Launched April 1 through a partnership between Launch Tennessee (LaunchTN), the Tennessee Technology Advancement Consortium and research networking company Halo, TNIX is designed to be a central entry point to the state’s research ecosystem, bringing faculty, institutions and companies into a single searchable system.
The network’s founding institutions — the University of Memphis, Middle Tennessee State University, Tennessee Technological University, Meharry Medical College, East Tennessee State University and Tennessee State University — are linked through the platform, which showcases their combined research strengths.
AN AWARENESS GAP
Halo CEO Kevin Leland said faculty who conduct specialized research in fields like advanced materials, energy and food science are often aware that their work has real-world applications. However, identifying the right industry partner, or even the right point of contact to get started, can be a challenge.
The visibility problem runs the other way, too. Outside of a few well-known connections between university research and surrounding regional economies, like Stanford technology research and Silicon Valley, Leland said private companies are often underutilizing higher-education research.
“There’s a big problem with visibility and awareness across R&D in general,” he said. “It’s not enough to know, for example, that a university is really strong in material science. You need to know that they’re focused on textiles and how they’re applied to this sector or that sector.”
LaunchTN CEO Lindsey Cox said universities are increasingly looking toward commercialization of homegrown tools to provide funding avenues as federal research dollars dwindle.
Charles Layne, technology advancement director at LaunchTN, said in preliminary research the organization counted 40 university-developed tools that had been commercialized, the vast majority of which came from Vanderbilt University. The organization then identified issues that prevented other universities from connecting with commercialization opportunities.
“We firmly believe that innovation happens everywhere,” he said. “Commercialization happens where there are resources.”
THE PLATFORM
TNIX aims to be that connecting piece. Through the platform, researchers can build public profiles highlighting their expertise, publications, patents and available research assets. Companies can search those profiles, post specific technical challenges or funding opportunities, and invite researchers to respond.
“It’s not enough to match a person with a company, or a company or a university,” Leland said. “You need to know, ‘It’s this lab, and they’re focused on this bioreceptor.’”
Unlike traditional grant processes, which span months, the platform is designed for speed. In some cases, he said, companies can identify potential collaborators within a week.
For researchers, the process is simplified. Instead of filling out lengthy applications that often ask for duplicate information, Leland said TNIX asks for the least information necessary for a company to say “no” or “maybe.”
The platform also introduces a new level of visibility across institutions. Rather than searching university by university, users can explore expertise across the network of six institutions.
A NATIONWIDE TEMPLATE
While the current launch focuses on six institutions, Layne said they plan to expand to additional universities across the state. The broader goal is to increase industry-backed research activity in Tennessee overall, Cox said.
Layne said beyond expansion within the state, he hopes the TNIX platform can serve as a national model for public-private research partnerships elsewhere.
“Researchers, especially those who are not business-development people or marketers, they cannot go and find every single company,” Leland said. “What I hope is that this Tennessee platform serves as that foundational ecosystem to help further the network effects and the supply of ecosystems across the country, writ large, because then we truly do become a one-stop shop.”
