The University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School have launched a new fund designed to promote inventiveness and creativity throughout the academic community of the entire university, the schools announced this week.

The Wharton Innovation Fund, founded by Wharton alumnus Alberto Vitale (’59), will provide resources to students, faculty and staff – approximately $125,000 in grants each year – to take projects that get their start in the classroom out into the world at large. Vitale called the fund “a catalyst to stimulate innovation at the school and to surface the brainpower of its students.”

The fund will give preference to creative student-led projects with a large potential impact, although projects involving faculty, students and staff – especially those leveraging the school’s inventions and thought leadership in various fields of business – also will be considered.

“The Wharton Innovation Fund reflects the school’s dedication to nurturing the best ideas and providing them a structure in which to grow,” Wharton Dean Thomas S. Robertson said in a statement. Innovation is one of Wharton’s three main pillars, Robertson noted, together with social impact and global outreach. 

Student-inventors whose projects result in inventions or ventures through the fund will retain intellectual property rights to their inventions. Economic value from inventions or ventures leveraging the university’s intellectual property will be shared between the inventors, Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania.

“I am delighted that Alberto Vitale is supporting the school through the Wharton Innovation Fund,” said Professor Karl Ulrich, Wharton’s vice dean of innovation. Ulrich, who leads Wharton’s innovation initiative, co-authored a best-selling book on innovation tournaments with another Wharton professor, Christian Terwiesch.

For more details about the new Wharton Innovation Fund, including criteria for selection, click here.

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