Applicants must have a connection to Tulane as current faculty, research staff, or PhD students/postdocs/fellows/MD residents. Non-faculty applicants and adjunct faculty applicants must have a non-adjunct faculty sponsor for the application and a letter of support. The relevant technology also must have an invention disclosure filed or in preparation and an identified commercial application. The invention disclosure must be on file prior to the award announcement.

A completed application includes an abstract, milestones, and a budget. Typical applications for these funds include prototyping, customer discovery, market application research, animal studies, and detailed IP analysis, along with a detailed project funding budget of up to $50,000.  

Note: Already licensed or optioned technologies are not eligible for this award unless the funds will be used for applications of the technology not covered in the license.

Technologies should be at a stage where $50,000 will make a significant contribution towards derisking for commercial application.

Please note that starting in the Spring 2027 application cycle, all re-applicants must complete a Tulane Innovation Institute-approved customer discovery program and conduct 10-15 customer interviews prior to submission. For questions or more information, please reach out to Clay Christian (christian@tulane.edu).
 

Strong applications will promote scalable technologies, products, and services.
A project narrative and a quad chart containing milestones, team information, competitive intelligence, and budget must be uploaded separately to be considered complete.

Successful proposals will describe activities and project milestones that advance progress toward answering fundamental commercialization questions. These include:
◦ Does it work as intended?
◦ Do we know who is likely to buy it and why?
◦ What is our evidence?

Successful PPOC project proposals do not seek to apply grant funds to basic research activities. Technologies that are already licensed or optioned are not eligible for this award unless the funds will be used for applications of the technology not covered in the license.  Applications must include customer discovery activities.

Please read here for a more detailed overview of the Provost’s Proof of Concept Fund purpose, eligibility requirements, and application guide.

Faculty salaries are not allowable. Research-focused PhD student, postdoc, and technician salaries are allowable. Funds may not be used to pay for non-research-related graduate or undergraduate positions. No more than 50% of the total budget can be spent on equipment purchases. No more than 10% of the total budget can be spent on customer discovery travel. Other travel expenses are not allowable. Amendments to the proposal, milestones, or budget are allowable up to 30 days after the awardee receives written notification of project funding. Amendments must be received in writing and meet all submission guidelines. All amendments are subject to a new panel review and Provost approval. Funding for amendments is not guaranteed. Judges may recommend changes to the budget or use line-item vetoes.

Funds must be used in a way consistent with the submitted application and the intent of the PPOC. Fund usage will be reviewed at quarterly milestone meetings. 

If awarded, participation in the National Science Foundation's I-Corp program to support the project's customer discovery development is mandatory. The program must be completed within the first three months of the awarded project period. 

PPOC is administered twice a year (once per semester). Applications are open for a roughly two-month window each semester.

To reduce technical issues with your online submission, we recommend using one of the following operating systems on a desktop or laptop to submit your application: Google Chrome for Windows and Mac, and Linux Redhat.