Industry Opportunities at ISU Center for Crops Utilization Research

Industrial customers can outsource their R&D needs to CCUR and can also partner with CCUR researchers through joint solicitations or industry sponsorships. With our expertise and a variety of equipment, we are offering a wide range of contractual R&D services to industry customers to assist in the development of new food process and fermentation technologies at a reasonable cost. For customers with IP-ownership concerns, ISU Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer (OIPTT) can work with the customers to develop fair and customer friendly terms to protect customer IPs.

Some customers have had proprietary processes developed at a small scale, and need to scale up the process to validate their results and explore the potentials of commercialization. With the pilot plant facility, CCUR staff can perform fee-for-service projects for the customers to produce prototype products. The information obtained from the pilot-scale study can be applied to customers’ commercialization endeavors in either their own production facility or toll contractor manufacturing facility

Locate your company at the CCUR to carry out proprietary research and development, the CCUR industry incubator program helps small technology companies to start a successful business or expand their existing business. Businesses are allotted space for short periods of time (up to 2 years) to network with faculty, test new products and processes, and use pilot-plant scale equipment and other labs.

CCUR can provide workforce training to industrial customers. Customer employees can gain both the fundamental background knowledge and the hand-on experiences of specific equipment operation in food processing and industrial fermentation areas. The training can be implemented through generic workshops/on-site operations OR specific topic tailored to specific customer needs.