ETA 2021 Strategic Plan - Flipbook - Page 49
Cyclotron Road Division
Facilitating the translation of hard science into positive societal
impact
One of the most meaningful benefits
for the fellows, now and into the future,
is a large and growing network of
advisors and consultants they can turn
to throughout their career, as well as a
growing group of program alumni.
Research Objectives
ETA’s Cyclotron Road Division is renowned for its fellowship program — launched in 2015 — which
has been supporting leading entrepreneurial scientists as they develop commercially viable
technology solutions for clean energy and bring them to market. Each year, the fellowship program
recruits a cohort of scientific innovators in a highly competitive process. Those selected receive the
unique opportunity to “embed” at Berkeley Lab for two years. In doing so, these innovators gain
access to our state-of-the-art facilities and our world-renowned researchers, both at Berkeley Lab and
the University of California (UC) Berkeley. The fellows not only move their technologies forward, they
also bring inspiration and new ideas to the scientists who work with them. Fellows also participate in
a structured program of intensive mentorship, professional development, and networking.
Cyclotron Road has supported 66 innovators since 2015. Today, these innovators continue to work on
technology solutions ranging from replacing petroleum-derived plastic to pioneering new exploration
technologies that can unlock development of geothermal energy resources to turning food waste into
bio-based chemicals for manufacturing. The fellows have collaborated with more than 70 Berkeley
Lab scientists, and the organizations they have founded have raised more than $215 million in
follow-on funding. The companies they’ve created have already hired more than 240 employees and
introduced new products throughout industry and across the globe.
Simply said, the fellowship
program enables a new path
for the development of an
innovator and their ideas that
would otherwise not exist. The
fellows also receive two years of
financial support to live in the
San Francisco Bay Area.
Access to Berkeley Lab, UC
Berkeley, and the greater Bay
Area scientific and investment
community allows the fellows
to leverage the world class
infrastructure and supportive
community available only in
our environment. This enables
advancement and peer support
of their ideas and technologies
without hefty start-up costs and
the need to go out and build
dozens of new relationships.
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Building upon the success of the
fellowship program, ETA’s Cyclotron
Road Division is exploring an expansion
of programs to further support the
Lab’s mission to translate science into
impact by:
• Setting up an entrepreneurin-residence program where
researchers from outside
companies spend time at the Lab
collaborating with our world-class
scientists
• Developing entrepreneurial
bootcamps for diverse high
school, undergraduate, and
graduate students to build the
pipeline of future innovators
• Organizing corporate externships
where Lab researchers are able
to embed part-time at outside
companies to build relationships
and expand the range of
problems they want to solve
Why We Need
Cyclotron Road
It is very difficult for early career scientists
with great ideas in hard tech to get start-up
funding, laboratory space and equipment,
mentorship, and a professional network
for support and encouragement. Cyclotron
Road’s fellowship program facilitates that
and much more in an age when most capital
sources are hesitant to back potentially
game-changing clean energy technology
startups.
Cyclotron Road scientists are developing
“hard” clean energy technologies
— meaning physical as opposed to
computational or software technologies —
rooted in materials science, chemistry, and
physics and requiring manufacturing. These
technologies need significantly more time
and capital to develop, scale, and deploy
than do software or consumer-product
investments.
For investors looking for big financial
returns in a very short time, investments in
hard tech can be difficult to justify. While
more entities are starting to invest in hard
tech for climate, like impact funds, it still
takes a lot of money and a long time. The
result: few technology entrepreneurs from
America’s top research institutions can get
the critical early-stage financial support
required for them to dedicate their lives to
developing the hard technologies we need
for a clean energy future.
The solution is Cyclotron Road. Without
such investments, the nation risks a lost
generation of clean energy entrepreneurs at
just the moment we must be innovating at a
rapid pace to transform our energy sector.
At Cyclotron Road, we’re filling this gap.
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