to accommodate clinician schedules. Dinner was provided. The course environment was collaborative and encouraged cross-team feedback, questions, and resource sharing. This was accomplished through the small workshops, by arranging desks in a “U-shape” when possible to allow participants to face one another, and, when applicable, by deferring questions from the instructor to other participants who happened to be subject matter experts.

Course instruction was provided by an experienced biomedical innovator and Mentor-in-Residence in the OTT. Importantly, the instructor had more than 23 years of experience in building life science companies, including cofounding six biotech startups that often originated in academia, as well as expertise in product development, intellectual property management, business development, and venture financing. This offered course enrollees expertise in biomedical innovation and entrepreneurship that could not be found elsewhere at U-M.

Mentorship

Throughout the course, teams were offered mentorship and connection to the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem at U-M. The course instructor offered time to advise teams outside of class on such topics as pitch development, customer discovery, and intellectual property. When applicable, teams were directed toward the MICHR Investigational New Drug/Investigational Device Exemption (IND/IDE) Investigator Assistance Program (MIAP) for project-specific regulatory support, guidance, and education. FFMI staff members with roles in translational research funding and business development also consulted with teams to strategize future milestones and funding sources.

Project Funding

Projects with commercial potential were eligible to apply for early-stage milestone funding through the Innovation Academy; a total of $50,000 per year was available to allocate across projects. At the end of the course each year, a small committee of individuals from FFMI, the FCVC, and the OTT evaluated funding requests. These individuals included the Innovation Academy program manager, the FCVC faculty leads, the FFMI Director of Commercialization Education, the FCVC Quality Data Manager, and an FFMI staff member that manages an early-stage commercialization funding mechanism. The course instructor, with an appointment in OTT, contributed insights on the projects but did not vote on funding decisions. Funding decisions were based upon the communicated value of the project, the milestones the applicant proposed, and the potential impact of the funding on executing the milestones; evaluation criteria used are listed as Supplementary material.

Program Evaluation

The metrics in Table 2 were selected at the outset of the program to track its outcomes. Pre- and post-course self-assessments were administered to project team leads to measure competency in the in educational topics, preparedness to advance projects, and program satisfaction. Following course completion, the program manager reached out to each project team on a quarterly basis for one year to track project development metrics. The project development metrics applied to both new product and care improvement projects, though metrics related to intellectual property and startup formation were more applicable to new products. Expected outcomes for care improvement projects included publication, downstream funding, and implementation, depending on project complexity. After one year, the project manager tracked projects through communicating with OTT and with downstream funding mechanisms at FFMI.

Table 2.

Key metrics to track program outcomes

Materials and Tools

Pre- and post-course surveys that included self-assessments were administered via Qualtrics XM (Provo, UT). Slides from each lecture, slide deck templates for stakeholder mapping, customer discovery reports, and pitches were shared via U-M Box, an implementation of Box.com (Redwood City, CA) cloud storage customized for U-M.

Budget

The total cost for one year of the Innovation Academy was approximately $167,500 consisting of five components: (i) program management ($57,000), (ii) administrative supplement for faculty ($11,500), (iii) course instruction ($45,000), (iv) project awards ($50,000), and (v) marketing and food ($4,000). Program management funds supported one program manager at 50% yearly effort and one supervisor at 15% yearly effort; these roles planned and executed the program and guided teams through innovation and commercialization resources available at U-M. Administrative supplement was provided to faculty leads for their time serving advocates and advisors for the program. At the time of publication project funding was not allocated in its entirety.