The UMass Innovation Institute (UMII) will help you get the most from University of Massachusetts Amherst research resources. Our aim is simple: to increase the rate at which our ideas and discoveries move forward into society.
Interested in learning more about how UMass Amherst’s research, resources, facilities, and faculty can assist in growing your business? Please fill out our contact form.
There are plenty of reasons to work with UMII:
- One Phone Call - Research universities can be hard to navigate if you don’t have a guide. UMII is your single-office point of contact for all university research connections. Our customer-focused business center covers the entire UMass Amherst research enterprise and the campus’ nearly 1,000 faculty members.
- Beyond Basic Research - UMII is the university’s arm for industry-focused and applied research. We can undertake more projects than ever before, helping companies validate technologies of interest, determine technical feasibility, build prototypes, and partner on joint projects.
- Focused Administrative Team - UMII’s single-office coordination of university internal operations—legal, grants and contracts, regulatory compliance, intellectual property, accounting, and business operations—means that you will get straight answers, rapid turnaround, and close attention to your needs and priorities within a single team.
- Creative Approaches - Built into UMII’s core values is our commitment to responsiveness, agility, flexibility, and timeliness in working with our external partners. UMII was created to find creative ways to solve challenging issues that allow research to get underway and parties to get what they need to proceed. Our customer-focused attention will get you where you want to go in your collaborations with UMass Amherst.
- Facility Access - In R&D, sometimes just having the right analytical tool at the right time can make all the difference. Many laboratory facilities at UMass Amherst have the resource capacity and availability of specialized instruments. UMII is your gateway to accessing these unique and valuable resources.
- Compliance - UMII has the ability to support research of various types with compliance programs and management systems appropriate to the project’s regulatory framework. Research compliance staff work collaboratively to develop and implement environmental, security, and technology control plans for your project, and to provide training and guidance for faculty and researchers to ensure conformance with your project’s specific requirements.
- Innovators and Solutions - UMII can introduce you to faculty who are interested in moving their research beyond the publication stage and into R&D and products. We can also help you identify and hire current students, postdocs, and graduates of UMass who are interested in gaining R&D experience before joining the industrial workforce. And, UMII can introduce you to student innovators and teams who are ready to have their business ideas exposed to the investor community.
As a business collaborating with UMass Amherst through UMII, you'll find a variety of project frameworks to meet your needs:
- Exploratory and Fundamental Research - Projects led by recognized UMass experts in their fields under contract to your organization focus on basic research and create new knowledge while directly supporting your industrial R&D efforts. At each stage of the process, research directions are guided by the particular needs of the sponsor.
- Applied Research and Technology Development - Applied research builds upon basic science and engineering studies to yield applied and targeted results driven by sponsor specifications. The programs are highly customized and agreements are tailored to the sponsor’s needs.
- Scoping Projects - This option is for short-duration feasibility studies and early assessments. Scoping projects are perfect for idea development and the concept feasibility stage. Information gained from scoping projects helps determine whether a longer-term research program is warranted and guides future research directions.
- Research Services - The Research Services program provides access to UMass technical expertise and facilities. This option is for analytical work by scientists and researchers, including consultation and data analyses. We coordinate the arrangements for your company to get the instrument time and assistance needed to speed up your R&D efforts.
