Innovation Insight has been contracted by the Florida High Tech Corridor Council to document the “downstream” qualitative and economic impacts of the External Matching Grant program at the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of Central Florida (UCF). This is an interesting, Council-funded program that commits $1M each year to its partner universities to underwrite research partnerships with private sector Florida companies for product and process improvement — essentially applied technology and engineering grants for economic development and intellectual property development.

Innovation Insight, in partnership with the USF Center for Economic Development Research (CEDR) will be conducting surveys and focus groups of company partners, benchmarking 3-year growth rates of participating companies, and documenting other types of impacts on the faculty, graduate students and alumni, and the Corridor’s economy. The project is projected to conclude by March, 2007.