From MIT, an instruction manual for turning research into startups

Since MIT opened the first-of-its-kind venture studio within a university in 2019, it has demonstrated how a systemic process can help turn research into impactful ventures. 

Now, MIT Proto Ventures is launching the “R&D Venture Studio Playbook,” a resource to help universities, national labs, and corporate R&D offices establish their own in-house venture studios. The online publication offers a comprehensive framework for building ventures from the ground up within research environments.

“There is a huge opportunity cost to letting great research sit idle,” says Fiona Murray, associate dean for innovation at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a faculty director for Proto Ventures. “The venture studio model makes research systematic, rather than messy and happenstance.” 

Bigger than MIT

The new playbook arrives amid growing national interest in revitalizing the United States’ innovation pipeline — a challenge underscored by the fact that just a fraction of academic patents ever reach commercialization.

“Venture-building across R&D organizations, and especially within academia, has been based on serendipity,” says MIT Professor Dennis Whyte, a faculty director for Proto Ventures who helped develop the playbook. “The goal of R&D venture studios is to take away the aspect of chance — to turn venture-building into a systemic process. And this is something not just MIT needs; all research universities and institutions need it.”

Indeed, MIT Proto Ventures is actively sharing the playbook with peer institutions, federal agencies, and corporate R&D leaders seeking to increase the translational return on their research investments.

“We’ve been following MIT’s Proto Ventures model with the vision of delivering new ventures that possess both strong tech push and strong market pull,” says Mark Arnold, associate vice president of Discovery to Impact and managing director of Texas startups at The University of Texas at Austin. “By focusing on market problems first and creating ventures with a supportive ecosystem around them, universities can accelerate the transition of ideas from the lab into real-world solutions.” 

What’s in the playbook

The playbook outlines the venture studio model process followed by MIT Proto Ventures. MIT’s venture studio embeds full-time entrepreneurial scientists — called venture builders — inside research labs. These builders work shoulder-to-shoulder with faculty and graduate students to scout promising technologies, validate market opportunities, and co-create new ventures.

“We see this as an open-source framework for impact,” says MIT Proto Ventures Managing Director Gene Keselman. “Our goal is not just to build startups out of MIT — it’s to inspire innovation wherever breakthrough science is happening.”

The playbook was developed by the MIT Proto Ventures team — including Keselman, venture builders David Cohen-Tanugi and Andrew Inglis, and faculty leaders Murray, Whyte, Andrew Lo, Michael Cima, and Michael Short. 

“This problem is universal, so we knew if it worked there’d be an opportunity to write the book on how to build a translational engine,” Keselman said. “We’ve had enough success now to be able to say, ‘Yes, this works, and here are the key components.’” 

In addition to detailing core processes, the playbook includes case studies, sample templates, and guidance for institutions seeking to tailor the model to fit their unique advantages. It emphasizes that building successful ventures from R&D requires more than mentorship and IP licensing — it demands deliberate, sustained focus, and a new kind of translational infrastructure. 

How it works

A key part of MIT’s venture studio is structuring efforts into distinct tracks or problem areas — MIT Proto Ventures calls these channels. Venture builders work in a single track that aligns with their expertise and interest. For example, Cohen-Tanugi is embedded in the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, working in the Fusion and Clean Energy channel. His first two venture successes have been a venture using superconducting magnets for in-space propulsion and a deep-tech startup improving power efficiency in data centers.

“This playbook is both a call to action and a blueprint,” says Cohen-Tanugi, lead author of the playbook. “We’ve learned that world-changing inventions often remain on the lab bench not because they lack potential, but because no one is explicitly responsible for turning them into businesses. The R&D venture studio model fixes that.”