2025 Annual Report: A Letter from Lisa Dhar
2025 INVO Inventive Activity Report
Director’s Letter – Lisa Dhar
Collaboration is vital to Northwestern University’s Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO).
To support Northwestern’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem and propel the translation of student- and faculty-driven inventions to the public, we need trusted partners sharing our ambition, our commitment, and our goals. Collaboration is our reality, not a buzzword.
Over the last 15 years, INVO has teamed with partners across Northwestern – the Feinberg School of Medicine, the Kellogg School of Management, and the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation among them – to introduce entrepreneurial training programs to new audiences, to provide critical early-stage capital fueling tech translation, and to form new initiatives shepherding Northwestern innovations into the world. Together, we created lively mentorship programs, energized student entrepreneurship with the founding of The Garage, and built the Querrey InQbation Lab to advance research-based innovations.
Along the way, we also crafted strategic relationships with external partners and philanthropic allies providing crucial expertise, resources, and funding to ensure compelling innovations have the necessary resources to reach the marketplace.
The collaboration – focused, intentional, and constant – continues to deliver results. Inventions founded in Northwestern labs have turned into patents and startups and now-thriving companies transforming lives, the environment, healthcare, manufacturing, education, and more. It’s inspiring – and ongoing.
At INVO, we continue to embrace collaboration as a pillar of our work, crafting new partnerships and strengthening existing ones in service to innovation, entrepreneurship, and, ultimately, the public good.
Over the last calendar year, INVO has paired Kellogg faculty with Feinberg-affiliated researchers to develop the business case for AI-powered medical innovations, engaged the Farley Center in a bootcamp-styled entrepreneurship program for early-career scientists, and leveraged the skills and enthusiasm of Kellogg MBA students to help Northwestern-founded startups elevate their pitches. Alongside the Graduate School’s Research Communication Training Program, we’ve helped young scientists sharpen the commercial positioning of their research and have created with Northwestern’s Trienens Institute for Sustainability and Energy an accelerator to steward the university’s most promising cleantech innovations to market.
Collaboration amplifies our work and will power our future, which is why we take it so seriously. In partnership with others, skills multiply, perspectives grow, valuable resources emerge, and the potential impact of Northwestern-founded innovations becomes that much greater.
At INVO, collaboration isn’t just a strategy; it is our engine of impact. As we look ahead, INVO will continue to build bridges with dedicated, skilled partners – connecting discovery, capital, ingenuity, ambition, and expertise – to ensure Northwestern’s innovation ecosystem thrives and its discoveries transform lives.