| Sumario: | Purpose The aim of this presentation is to provide an overview of challenges and facilitators in developing sustainable collaborations both within universities, and between universities and corporate partners in the pursuit of gerontechnology. Method We provide examples of successful and unsuccessful efforts at intra-university collaborations and introduce a novel method for university/corporate collaborations. Results & Discussion Intra-university barriers, including competition for funds and control of faculty, make it difficult for faculty who wish to collaborate. Facilitators include the recent NIH move toward the funding of interdisciplinary research programs. Barriers to university/corporate collaborations include potential conflicts of interest for university faculty and students collaborating with industry. Facilitators include the availability of research funding from the National Institutes on Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and the NIH Small Technology Transfer Research (STTR) program, which encourage collaboration between industry and academia. The authors will describe successful strategies they have utilized, specifically, developing a small start-up company to collaborate with academic institutions in securing grants for technology and aging projects through the NIH's SBIR program.
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