Industry Partnerships

A strong tradition of innovation and commercialization

We lead the nation in funding from the National Science Foundation and are conducting a critical mass of research in many important areas including: advanced materials and manufacturing, big data/data analytics/computing, biomedical/bioengineering, and energy technologies. Our corporate partners are also making huge impacts in these areas and we're happy to join forces with them for even greater results.

Sample of Current Partners

  • Abbott
  • AB InBev
  • ADM
  • Boeing
  • BP
  • BNSF Railway
  • Caterpillar
  • Chevron
  • Citrix
  • Dow Chemical
  • Intel
  • John Deere
  • Microsoft
  • Neustar
  • Pepsi
  • Phillips 66
  • Raytheon
  • Rolls-Royce
  • Samsung
  • Sony
  • State Farm
  • Yahoo!

160+
corporate partners to date

115+
companies throughout the fast-growing 200-acre Research Park

650+
interns trained per year in the Research Park alone

2,000+
research projects per year across every engineering discipline

Great Startups from Illinois

When you combine hundreds of world-renowned faculty and thousands of the best and brightest students you get an explosion of innovation across a vast array of technologies. The result is a top-ranked incubator and Research Park.

  • More than 150 startups to date
  • Raised more than $550 million in venture capital and angel funding
  • Several large-scale successes, including ByteMobile's purchase by Citrix for $425 million
  • Top 3 College Town Incubator – Inc. Magazine

Companies Built by Grainger Engineering Talent

PayPal

YouTube

Yelp

BP

Bloom Energy

Flex-n-Gate

Affirm