In June, Ken Foster stood in front of a classroom full of Michigan State University (MSU) graduate students, delivering a lecture on entrepreneurship, a unique topic for a group of PhD candidates. Foster, then a Mentor in Residence (MIR) with the MSU Research Foundation, was a guest lecturer for MSU’s Broadening Experiences in Scientific Training (BEST) program.
MSU BEST, one of 17 similar programs around the country funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is designed to help MSU post-docs and PhD students learn about potential future career opportunities beyond conventional academic research. These opportunities could include roles in industry research and development, intellectual property law, academic technology transfer, and other fields related to innovation and technology commercialization.
Dr. Julie Rojewski, Director of Graduate Career Development at the MSU Graduate School, recalls the genesis of the BEST program: “In 2014, the NIH published a study showing that a significant percentage of people earning biomedical science and engineering PhD’s end up working in contexts outside of traditional academic faculty roles.”
“MSU was one of 17 campuses that received grant funding through the NIH to develop an experimental strategy to try to address this gap, to ensure that graduates from biomedical PhD programs emerged with experiences and knowledge of non-academic career options so that they could translate their degrees into meaningful careers,” says Rojewski.
It quickly became clear that this initial graduate education program was filling an unmet need. The program expanded to include other STEM graduate students who wanted to be part of a community of other graduate students who were all working to develop their professional skills, explore careers, learn from guest speakers, and otherwise explore the ways that they could use their graduate degrees in domains that are not necessarily in traditional academic science.
MSU Innovation Center expands its support for the BEST program
Since the very beginning of the BEST program, the MSU Innovation Center has provided assistance, expertise, and support. MSU Technologies (MSUT), the technology transfer office for MSU, has been an especially valuable partner, providing guest lecturers on post-graduate career opportunities such as commercial research and development and university technology transfer, providing students access to networks in the private sector, and providing valuable hands-on experience in university tech transfer through the MSUT Commercialization Intern program.
“I am a very big fan of the BEST program. It’s a reality that the plurality of graduate students in the biosciences and engineering will not pursue a career in academia, so it only makes sense that the university would be preparing them with some practical information and education on working in the private sector,” says Dr. Charles Hasemann, Associate Vice President for Innovation and Economic Development at the MSU Innovation Center, and a member of the BEST program advisory board. “My own career has included both academic and corporate experiences, so I am always more than happy to share my experiences and the success factors for a corporate R&D career.”
As part of their ongoing support for expanding career opportunities for MSU grad students in non-academic roles, the MSU Innovation Center applied for a competitive grant funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop programs focused on graduate careers in science and technology commercialization in 2023.
While the NSF did not select MSU’s program for funding, the team at the Innovation Center felt that portions of the program content developed as part of the grant submission process could be immediately implemented in partnership with the BEST program and provide tangible value to MSU graduate students.
Leveraging the existing relationship between the BEST program and the Innovation Center, the BEST program featured, for the first time, a five-part seminar series dedicated to career topics in innovation and technology commercialization. With content developed for the 2024 Summer BEST program by the MSU Innovation Center and in partnership with the MSU Research Foundation, the five-part series was a comprehensive exploration of innovation and entrepreneurship covering topics such as technology commercialization, startup formation, intellectual property law, and academic technology transfer.
“This summer series was a true team effort between MSU Technologies, the MSU Research Foundation and BEST,” said Dr. Brian Wright, Associate Director of MSU Technologies. “Our first goal was to follow the mission of the BEST program by providing career options and guidance for MSU graduate students. Our second goal was to follow through with the goals of the NSF proposal which was to further enhance the regional innovation ecosystem by engaging and building a uniquely qualified talent pool.”
From summer seminar to stand-alone course
The positive response from BEST program students to the Innovation Center’s five-part technology commercialization series drew the attention of Angela Wilson, Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives in MSU’s College of Natural Sciences, who championed the creation of a semester-long graduate level one credit course to provide graduate students the opportunity to explore potential careers, but also to dig deeper into each subject with more detailed information and hands-on workshops.
The MSU Innovation Center team expanded their initial content covering innovation and technology commercialization topics from the summer’s BEST seminar into a semester-long course which opened enrollment to graduate students for the first time in the 2024 Fall Semester titled: Science & Technology Commercialization: Patents, Product Development and Start-Ups.
“The reality is that the academic job market is highly competitive. The fact that MSU, so early in seeing the challenges of the job market, invested in programs and personnel to support our graduate students shows a real commitment to wanting our students to be successful and to be successful on terms that they define for themselves,” says Rojewski.
“We help them understand what they want to be when they “grow up” and then equip them with the knowledge and experiences that they need to be competitive for those kinds of jobs.”
For more information on the MSU BEST program, click HERE
For more information on the Science & Technology Commercialization: Patents, Product Development and Start-Ups course, click HERE
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About the MSU Innovation Center:
The MSU Innovation Center combines research partnerships, technology transfer, and startup support for MSU faculty who aim to see their research applied to make the world a better place.
Composed of Business Connect, MSU Technologies, and Spartan Innovations, the MSU Innovation Center aims to amplify the impact of faculty research and drive economic growth while positively impacting society to solve real-world challenges with cutting-edge ideas.
Through mutually beneficial, long-term partnerships with the private sector, the MSU Innovation Center connects MSU faculty with companies for corporate-sponsored research collaborations. MSU Technologies facilitates the commercialization and public use of technologies and copyrightable materials, moving MSU’s innovations from the lab to the marketplace. Importantly, Spartan Innovations provides significant support for faculty entrepreneurs in establishing startup companies based on technologies developed at MSU.
For more information, visit: www.msuinnovationcenter.com