Researchers & UT Community
Proof of Concept Awards
TEXAS PROOF OF CONCEPT AWARDS
These awards provide competitive funding for UT faculty members or permanent researchers with a principal investigator (PI) status to accelerate the tech commercialization process.
Texas Proof of Concept Awards
- Maximum value of $25,000
- No matching requirement
Texas+ Proof of Concept Awards
Requires the applicant to secure $125,000 in matching funds from an industry partner
Maximum value of $125,000
HOW TO APPLY
Applicants from any UT college, school, or unit may apply for one or both awards in any order; however, if a UT researcher wins both a Texas and Texas+ Proof of Concept award for a specific innovation, their total funding is limited to $125,000. In addition, applicants can receive a maximum of two Proof of Concept awards per year.
Email pocawards@austin.utexas.edu with questions.
Application cycles occur during the Fall and Spring semesters.
Key Dates:
Applications Open: Monday, September 7, 2026
Application Deadline: Monday, October 12, 2026
Application Decisions: Friday, December 04, 2026
Award Ceremony: Friday, December 11, 2026
Deadlines are by 5:00 p.m. (Central) on the day indicated
Explore guidelines and view a sample application here.
Frequently Asked Questions
There are a variety of information sessions across campus. If you would like the Innovation Program Manager to come present to your college or faculty group specifically please contact them directly.
If you have questions that are not addressed in the Request for Applications & Guidelines, please contact the Innovation Program Manager.
Exceptions will be extremely rare and must be proposed by email to the Innovation Program Manager at least one week before the respective deadline. Exception proposals must provide a clear and convincing rationale.
Connect with the Intellectual Property Development team to discuss how this program can help protect and promote your discoveries. Contact us.
Please see the Application Review Criteria and let the Innovation Program Manager know if you have any questions.
- There are currently no required pre-requisite trainings for POC Award applicants; however, participation in the NSF I-Corps or similar programs is recommended.
- While POC Awards are focused on derisking the innovation or technology itself by pursuing commercially relevant milestones with clear, data-driven, go- no-go decisions, it is also important to understand customer needs and validate the market potential of the innovation or technology so that the team can work towards a commercially viable solution.
- Although prior I-Corps (or similar) participation is not mandatory, if there is not a clear
and validated market opportunity, the review committee may require completion of such
training as a condition for receiving a POC Award or before allowing a re-submission. - Please note that if you are a recipient of a Cockrell Innovation Grant, you must commit to completing an NSF I-Corps Regional or National program before or during the proposed period of performance
You will be notified at your UT email by the Innovation Program Manager with any decisions or questions concerning your POC application.
Applicants may resubmit once per technology (UT Tech ID) if they thoroughly address all reviewer feedback received.
In certain circumstances, Texas POC Awards can be made for discoveries that are already licensed to a startup on a case-by-case basis, dependent on the proposed work and status of the licensing partner. Discoveries licensed to established companies (non-startups) are not eligible for POC Awards. Applications involving licensed discoveries must be discussed with the Innovation Program Manager at least two weeks before the respective application deadline.
- Faculty salary or non-UT employee salary
- Student tuition or fees
- Travel expenditures
- Basic, fundamental, or exploratory research without clear commercial relevance
- Business development, planning, customer discovery, or market validation efforts (other
resources, such as I-Corps, exist to help with these efforts) - Capital equipment (equipment costing $5,000 or more)
- General facilities and administration (overhead/indirect) costs. POC funding is internal,
so overhead/indirect costs do not need to be budgeted - Publication costs
- Intellectual property application, prosecution, translation, or freedom to operate costs.
We encourage applicants to engage with the Intellectual Property Development team
to discuss these items - Please note that all uses of proceeds must enhance the ability for UT to further develop
and license the related discoveries
In addition to the examples of allowable costs and projects in the earlier Scope section for POC Awards, Cockrell Innovation Grants can also be used for the following items:
- Make, test or demo prototype (and associated travel, if necessary for project success)
- Validating market and/or pricing models
- Graduate student tuition for active students working on the funded project
- Postdoctoral or graduate student salary for those actively working on the funded project
No, all applications will be assessed in the same manner and with the same review criteria, with funding decisions made irrespective of the PI’s college or school affiliation.
If anything, we expect that Cockrell’s support of some projects with Cockrell Innovation Grants will free up funding for non-Cockrell applications. We encourage PIs from all colleges and schools to apply.
