Innovative Research Financing for the 21st Century: A Case Narrative in How Technology Transfer and Entrepreneurship Supported the Development of a Prototype Cognitive Prosthetic

Recent decreases in available grant funding have caused scientists to reduce the amount of basic investigative research they can conduct [1, 2]. With less overall funds available, researchers must find more effective and efficient ways in which to fund their scientific pursuits. The current article provides a case study narrative of one educational researcher’s journey to fund the development and study of an innovative cognitive prosthetic without obtaining traditional up-front grant type funding. The narrative outlines how university resources and market-based financing facilitated through university offices of technology transfer were used to quickly develop a prototype technology when traditional resources were not available. The current article is intended as a case study and is not intended to be representative of, or generalizable to any greater research literatures. This case remains significantly relevant however, in that such ‘out of the box’ research development efforts may become a necessity as traditional research funding becomes less available.