Unlocking innovation intelligence.
The NI Institute approaches innovation through the lens of fundamental physics – applying its mathematical precision and systematic reasoning to identify patterns in scientific discovery and technology commercialization, while integrating insights from the social sciences.
The Challenge of
Modern Scientific Discovery.
The scientific enterprise stands at a critical inflection point. The growth in the volume and complexity of global research has outpaced our ability to understand it.
Research Papers
Each year, researchers worldwide publish over 2.5 million papers, creating an unprecedented volume of scientific knowledge.
Scientific Journals
Scientific findings are dispersed across more than 30,000 journals, making it challenging to track breakthroughs across disciplines.
Annual Citations
Scientists reference previous work over 100 million times annually, forming a complex web of interconnected discoveries.
A first-of-its-kind data pipeline linking research funding in science and technology to marketplace uses in wide-ranging application areas. We aggregate diverse sources of data bridging the research-to market pathway, including previously siloed, confidential data related to the commercialization process at leading research institutions.
The NI Prize celebrates extraordinary discoveries achieved through the powerful partnership between human ingenuity and the machines we create. This international award, presented at a symposium hosted by the NI Institute, honors visionary individuals and teams whose pioneering human-machine collaborations have revolutionized how we address society’s most pressing challenges and delivered profound benefits to humanity.
Collaborating to Map Scientific Innovation
Our team of researchers, data scientists, and institutional partners works collectively to uncover innovation patterns. Using physics-based models and computational frameworks, we're transforming how breakthroughs emerge and spread across scientific communities.
The Science of Science
Physicist-turned-Kellogg-professor Dashun Wang's groundbreaking work at Northwestern's Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) began with a powerful insight: scientific discovery follows highly reproducible patterns, which can be decoded using mathematical tools. By applying physics-based models to extensive datasets of scientific activity, Wang's team uncovered fundamental principles governing how breakthroughs emerge and spread. This work laid the foundation for the Northwestern Innovation Institute, which expands CSSI's approach into a comprehensive framework for understanding—and thoughtfully accelerating—scientific progress.
"The Northwestern Innovation Institute is tackling some of the most complex challenges of our time, connecting research to market opportunities and opening pathways for innovation and downstream technological impact."
From the Internet to CRISPR–Cas9 gene editing, many seeds of progress were planted initially in the ivory tower of academia. Could research be doing even more for society? I argue that it could — if universities used artificial intelligence (AI) tools to maximize the impact of their scientists' outputs.
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to reshape almost every line of work. Despite enormous efforts devoted to understanding AI’s economic impacts, we lack a systematic understanding of the benefits to scientific research associated with the use of AI.
The advent of large-scale datasets that trace the workings of science has encouraged researchers from many different disciplinary backgrounds to turn scientific methods into science itself, cultivating a rapidly expanding ‘science of science’.
Bridge: Uniting Academic Innovation Leaders
Bridge, a collaborative initiative bringing together over 20 leading academic research institutions, is dedicated to amplifying the societal impact of academic research, accelerating innovation and commercialization, identifying untapped technological potential, and predicting emerging technology outcomes.
Bridge is guided by a Founder's Committee of four distinguished institutional leaders
February 13, 2025
Kellogg School of Management
Kellogg School of Management Launches Northwestern Innovation Institute with $25M giftGift from Northwestern University trustee Pin Ni and Future Wanxiang Foundation establishes new research institute assessing the potential impact of innovation.
August 1, 2024
Kellogg School of Management
Faculty awarded $20 million grant from National Science FoundationThe grant through the NSF’s Assessing and Predicting Technology Outcomes (APTO) will support a research program to map the “research-to-market" pipeline to better understand how scientific investments propel technology advances.
July 30, 2024
U.S. National Science Foundation
NSF invests up to nearly $52M to align science and technology research and development investments with outcomes essential to U.S. competitivenessThe Assessing and Predicting Technology Outcomes awards will help the U.S. stage investments in key technology areas.
Connect with the Future of Science Innovation
Whether you're a research institution looking to join Bridge, a potential partner interested in accelerating scientific innovation, or a journalist covering breakthroughs in how we understand discovery itself, we invite you to explore collaboration with the NI Institute. Our team is dedicated to transforming how the world approaches scientific progress.
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The Northwestern Innovation Institute is part of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University
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All rights reserved. Photo Credits: ©Ryan Rayburn