The Challenge
For many organizations, award applications are often thought of as last-minute efforts. Team members are left scrambling to figure out who or what might be good to submit, just to be able to check the box that a candidate was submitted. This approach results in lots of stress and opportunity cost. IVT’s talented team is often called in to prepare award applications for government organizations. Our winning approach is not only strategic, but also ensures that the client’s resources are spent in the most effective way possible.
The Approach
IVT’s approach is to step beyond just preparing award submissions to developing an Awards Strategy. We want to help our clients achieve national and international recognition, enhanced visibility, third-party validation of their technologies, and leverage awards as a tool to promote partnership and licensing opportunities for our clients. To communicate the importance of our strategies internally, IVT develops the plan, creates supporting materials (including graphics, presentations, and handouts) and facilitates meetings with key internal stakeholders. These strategies, combined with IVT’s unparalleled talent in preparing award-winning submissions (including researching, conducting interviews, and drafting all content for the applications) achieve consistently exceptional results.
The Outcome
IVT has an amazing track record of wins of both internal (NASA, ERDC, DoD) and external (R&D 100, Federal Laboratory Consortium, Space Technology Hall of Fame) awards. At NASA Glenn alone, IVT prepared over 50 award submissions and had a success rate over the last couple of years that was nearly 100% for external awards. Our success was closely tied to our strategic approach. Winning submissions were prepared for numerous R&D 100 awards, NASA Commercial and Government Invention of the Year awards, NASA Honor awards, back-to-back Space Technology Hall of Fame awards, and more. In many cases, these wins served to propel the technologies and their creators to more external collaborations and funding opportunities to further develop and/or make their technologies more broadly available. With another client, ERDC, IVT’s win record was five out of seven during our first year of supporting them. We take great pride in the fact that ERDC has been honored with FLC’s coveted Laboratory Director of the Year award for two consecutive years with our IVT’s award writing prowess: Dr. David Pittman in 2021, and Mr. Bartley Durst in 2022.
InnoVector Tech has been a driving force in turning our awards process into a proactive one that ties to our licensing and marketing efforts so that they are complementary, while writing many award-winning applications that drive recognition of our TTO, Glenn innovators, and our key Glenn technologies.
Chief, NASA Glenn Research Center’s Technology Transfer Office
Wanted to thank you for all the work done in such a short period of time [5 days] to get this across the finish line! Your contributions have paid off! Please see below [announcement of win for entry into ERDC’s Emerging Leaders Group]. Nannette, please let your team know we appreciated their support!
Executive Officer, ERDC Office of Research & Technology Transfer
