# Skill for ENtrepreneurs for Elder Solutions (SENES) fellowship program

> **NIH NIH R25** · UNIVERSITY CITY SCIENCE CENTER · 2024 · $246,665

## Abstract

National Institute on Aging (NIA) REDI
Skill for ENtrepreneurs for Elder Solutions (SENES) fellowship program
 Project Summary/Abstract
The University City Science Center (UCSC) will launch a 12-month immersive fellowship, “Skill
for ENtrepreneurs for Elder Solutions fellowship program (SENES).” SENES is Latin for
“elderly,” and the program will provide specific and meaningful support for PhD, Medical Doctor
(MD), or graduate-level students or recent graduates from an entrepreneurial education
perspective. SENES raises participants’ awareness and potential application areas of solutions
the founders may be developing related to the cognitive and functional impact of aging and/or
Alzheimer's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD).
SENES is a year-long educational experience that will provide a five-founder cohort (annually;
25 over five years) with six months of hands-on learning punctuated with an “elder solutions”
capstone project in month six. The second six months of the fellowship will be an active and
supported technology translation in one of tracks, all supported by medical faculty and aging-
focused advisors as well as the experienced commercialization team at UCSC.
Track 1: Entrepreneurial – Fellows build off their capstone project to begin hitting milestones in
developing their venture, raising venture capital, applying for SBIR.
Track 2: Non-Entrepreneurial – Fellows explore a non-venture research project related to
translation of research and development (R&D) or academic applications of lessons learned.
SENES has a focus on providing exposure and opportunity to convert the theoretical
understanding of entrepreneurial concepts (explicit knowledge) into applied and understood
entrepreneurship focused activities (tacit knowledge). We will expose founders to the aging
market for their solutions in a practical and material way. It is hypothesized that students
participating in the program will be better positioned for success in their commercialization
efforts, resulting in more successful technology-based startups from NIH-funded and supported
researchers. SENES will also leverage government investment by increasing the likelihood of
success of private capital conduct evaluation of fellows over a five-year period to measure
career trajectory and increases in entrepreneurial literacy and entrepreneurial success.
The overall opportunity for the SENES fellowship is to redefine the thinking about traditional
innovation and entrepreneurial training to create better outcomes for academic-based founders.
If successful, this model could become another tool in federal innovation and support
programming for scientific founders in the future.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10929556
- **Project number:** 5R25AG078282-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY CITY SCIENCE CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Heath Naquin
- **Activity code:** R25 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $246,665
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-15 → 2028-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10929556

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10929556, Skill for ENtrepreneurs for Elder Solutions (SENES) fellowship program (5R25AG078282-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-03 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10929556. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*