University of Wisconsin faculty and students now have a gateway for accessing resources for commercializing their ideas.

As expected, UW and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation today announced the official launch of D2P, or Discovery to Product, which will help foster entrepreneurship on campus.

“D2P is a big step forward in our support of entrepreneurship among both faculty and students,” UW Chancellor Rebecca Blank said in a statement. “I want to make sure that UW-Madison is on the cutting edge of entrepreneurship and technology commercialization.”

According to a release, UW and WARF will each initially fund D2P with $1.6 million. A key goal will be to expand faculty and student access to critical technology commercialization resources, including investment capital.

As previously reported, former Interim Chancellor David Ward, in previewing D2P in April, lamented that a better process for commercializing discoveries was missing from the university. Now, that process exists.

“We have an incredibly productive and creative faculty,” UW Provost Paul DeLuca said in a statement, “and we want to make it far easier for them to take good ideas from their research and transform them into Wisconsin companies and jobs.”

A national search for the first director of D2P is currently underway.