New Western program aims to empower women innovators

A new program led by WORLDiscoveries is creating opportunities for women and underrepresented researchers to turn their innovations into business opportunities. Funded by the Strategic Priorities Fund , the new WE-Empower program provides year-round mentorship for principal investigators, post-doctoral trainees and graduate students, who identify as women who are Black, Indigenous or from diverse underrepresented groups, with support and training on technology transfer, research commercialization, intellectual property and entrepreneurship. The program was a result of an equity, diversity and inclusion assessment that identified a gap in the number of disclosures of innovation among lead female principal investigators, said Souzan Armstrong, executive director for WORLDiscoveries and lead recipient of the grant. "With the program dedicated to women in technology and underrepresented groups, we are facilitating a path to create a more equitable and inclusive Western community," she said. WORLDiscoveries is the business development arm of a research partnership between Western, Robarts Research Institute and Lawson Health Research Institute. WE-Empower joins other Western programs that help promote the commercialization of research innovations, including the and. "WE-Empower is an ambitious program that aims to contribute and further Western's strategic plan commitments on all three pillars: greater impact, people community and culture, and Western's place in the world," said Armstrong.