Established in 1997, the exclusive purpose of the Florida International University Research Foundation Incorporated (FIU-RF) is scientific and educational. This includes promoting, encouraging, and assisting the research and training activities of faculty, staff, and students of FIU through income from contracts, grants, and other sources, such as income derived from or related to the development and commercialization of University work products.

The charge of the FIU-RF is to help provide the means by which discoveries, inventions, processes, and work products of faculty, staff, and students of the University may be patented, developed, applied, and utilized. Thus, the results of such research can be made available to the public, and the funds derived can be utilized to further our collective mission to significantly improve and augment the overall research productivity at Florida International University.