Innovation And New Ventures Office

The Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO) at Northwestern University inspires and nurtures innovation across campus. To this end, INVO energizes entrepreneurial initiatives, drives commercialization potential, and facilitates practical uses for intellectual property through partnering or new ventures. INVO scouts for research that could have commercialization potential and provide guidance on how to maximize the impact of the innovations to society. The office is often involved in coordinating entrepreneurial and innovation initiatives across all schools within Northwestern. In doing this, INVO hopes to enhance the value and impact of inventions by facilitating alliances to further technology validation and possibly to increase funding. INVO also promotes broad dissemination of inventions through an extensive corporate and investor network. Our Investor Advisory Board composed of investors, entrepreneurs and business executives oversees all activities and provides financial and management mentorship. Finally, Northwestern protects and manages the inventors' and the University's intellectual property rights through the licensing division of INVO. Each invention is assigned an invention manager who coaches the inventor during the various phases - invention disclosure, determination of patentability, licensing negotiations and intellectual property management.