Credit: NIST.
Readers may recall that the Obama administration’s Material Genome Initiative is actually just a piece of the broader Advanced Manufacturing Partnership initiative. Several days ago, we reported how on how NSF just announced $12 million in grants for MGI-related projects. About the same time, the federal Department of Commerce was also getting into the act and said it had selected 10 “public-private partnerships” that will be the recipients of a total of about $20 million in grants aimed at spurring leaps in United States manufacturing innovations.
In concert with this effort, NIST, Commerce’s renowned research and testing facility, is attempting to expand its outreach to industry and advanced manufacturing efforts with a new video (see below) touting the institute’s skill sets.
A news release from Commerce reports that the selected projects “consist of small and large businesses, colleges, nonprofits and other local stakeholders that ‘cluster’ in a particular area. The funds will help the winning clusters support local efforts to spur job creation through a variety of projects, including initiatives that connect innovative small suppliers with large companies, link research with the start-ups that can commercialize new ideas and train workers with skills that firms need to capitalize on business opportunities.”
Based on the reputation of some of the groups involved (e.g., New York’s NYSTAR) and from the names of some of the projects, its pretty obvious materials innovations and additive manufacturing/prototyping will be fundamental to many of these efforts.
| State | Project name | Institutions(s) | Approximate Award |
| Arizona | Growing the Southern Arizona Aerospace and Defense Region | Arizona Commerce Authority | $1,187K |
| California | Advanced Manufacturing Medical/Biosciences Pipeline for Economic Development (AM2PED) | Contra Costa County, Manex, the University of California-Berkley, Laney College, and the Northern California Small Business Development Center | $2,190K |
| Michigan | Innovation Realization: Building and Supporting an Advanced Contract Manufacturing Cluster | Southeast Michigan Community Alliance, the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences and Detroit Regional Chamber Foundation | $2,192K |
| New York | A Proposal to Accelerate Innovations in Advanced Manufacturing of Thermal and Environmental Control Systems | Syracuse University, NYSTAR, the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and Onondaga Community College | $1,890K |
| New York | Rochester Regional Optics, Photonics, and Imaging Accelerator | University of Rochester, NYSTAR, and High Tech Rochester Inc. | $1,890K |
| Oklahoma | Manufacturing Improvement Program for the Oil and Gas Industry Supply Chain and Marketing Cluster | Oklahoma Manufacturing Alliance, the New Product Development Center at Oklahoma State University, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, the Center for International Trade and Development at Oklahoma State University, and the Oklahoma Application Engineer Program | $,1942K |
| Pennsylvania | Agile Electro-Mechanical Product Accelerator | Innovation Works, the Catalyst Connection, the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining, and the Westmoreland/Fayette Workforce Investment Board | $1,862K |
| Pennsylvania | Greater Philadelphia Advanced Manufacturing Innovation and Skills Accelerator | Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center | $1,892K |
| Tennessee | AMP! – the Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Center of East Tennessee | Technology 2020, the Tennessee Manufacturing Extension Partnership, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pellissippi State Community College, and the University of Tennessee | $$2,392K |
| Washington & Oregon | Innovations in Advanced Materials and Metals | Columbia River Economic Development Council, Impact Washington, Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council, and the Oregon Microenterprise Network | $1,792K |
Here is the new NIST video I mentioned at the top of this post: