Chemical ventures from ideas to scaled solutions

In a Viewpoint article, Associate Professor Miguel Modestino, Director of NYU Tandon’s Sustainable Engineering Initiative, is among a group of academic innovators, business leaders, investors and start-up mentors providing advice to aspiring chemical engineering entrepreneurs. Modestino explains how to transform academic research into viable business ventures, highlighting the massive funding disparity between initial academic research and commercial development to illustrate why early exploration of risky technologies relies heavily on government support. As he notes, "early research might involve a graduate student working for four years at approximately US $500,000, while a science-based company typically needs US $50,000,000 minimum to reach a product stage."