WORLDiscoveries® is in the business of helping London’s Researchers bring their work to market. Drawing upon a mix of industry connections, sector-specific market knowledge and business development expertise, WORLDiscoveries® serves as an enabler to help you, the inventor, find a path to commercial success through licensing or a new company spin-off.
Specifically, WORLDiscoveries invites you to submit your Report of Innovation in complete confidence. Using a pre-screening success criteria that often includes industry expert opinion, the WORLDiscoveries team will quickly review the ROI to determine if your work has commercial market value.
The criteria include; product attributes, value proposition, prior art review, market prospects by partner and a life cycle return on investment analysis. WORLDiscoveries will then work with you on introducing the innovation to a range of prospective industry partners and will always seek an agreement that is biased towards the researcher and beneficial to all parties.
Similarly, WORLDiscoveries will also consider new company spin-off options that may prove more lucrative and compelling to both the inventor and industry. WORLDiscoveries will assess and augment the potential spin-off’s value proposition, market prospects, financial requirement and operational needs to maximize the new company’s probability of success. WORLDiscoveries and its partners will then assist the spin-off with legal assistance, accounting support, capital acquisition and governance, thus allowing the researcher to focus on what they do best.
WORLDiscoveries is passionate about its offerings, persistent in its pursuit of market opportunity and committed to generating a fair return for you, our industry and institutional partners, and the community at large.
To learn more about WORLDiscoveries and our invention evaluation process, we invite you to contact one of our Business Development Managers.
If you prefer to explore certain aspects of our services on your own, we invite you to read through the general information for WORLDiscoveries inventors available on this site:
WORLDiscoveries invites you to submit your Report of Innovation in complete confidence. Simply download and complete one of our Report of Innovation forms, sign and submit a hard copy to our office and an electronic copy to ipm@worldiscoveries.ca, as explained within the forms. To learn more about our screening process, review Our Process.
If you have any questions as you fill in the form or if you are uncertain which form to use, please do not hesitate to contact the Business Development Manager for your discipline.
A number of unique funding opportunities are available to WORLDiscoveries® inventors with intent to commercialize. Some of the most common that WORLDiscoveries® assists researchers to apply for include:
Western Innovation Fund (WIF)
Go to Research Western’s information on the WIF program
The Western Innovation Fund awards are made from funds provided annually by the Office of the Vice-President (Research and International Relations). They are intended to support the cost of projects that will advance innovative research results towards application and commercialization. The competitions are for one-time projects based on existing research initiatives. Applicants can only receive one grant per type of project or technology.
WORLDiscoveries personnel are available for consultation on issues related to intellectual property and commercialization.
Projects are expected to be of short duration (6-12 months). Up to $50,000 in funding is available and is repayable if there is a positive commercial outcome from the research or technology. The submission of a Letter of Intent (LOI) is required before a full application can be submitted. A new LOI is not required if WORLDiscoveries® has requested a resubmission to a new competition; however, a new ROLA Proposal must accompany the resubmitted application.
One of the first steps in the application process is to submit a Report of Invention (ROI) to WORLDiscoveries.
For additional steps and guidelines, please visit Research Western’s information on the WIF program
Deadlines
Effective September 1, 2012, the WIF program is an open competition – researchers may apply at any time.
External Funds
The following list consists of external links to the funding program websites. A member of our team can assist you in determining which of these are the best fit for your project.
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Proof-of-Principle: Phase 1 (2009 – 2010)
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research – Proof-of-Principle: Phase 2 (2009 – 2010)
- Health Technology Assessment and Implementation Program, htx.ca
- Ministry of Research and Innovation – Innovation Demonstration Fund
- Ministry of Research and Innovation – Premier’s Catalyst Awards
- National Sciences and Engineering Research Council – Idea to Innovation (NSERC i2i)
- NSERC – Engage Grants Program
- NSERC – Partnerships
- NSERC -Synergy Awards for Innovation
- Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) Market Readiness
- OCE Collaborative Research Projects
- OCE Interact
- OCE Proof of Concept
- OCE Champions of Innovation
- Ontario Genomics Institute – Pre-commercialization Business Development Fund (OGI PBDF)
- Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) – Intellectual Property Development and Commercialization Program
- Precarn Programs & Funding
- TiEQuest 2010 Business Venture Competition
Our Process
Strategically, we follow a 6-step process in turning your innovations into profitable consumer-ready products.
To learn more, click here.