OIT recognizes and celebrates the efforts and achievements by staff in the advancement of innovation at UCI.
Innovators can receive monetary rewards for outstanding ideas they’ve advanced to some type of deliverable such as a proof-of-concept, prototype, or production implementation (if a POC or prototype doesn’t make sense). Completed concepts can be reviewed whenever you think they’re ready for consideration to receive a cash award. The cash awards are modeled after the UC STAR Awards program and may be awarded to individuals or shared across a group. Awards levels (see below) can range from $500 to $2,500 depending on the concept’s overall level of innovative impact.
Like many aspects of OIT’s Accelerating Innnovation initiative, awarding ideas is a self-initiated process. You can follow these steps to have your concept considered for recognition:
- Self-score your concept using the Innovation Scoring Rubric lower on this page.
- Email oit-innovation@uci.edu asking for your concept to be reviewed for a cash award. Include a brief summary of your idea, information about what you’ve achieved so far, names of others who worked on the concept if it was a group effort, and answers to the Innnovation Scoring Rubric questions below.
- The OIT team sponsoring Accelerating Innovation will then follow-up and work with you to take if from there.
- Concepts approved for a cash award will likely be highlighted at an OIT Staff Meeting, OIT ARB Meeting, or other appropriate venue where they’ll also have an opportunity to show-off what they’ve accomplished.
Innovation Award Levels
Trailblazer Award
This award is for an idea that showed a possible path forward, and proved that we could take it. The innovator is considered for a $500 award.
Spearhead Award
This award is for an idea that changed how people actually work, and established a repeatable process that other teams can follow. The innovator is considered for a $1500 award.
Foundation Award
This award is for an idea that changed how our whole department gets stuff done. The innovator is considered for a $2500 award.
Innovation Scoring Rubric
Score your concept using the categories and values below – multiply all the values to see your Innovation Score – higher scores indicate higher degrees of innovation.
Creativity – Would this be a growth opportunity for OIT?
1 No; we already do something like this
2 Yes; this is a logical next step
3 Yes; this experiment could move us forward
4 Yes; this experiment could change how we work
Impact – Does this benefit multiple groups or teams?
1 Will help 1-10 people
2 Will help multiple teams (11-1000 people)
3 Will help the whole campus (1000+ people)
4 Will help the whole system (10,000+ people)
Novelty – Who does this already?
1 OIT already does this kind of thing
2 UCI doesn’t do this yet, but other institutions do
3 Higher Education doesn’t do this yet, but other industries do
4 No one does this yet
Feasibility – Is there a clear path to rollout, including ways to measure impact?
1 No; it’s unclear how to proceed or how to know if this helps
2 Yes
Expansion – Does this increase UCI’s capabilities to tackle new problems?
1 No
2 Yes
Upgrade – Does this increase UCI’s capabilities to tackle existing problems?
1 No
2 Yes