The POC program will not accept in-kind, non-cash, contributions for matching purposes. In general, Federal funds are not accepted for matching purposes.
Contact us with any questions regarding the Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Awards program. If you would like to discuss any specific eligibility questions or details about your potential POC project, please include days and times that would work for a Zoom call in your email correspondence.
Spring 2026 Awardees
READ MORE
Congratulations to Dr. Qian Zhong and team, Robert Williams, Yuling Chen, and Karlie Flader, on receiving a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award for their project, Bedside Breathe-In Diagnostics for Pulmonary Fibrosis.
A faculty member in The University of Texas at Austin, College of Pharmacy, Dr. Zhong and his team are advancing a rapid, noninvasive diagnostic platform that uses inhaled biosensors and a urine test to enable early bedside detection of pulmonary fibrosis.
READ MORE
Congratulations to Dr. Jayant Sirohi on receiving a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award for his project, Precision Aerial Firefighting System.
Dr. Sirohi, a faculty member in the Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin is advancing a low-cost, precision aerial firefighting technology that uses a guided, autorotative delivery system deployed from fixed-wing drones to accurately place fire suppressants on early-stage wildfires.
READ MORE
Congratulations to Dr. Daniella Rempe on receiving a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award for her project, Doing for Floods What Smoke Alarms Did for Fire.
Dr. Rempe, an associate professor in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin, is advancing a low-cost, fully autonomous flood alarm designed to provide immediate, site-specific warnings when rising water reaches a location.
READ MORE
Congratulations to Dr. Yaguo Wang and Alejandro Saenz on receiving a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award for their project, High-Performance Flexible Electronics.
A faculty member in the Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Wang is advancing an ambient‑air femtosecond laser sintering process to produce oxidation‑free, high‑conductivity copper films on flexible substrates.
READ MORE
Congratulations to Assistant Professor Dr. Ilias Georgakopoulos-Soares, PhD, and his research teams on receiving two awards recognizing innovative work in privacy-preserving genomic analysis and data compression.
Dr. Georgakopoulos-Soares and team members Kimonas Provatas and Ioannis Mouratidis received a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award for their project, Privacy Preserving Framework for Genomic Analyses. The team is advancing a software-based, privacy-preserving framework that enables secure genomic analysis directly on encrypted data using homomorphic encryption, helping make genomic research more secure and accessible.
Dr. Georgakopoulos-Soares also received an award with team members Michail Patsakis, Aris Karatzikos, and Ioannis Mouratidis for their project, Structure Aware Lossless Compression. The team is developing a structure-aware, lossless data compression platform that automatically learns the underlying structure of datasets to reduce storage and data transfer costs, improving efficiency for large-scale data management and analysis.
READ MORE
Congratulations to Dr. Juan Guan and Dr. Zhengrong Cui on receiving a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award for their project, A Novel Treatment for TKI-resistant Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer.
Faculty members in the The University of Texas at Austin, College of Pharmacy, Dr. Guan and Dr. Cui are advancing a novel therapeutic strategy for tyrosine kinase inhibitor–resistant non‑small cell lung cancer by using mRNA lipid nanoparticles to deliver peptides that disrupt oncogenic biomolecular condensates.
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Congratulations to Dr. Huiliang (Evan) Wang and Mohammad Bashashati, M.D. on receiving a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award and Cockrell Innovation Grant for their project, Wearable Ultrasound Neuromodulation System for Gastric Motility Disorders.
Dr. Wang, a faculty member in the Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, and Dr. Bashashati, a faculty member in Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, are advancing a wearable ultrasound neuromodulation system for noninvasive, at-home treatment of gastroparesis and functional dyspepsia.
READ MORE
Congratulations to Dr. Elizabeth Cosgriff Hernandez and her collaborators on receiving two awards recognizing innovative work in cardiac rhythm therapy and lung surgery.
Dr. Cosgriff Hernandez received a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award for her project, Transforming Cardiac Rhythm Therapy using Hydrogel mediated Ablation. She and her team are advancing a hydrogel mediated radiofrequency ablation technology designed to improve cardiac rhythm therapy by enhancing energy transfer and thermal control for more uniform lesions and fewer complications.
