Bluegrass Business Development Partnership

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Incubator Programs 

The University of Kentucky has two on-campus incubators that are UK’s showplace for multidisciplinary research, technology transfer, and new business startups. The incubators are combination faculty research facilities and commercialization centers with two principal objectives. One is to combine the experience of scientists and engineers from various disciplines to encourage high-quality, collaborative research of intellectual and commercial value. A second objective is the commercial development of the discoveries made by UK’s research faculty, staff and students. The intellectual property is reviewed by the university, patented when appropriate, and often licensed to business & industry.

The ASTeCC building, located in the heart of the UK campus, features two types of lab space — faculty labs and labs for business startups that have a connection to UK faculty or staff, or that have licensed UK intellectual property. Faculty with labs in ASTeCC represent colleges throughout the university, and faculty all across campus use ASTeCC as a hub for tech-transfer activities. ASTeCC also houses a number of shared research and support resources for the entire UK community.

Housed in the Kentucky Tobacco Research and Development Center (KTRDC) building on the UK campus, Agricultural Technologies Commercialization Center (AgTeCC) offers an optimal laboratory environment for start-up and emerging companies conducting research on crop-based agriculture. AgTeCC is fully equipped for plant biotechnology research and provides access to plant-growth and tissue-culture resources and services within the KTRDC. The facility is designed for the immediate-startup phase of a new company’s operation, and is particularly suited to grant-supported (e.g. SBIR) spin-off activity initiated by UK faculty.