Work in Progress: Assessing Long-Term Outcomes of Advanced E-Teams: A Follow Up Study

This follow up study assess long-term project and student outcomes associated with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance\´s (NCIIA) Advanced E-Team Grants (1996-2005). The NCIIA funds the development of curriculum and projects that stimulate innovation and entrepreneurship within higher education. It achieves these aims, in part, through supporting "E-Teams", in which diverse groups of students collaborate to solve practical problems or serve market needs by creating a commercial product. The E-Team approach has been adopted by many businesses, science and engineering programs over the past 10 years, but relatively little information exists regarding long-term educational, career, and economic outcomes. To address this gap, NCIIA is in the process of conducting a follow-up study of former Advanced E-Teams to determining the trajectories and current status of the original funded projects, as well as team members\´ post-award activities related to innovation and entrepreneurship. Information was gathered on patenting, licensing, and other commercialization activities, and respondents\´ involvement in start up companies, product development, etc. implications for future