Innovations for Substance Use Disorders (I4SUD) is an executive education certificate program offered through Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. The program will enroll 30 researchers who are motivated to solve challenges related to substance use disorders (SUDs). During the program, participants will work individually or in teams to assess if their pharmaceutical, digital health, or medical device-related inventions can be transformed into innovations to address problems in SUDs. I4SUD combines asynchronous and synchronous online activities; a multi-day visit to Baltimore for workshops led by world-class faculty, clinical site visits, and community building; and the development of a commercialization plan to make participants competitive for follow-on funding opportunities including but not limited to the NIDA-supported “$100,000 Start a SUD Startup” Challenge, and SBIR and STTR programs. Participants who complete the program can win a cash prize through a pitch competition and earn a certificate of completion from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Office of Executive Education.

Researchers at any stage in their careers (graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, research assistants, faculty, etc.) who have ideas in early stages and have not yet received translational grants such as SBIR or STTR. Those who have previously attended the Yale Innovation to Impact Program, Babson SUD-Sprint program or the MIT Entrepreneurship and Innovation for Biomedical Product Development for SUDs may apply but priority will be given to those who have not completed these programs.

Four reasons:
1) Our team comprises multidisciplinary faculty and experts from business and entrepreneurship and substance use disorders.
2) Our participants get the opportunity to do first-hand market research by visiting operational clinics and organizations that serve persons with substance use disorders to meet with staff and patients to understand the unmet needs they are solving and the people whose lives they’ll be impacting.
3) All participants who complete the program receive a certificate of completion from the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Office of Executive Education.
4) The winner of our pitch competition receives a cash prize!

The program is fully funded by NIDA and is completely free (including all travel-related costs) for any participant located at a US-based institution. At this time, we are unable to provide support for non-US-based applicants.

The Virtual self-paced program with live sessions and virtual mentoring will occur from September 23 - November 15, 2024. The in-person Baltimore visit with expert panels, community building, SUD clinic visits and a pitch competition: October 1 - 4, 2024. The in-person sessions will be held at the beautiful Harbor East location of the Carey Business School. The final pitch competition will be held virtually on November 15, 2024.

World-class faculty and industry experts will contribute to the program’s learning materials. View their bios here.

To earn the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Executive Education Certificate, participants must
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- Attend 4 full days in person in Baltimore, MD (October 1 - October 4, 2024)
- Attend three virtual sessions, 1.5hrs each (12 PM - 1:30 PM ET, September 23, October 9, and October 23, 2024)
- Attend at least two 30min virtual office hour sessions with mentors or instructors (Wednesdays, 12 - 1:30 PM ET on October 16, 30 and November 6, 2024)
- Engage in 3 - 4hrs per week of asynchronous learning activities between September 23 and November 15, 2024, and spend time on research to develop their pitch (dependent on participant idea and stage)
- Attend and pitch in the virtual pitch competition from 1 PM - 4 PM ET on November 15, 2024

Applications for the 2024 cohort will be open from March 15, 2024 until June 30, 2024. The application will ask for basic background information and several short essays about your commercialization idea and personal goals.