This year's conference is being co-organized by NCET2, NIH and NSF. The University Co-hosts are the University of California and University of Maryland, and the venture capital sponsors are The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and the Strategic Venture Association.

The purpose of this conference is to have a continuing discussion between the nation's universities and venture capital/angel investors on how to create and fund high-impact university startups. The conference will be part of the Enabling Innovation report due to be released May 2008. Enabling Innovation is an initiative of the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2) in colloboration with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to explore avenues to accelerate the innovation process by bringing together leaders from universities, the investment community, industry and government, which will culminate in a report in May 2008.

Transaction-focused Conference: We are laying the ground work for more funding transactions between universities and VC/Angel investors by creating a dealflow pipeline from universities to investors. The funding gap is the main problem for bringing promising innovations to the market.

Universities have become "ground zero" for the new innovation economy. Each year, universities around the country create over 400 new startups based on cutting edge, federally funded R&D. These companies are becoming the foundation of the new national innovation economy. While traditional tech transfer consists of licensing patents to commercialize university R&D, "entrepreneurial tech transfer" refers to the new focus of universities on startup creation and funding. However, this new focus necessitates a fresh look at how universities interact with other stakeholders in the innovation economy.