Congratulations to our Connective Corridor partners who led a winning federal Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge team to successfully fund a “Proposal to Accelerate Innovations in Advanced Manufacturing of Thermal and Environmental Control Systems” — a project of Syracuse University/SyracuseCoE, NYSTAR, the State University of New York’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and Onondaga Community College.
The Connective Corridor was also recently highlighted as one of four emerging Innovation Districts in the world, in a recent study.
The $1.89 million multi-agency grant to Syracuse is one of ten national investments announced this week to promote job creation and economic growth in key industry clusters.
Ten public-private partnerships across America will receive $20 million in total awards to help revitalize American manufacturing and encourage companies to invest in the United States.
The ten awards were selected through the Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge, which is a competitive multi-agency grant process announced in May 2012 to support initiatives that strengthen advanced manufacturing at the local level. These public-private partnerships 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.
The Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge is a partnership between the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and the National Science Foundation.
The awards will help regional clusters grow by strengthening their connections to regional economic development opportunities and advanced manufacturing assets, helping develop a skilled and diverse advanced manufacturing workforce, increasing exports, encouraging the development of small businesses, and accelerating innovation in technology. The ten winning initiatives – based in Arizona, California, Michigan, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington–will each receive approximately $2 million to fund projects that are expected to train a total of 1,000 workers and help nearly 650 companies leverage a cluster’s resources in their regions and create jobs across the country.
The Syracuse partnership includes:
- Syracuse University/SyracuseCoE
- NYSTAR
- SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
- Onondaga Community College
- Manufacturers Association of Central New York
- CenterState Corporation for Economic Opportunity
- Central New York Technology Development Organization
in partnership with
- New York Energy Research and Development Authority
- Empire State Development
The proposal focused on a 12-county region that is anchored by the five counties of Central New York (CNY)—Cayuga, Cortland, Madison, Onondaga, and Oswego—and includes Herkimer, Jefferson, Lewis, Oneida, Seneca, St. Lawrence, and Tompkins counties.
Through the project, a team of public and private partners will accelerate the growth of a cluster of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that manufacture thermal and environmental control systems (TECS),which heat and cool buildings, refrigerate produce, control manufacturing processes, and enable a variety of other applications.
The project team will speed the growth of the cluster by:
- Accelerating the adoption of innovative materials and advanced manufacturing processes
- Providing networks to access to national and global markets
- Training displaced and under-skilled workers,
- Supporting new ventures in disadvantaged communities.
The goal is to elevate TECS advanced manufacturing as one of CNY’s signature strengths, leveraging regional initiatives on exports, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy and environmental systems. Activities will strengthen cluster networks, enhance links to sources of innovations, and increase exports. Project partners will conduct strategically targeted, market-driven research and developmentprojects that enable next-generation TECS products to achieve national goals of reducing energy consumption by 50% across product life-cycles over ten years.
Ultimately, the project will reshape CNY’s long-standing TECS industry cluster from being dominated by a single, large manufacturer—which drove the development of a local supply chain of SMEs—to emerge as a vibrant, resilient, growing community of SME advanced manufacturers that sell products to customers around the world.
Joining Syracuse are nine other winners which include:
- Arizona: Growing the Southern Arizona Aerospace and Defense Region, a project of the Arizona Commerce Authority. ($1,817,000)
- California: Advanced Manufacturing Medical/Biosciences Pipeline for Economic Development (AM2PED), a project of Contra Costa County, Manex, the University of California-Berkley, Laney College, and the Northern California Small Business Development Center at Humboldt State University. ($2,190,779)
- Michigan: Innovation Realization: Building and Supporting an Advanced Contract Manufacturing Cluster in Southeast Michigan, a project of the Southeast Michigan Community Alliance, the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, and Detroit Regional Chamber Foundation. ($2,191,962)
- New York: Rochester Regional Optics, Photonics, and Imaging Accelerator, a project of the University of Rochester, NYSTAR, and High Tech Rochester Inc. ($1,889,936)
- Oklahoma: Manufacturing Improvement Program for the Oil and Gas Industry Supply Chain and Marketing Cluster, a project of the 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. ($1,941,999)
- Pennsylvania: Agile Electro-Mechanical Product Accelerator, a project of Innovation Works, the Catalyst Connection, the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining, and the Westmoreland/Fayette Workforce Investment Board. ($1,862,150)
- Pennsylvania: Greater Philadelphia Advanced Manufacturing Innovation and Skills Accelerator, a project of the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center. ($1,892,000)
- Tennessee: AMP! — the Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Center of East Tennessee, a project of Technology 2020, the Tennessee Manufacturing Extension Partnership, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pellissippi State Community College, and the University of Tennessee. ($2,391,778)
- Washington and Oregon: Innovations in Advanced Materials and Metals, a project of the Columbia River Economic Development Council, Impact Washington, Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council, and the Oregon Microenterprise Network. ($2,192,000
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