Leveraging Multiple Schools into a Multidisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at an Academic Medical Center: The NUvention Model

Abstract

In this chapter, the Northwestern University, NUvention: Medical Innovation course will be featured. NUvention represents a unique model. Multiple schools within the larger university context have been combined to form a medical innovation program, manifested as a six-month long interdisciplinary course. NUvention is jointly owned and developed by the schools of Engineering, Medicine, Law, and Business. It features interdisciplinary teams comprised of graduate students from each of the four disciplines, paired with a faculty mentor. Each team is tasked with finding a unique, unmet health care need and then developing a product (either device or software) or a service to address this need. This chapter will detail the structure of the course, highlighting its unique attributes, as well as how it originated, driven by demand from university students. Finally, this chapter will offer some insights into the development of NUvention that may be beneficial for those aspiring to develop a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional medical innovation program within their academic setting.