ACADEMIC COMMERCIAL READINESS LEVELS
The Measure for Academic Commercialization
By assessing innovations across the dimensions that drive successful commercialization, ACRL provides researchers, universities, program leaders, policymakers, and development agencies with a shared, evidence-based measure of commercial readiness—revealing where an innovation stands, what gaps remain, and what needs to happen next.
From evaluating individual innovations to designing programs and informing ecosystem-level decisions, ACRL makes academic commercialization more measurable, actionable, and aligned.
Watch the overview
ACRL, explained.
Why isn’t technology readiness enough? Discover how ACRL creates a shared language for academic commercial readiness—from lab bench to market impact.
The problem
A fragmented ecosystem, with no shared measure.
Without a common measure of readiness, every actor in the ecosystem operates with a different understanding of progress, leading to fragmented decision-making and incomplete information.
Researchers
Struggle to identify and access the right resources, expertise, and support at each stage of their commercialization journey.
Program operators & funders
Struggle to create clear entry and exit criteria that define ecosystem hand-offs, or build KPIs that track real progress.
Policymakers
Can’t analyze the broader ecosystem to make strategic decisions.
The result
Promising technologies are overlooked, commercialization readiness is incompletely assessed, ecosystems remain fragmented, and policymakers lack the data needed to make strategic, high-impact investments.
The framework
Click through the scale to explore its high-level structure.
THE ONLY FRAMEWORK
Academia → Market
Built for the academic context
TRL assumes a mission, resources and a deployment team. ACRL measures the conditions academic innovations actually start from.
Uncertain markets
Limited resources
Complex IP pathways
Evolving teams
Objective, evidence-based phase gates — aligned with TRL
Tangible entry and exit criteria at every level, across all five dimensions, on the scale funders already use.
HOW WE CAN HELP
A shared framework for the entire innovation ecosystem.
Click through to explore how the framework benefits each stakeholder across the ecosystem.
Know where every innovation really stands.
Design your commercialization programs and supports using the ACRL framework and give every innovation a clear read on what the next level requires.
Let’s work together!
Whether you’re designing a program, assessing an ecosystem or portfolio, or building your own readiness pipeline, we can help.