Spark Award

The Bakar Fellows Spark Award is designed to accelerate faculty-led research to tangible, positive societal impact through commercialization.

Through a competitive application process, faculty members are selected as Bakar Faculty Fellows and awarded discretionary research support to fulfill proposed milestones and move their innovative research concepts closer to commercialization.

The call for Spark Award applications takes place annually, with funding decisions made in the spring.

Successful Spark Award recipients join the robust I&E ecosystem that includes faculty, post-docs, students, staff and alumni, as well as campus programs and organizations designed to assist Fellows in introducing discoveries to the market.

During the multi-year Spark Award period, Faculty Fellows will attend Bakar Fellows community events, engage with the Advisory Board, submit annual updates on progress towards goals and participate in relevant learning activities and community building activities.

Bakar Fellows will benefit from customized interactions with the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub, SkyDeck, Haas School of Business, the Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership, and the Office of Intellectual Property and Industry Research Alliances (IPIRA), and relevant financial and founder communities.

In the spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration, joint projects between UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco faculty are also eligible for the Spark Award.

Applications were due March 22, 2024 at 5 PM PT.

Please check back soon for news about the next application cycle.

Examples of successful Spark Award outcomes may include filing invention disclosures or patent applications, licensing intellectual property, establishing new industry partnerships or creating a new company.

Bakar Fellows

Meet our Fellows

Our Bakar Fellows have been bringing innovative research toward commercialization since 2012, contributing to the rich entrepreneurial ecosystem at UC Berkeley and beyond.