Dr. Cosgriff Hernandez and her collaborators from MD Anderson, Nicolas Zhou, Paula Aguilera Rodriguez, Andrew Ferrer, and Tim Marin, also received a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award and a Cockrell Innovation Grant for their project, Next Generation BioPatch to Seal Air Leaks After Lung Resection. The team is developing a next generation lung BioPatch designed to rapidly seal post resection air leaks using a pressure resistant, tissue integrating design.
READ MORE
Congratulations to Dr. Qian Yin and collaborator Dr. Zhengrong Cui on receiving both a Discovery to Impact Proof of Concept Award and a Cockrell Innovation Grant for their project, A Novel Adjuvant for Pan-filovirus Vaccine.
Dr. Yin, from the Cockrell School of Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, is advancing a novel solid-form nanoparticle adjuvant toward a stockpile-ready, pan-filovirus vaccine with broad, durable protection against Ebola, Sudan, and Marburg viruses.
PAST Award Recipients
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Sanchita Bhadra PFAS detection using agnostic biosignatures
Synopsis:
The Environmental Protection Agency has recently proposed new regulations for levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which is a large class of thousands of different harmful hard to degrade ‘forever’ chemicals. The maximum levels of PFAS are currently significantly lower than the detection limit of currently available assays. The Ellington lab is adapting a DNA fingerprint technology they invented for NASA to allow for throughput detection and quantification of PFAS chemicals aided by machine learning algorithms.
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Stanley Roux A New Approach to Improving Crop Yield and Stress Tolerance
Synopsis:
This project evaluates a new genetic strategy to improve crop yield and stress tolerance by co‑overexpressing the apyrase PS and its newly identified binding partner, PATL4, building on extensive prior greenhouse and field evidence that PS alone increases plant growth and yield. The proof‑of‑concept work generates Arabidopsis lines expressing both genes to test whether their combined activity produces synergistic gains in growth, nutrient uptake, drought tolerance, and seed yield compared to single‑gene approaches. Results from this study are expected to support new intellectual property and future field trials in major crops such as soybean, advancing commercialization pathways for high‑value agricultural traits.
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Tanya Hutter Technology for At-Home Pulmonary Rehabilitation
Synopsis:
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the 3rd leading cause of death globally, but there are currently no options for accessible, affordable, interactive, and at-home pulmonary rehabilitation. A team led by Dr. Tanya Hutter is developing a wearable device that can provide remote breath training exercises and extensive monitoring capabilities to help patients rehabilitate at home.
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Tom Yankeelov Predicting and Optimizing Cancer Treatment
Synopsis:
When treating cancer, some treatments are more or less effective for different patients and physicians often lack tools that predict how patients will respond. UT researchers have developed a mathematical model that uses patient-specific imaging data to make accurate, patient-specific predictions of eventual response early in the course of therapy. They are currently focused on advanced brain, breast, and prostate cancer and are collaborating with UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.
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Zachariah Page Multi-Material 3D Printing
Synopsis:
The awarded project advances a simple, one-step multi‑material 3D printing process that enables precise control over local mechanical and chemical properties within a single printed object, overcoming long‑standing challenges with weak interfaces and labor‑intensive post‑processing. By combining wavelength‑selective chemistries with commercially available materials, the approach produces parts with extreme stiffness contrast and rapidly dissolvable supports, significantly reducing manufacturing time and cost. This proof‑of‑concept funding supports scale‑up, cost reduction, and prototype demonstrations aimed at accelerating commercialization for applications such as wearable electronics, dental devices, soft robotics, and other high‑performance consumer and medical products.
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Zhengrong (Rong) Cui: Novel Red Blood Cell Dry Powders and Method of Preparation
Synopsis:
Blood transfusions are the single most used lifesaving procedure in hospitals worldwide but packed blood cells used for transfusion can only be stored in refrigeration for 42 days before needing to be discarded. College of Pharmacy researchers have invented a technology that can successfully preserve human cells as a powder that can then be reconstituted. The inventors are seeking to prove out this technology for red blood cells to provide a better solution for life-saving blood transfusions in the hospital and battlefield.
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Zoya Heidari Accelerated Fluid Flow Characterization in Organic Shales
Synopsis:
Large volumes of water are produced from organic shales during oil production, leading to high costs for disposal. Among other limitations, current conventional methods for predicting fluid production take a long time, are expensive, and don’t work with irregular shaped samples. UT petroleum engineers are developing a faster and cheaper fluid flow characterization for organic shales that overcomes nearly all limitations of current methods.
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