We are pleased to make available this dataset from data collection related to the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps™ National Course.
What is the purpose of making this dataset public?
The purpose of this dataset is to provide access to the public to examine the immediate outcomes and long-term impact of NSF’s I-Corps™ national program on individual participants and their projects. NSF created the I-Corps™ program in 2011 based on the Lean LaunchPad® course created by Steve Blank at Stanford University.
The core component of the I-Corps™ program is a seven-week course focused on the customer discovery process, whereby participants are instructed to “get out of the building” and interview people in their relevant industrial sectors to test hypotheses about their technologies. The course is meant to help inventors quickly determine whether or not a technology should be on the market, possibly saving a tax investment in an enterprise that has no real chance of succeeding.
Click below to access the data files:
Why is the survey data necessary?
VentureWell collects data to examine the impact of the NSF I-Corps™ program on individual program participants and their research projects. VentureWell gathers, cleans, and shares data to help program staff 1) identify potential areas of program improvement, 2) determine what additional resources and support may be helpful to participants, and 3) better understand the factors that influence the process of commercializing academic research.
What data is included in the dataset?
Release 5.0 combines pre-course, post-course, and longitudinal survey data. Some of the survey topics are:
- Pre-Course
- the ways the team has worked together
- characteristics of the technology
- participant experiences with course topics
- expectations and questions about the course
- Post-Course
- the extent and types of knowledge gained
- satisfaction with the course and instruction
- post-course interests and intentions
- project updates and accomplishments
- Longitudinal
- business creation
- ownership and employees, financing
- sales and licensing revenue
- influences of the program on participants’ careers
- the extent to which concepts learned in the course were utilized
- the development of new types of collaborations
- the development of entrepreneurial curricula
- IPEDS
- select data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
- information describing the team’s institution, such as the size, types of degrees offered, and geographic status
What is included in the package?
The Public Use Dataset package contains the following files:
- Dataset: Files containing anonymized data.
- Methods Report: A PDF file containing information about the program background, evaluation design, data collection, and quality assurance. It also includes examples of sample invitations and reminder emails.
- User Guide Report and Codebooks: A PDF file containing information about variable naming conventions, coding system for missing information, and details about variables such as: variable name, description, type, measurement, values, and labels. Also contains a CSV of variable metadata, including variable type, description, and response options.
What kind of insights can be gleaned from this dataset?
Chart Example 1: Participants gained a clearer understanding of their technology’s commercialization potential through the NSF I-Corps™ customer discovery program.
Chart Example 2: The Healthcare/Medical sector made up the majority of teams that participated in the NSF I-Corps™ program from 2012 to 2021.
What has been done with the dataset?
Project 1
Title: Lessons Learned: Research benefits and beyond associated with participating in the NSF I-Corps™ Customer Discovery Program
Citation: Bosman, L., & Garcia-Bravo, J. (2021). Lessons learned: Research benefits and beyond associated with participating in the NSF I-Corps™ customer discovery program. Technology & Innovation, 22(1), 41–54. https://doi.org/10.21300/21.4.2021.5
Keywords: Authentic learning; Ethnography; Interviews; Experiential learning; Entrepreneurship education; Training
Link: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/nai/ti/2021/00000022/00000001/art00005
Project 2
Title: I-Corps@NCATS trains clinical and translational science teams to accelerate translation of research innovations into practice
Citation: Nearing, Kathryn & Rainwater, Julie & Neves, Stacey & Bhatti, Pamela & Conway, Bruce & Hafer, Nathaniel & Harter, Kevin & Kenyon, Nicholas & McManus, Margaret & McNeal, Demetria & Morrato, Elaine & Rajguru, Suhrud & Wasko, Molly. (2020). I-Corps@NCATS trains clinical and translational science teams to accelerate translation of research innovations into practice. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. 5. 1-64. 10.1017/cts.2020.561.
Keywords: Innovation Corps (I-Corps), training, innovation, evaluation, research commercialization
We are interested in showcasing projects that utilize this dataset and encourage you to submit a summary of your work via data@venturewell.org. By sharing your project summary, you can help us raise awareness of the innovative ways in which this dataset is being used.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can this dataset be referenced?
Title: Participant Data from the NSF I-Corps™ National Program (Release 5.0)
Dataset Version: Release 5.0 (Full Release)—02/11/2025. This release adds records from teams participating in the program in 2020-2021 to the existing dataset.
Citation: VentureWell. (2025). Participant Data from the NSF I-Corps™ National Program (Release 5.0) [data file and codebook]. Hadley, MA: VentureWell, 2025-02-1103.
Who are the participants included in this dataset?
Sample: A sample of individuals who completed the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) national program from Spring 2012 to Fall 2021. Most respondents are NSF grantees that were selected by NSF to participate in a seven-week-long accelerated in-person and virtual course intended to help academic scientists and engineers receive adequate support and resources in order to determine whether their product or technology is commercializable.
Sample Size: 7,092 respondents. Of those respondents, ~ 6,643 completed the pre-course evaluation, ~ 5,322 completed the post-course evaluation, and ~ 3,663 completed the longitudinal evaluation.
Number of cohorts: 106
Dates of Collection: Spring 2012 through Fall 2021
Mode of Collection: Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing – CAWI)
In which formats is the dataset available?
The dataset will be available in several file formats for ease of use with researchers’ preferred statistical software and to ensure accuracy of the data. Version 5.0 will be disseminated in .csv, .dta, .sav, and .xpt formats.
What’s the difference between each version?
New data is added to each dataset version, allowing adequate time between program participation and data dissemination to protect participants’ confidentiality. If you would like to access previous versions, please contact us at data@venturewell.org.
Funding
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1832730.
Data Privacy Disclaimer
To prevent these data from being used for exploitive purposes, VentureWell has made every effort to protect participants’ privacy by de-identifying or removing data that may lead to the identification of participants. VentureWell regularly reviews these coding decisions and may choose to include additional information in future releases.
Users of these data are expected to uphold the confidentiality of respondents and use this dataset without malicious intent.
Prepared By
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1832730.