Harvard Grid Accelerator

Harvard Grid Accelerator — Awards

Offers Harvard engineering teams startup support to take inventions from laboratory development to commercialization outcomes.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

The Harvard Grid Accelerator is an annual internal translational funding program administered by Harvard's Office of Technology Development (OTD) that supports engineering and physical-science innovations at Harvard on a path toward commercially self-sustaining startup formation. The program is the successor and rebranded expansion of the earlier Physical Sciences Accelerator. It funds Harvard students and researchers across engineering and the physical sciences, targeting hardware, materials, energy, photonics, quantum, and semiconductor research with demonstrated societal impact potential. The Grid Accelerator is affiliated with the broader Harvard Grid entrepreneurship hub and reflects Harvard OTD's mandate to move university research from the lab toward licensable or spin-out commercial entities.

Eligibility is restricted to Harvard students and researchers in engineering and the physical sciences; external applicants are not eligible and there is no mechanism for non-Harvard PIs to participate. Award amounts are not published on the public HTML program page. The 2026 application deadline was April 13, 2026, and the 2026 cycle is now closed. The program follows an annual RFP pattern, meaning a 2027 cycle is expected to open in early 2027. Interested investigators should monitor otd.harvard.edu/accelerators/harvard-grid-accelerator/ for updated RFP releases.

For Harvard researchers with physical-science or engineering ventures at an early formation stage, the Grid Accelerator serves as a key bridge between sponsored academic research and the capital and partnerships needed to form a startup. Unlike external venture programs, Grid does not take equity; it provides OTD-administered translational funding that helps validate commercial feasibility. Researchers should contact sam_liss@harvard.edu for pre-application guidance and to obtain the award amount schedule and evaluation criteria that are not published on the public website.