The University Innovation Fellows program empowers students to become agents of change at their schools. The Fellows are a global community of students leading a movement to ensure that all students gain the necessary attitudes, skills and knowledge required to compete in the economy of the future. These student leaders from schools around the world create new opportunities that help their peers develop an entrepreneurial mindset, build creative confidence, seize opportunities, define problems and address global challenges.

Fellows are creating student innovation spaces, founding entrepreneurship organizations, hosting experiential events, and working with faculty and administrators to develop courses. They serve as advocates for lasting institutional change with academic leaders and represent their schools at national events.

The University Innovation Fellows is a program of Stanford University’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school). The program was created as part of the National Center for Engineering Pathways to Innovation (Epicenter), a five-year National Science Foundation grant.

About the Fellows:

The program has trained 1,838 students at 258 schools around the world. They range from undergraduates to PhD students and engineering majors to architecture majors. All of them demonstrate a passion for innovation, creativity and the entrepreneurial mindset as well as a drive to make a lasting impact at their schools.

Some Fellows work independently on their campuses and collaborate with their faculty and peers, while others work in a team of up to four Fellows at a campus.

What Fellows Do:

Fellows are working with peers, faculty and administrators to create new learning opportunities for students at their schools to engage with innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking and creativity.

Fellows build resources that will last beyond their time on campus. They:

• create innovation, collaboration or makerspaces

• found clubs

• raise funding

• host speakers

• organize competitions

• work with faculty to create courses

• engage incoming students during orientation

• lead workshops that expose students to creativity, innovation, design thinking and tools to hone their entrepreneurial mindset

Fellows collaborate with their faculty, deans, trustees and other institutional leaders. They:

• discuss ways to enhance the educational experience by engaging other students in hands-on, applied and self-directed learning opportunities

• advocate and lead cross-departmental and cross-institutional partnerships

• collaborate to hold new course offerings that incorporate creativity, innovation, design thinking and entrepreneurship within and alongside traditional coursework

Fellows contribute to the national dialogue on their needs in higher education. They:

• speak at national conferences about their work

• collaborate with other fellows regionally and by discipline

• advocate for changes in policy that can help support a nation of young people who possess an entrepreneurial mindset, a passion for solving society’s most pressing problems and the necessary attitudes, skills and abilities to make a difference in the world

Training and Support

University Innovation Fellows program leaders train candidate Fellows during an intensive 6-week period to conduct in-depth analyses of their campus ecosystems and provide them with tools and resources. They explore frameworks including Design Thinking and Lean Startup, and use their new knowledge to develop unique projects that address needs at their schools.

After training, the Fellows receive year-round mentorship, connect with one another digitally, and attend national conferences and events. This global network of like-minded students helps our Fellows learn from one another and create multi-institution collaborations

Recognition

Fellows and their efforts on campus have been celebrated by their schools, regional publications and national organizations such as the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under former President Barack Obama. Visit our Fellows in the News page to read the articles.