The University of Tennessee, Knoxville is the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee System, and a public research university whose commercialization path runs through the University of Tennessee Research Foundation and a joint research relationship with Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Research expenditures were $386.95 million in fiscal year 2024, as reported to the NSF HERD survey, including $180.01 million in federal expenditures and $8.62 million in industry-sponsored expenditures. Knoxville ranked No. 7 nationally for Department of Energy funding. The campus reports 153 national-laboratory scientists with joint appointments, 30 faculty with joint laboratory appointments, 44 joint patents and licenses with laboratory researchers, and 13 UT-Oak Ridge National Laboratory Governor’s Chair professors.
Commercialization for the system runs through the University of Tennessee Research Foundation, an independent nonprofit that protects and licenses intellectual property from every campus. In 2024, foundation innovators were awarded 28 U.S. utility patents, ranking the foundation No. 71 on the National Academy of Inventors list of U.S. universities granted utility patents. The Knoxville research office reports 147 U.S. patents granted from fiscal years 2022 through 2026, 139 invention disclosures and 29 licenses and options in the latest fiscal-year snapshot, and 186 startups created and supported in university programs. UT-affiliated startups had raised $488.8 million in capital as of fiscal year 2025.
- Maturation and seed capital
The Chancellor’s Innovation Fund and UTRF maturation grants move disclosed technologies toward a prototype. The Accelerate Fund has made $150,000 pre-seed investments, including Orion Therapeutics and VisualizAI. - Oak Ridge path
Knoxville startups can move into Innovation Crossroads, the Lab Embedded Entrepreneurship program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Elemental Composites, built on a Knoxville disclosure, is in that program.
Investors and founders can reach the University of Tennessee Research Foundation through the Knoxville research office.
Learn more about the University of Tennessee Research Foundation
Learn more about the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
