Northeast Ohio — including Akron and Cleveland — has been selected as a regional innovation engine, a National Science Foundation designation that could bring $160 million in federal funding to the area over the next decade.
The funding, which will go toward advanced manufacturing of polymers, metals and chemicals and coatings, guarantees $7.5 million in federal dollars for each of the first two years of the program. Local leaders said they have already leveraged partners to contribute an additional $120 million over that same period in money and in-kind support; $50 million of that is new money that was contingent on the region’s win.
“This is a very, very big deal,” said Baiju Shah, the CEO of the Greater Cleveland Partnership. “This is a demonstration of what’s possible. When we’re aligned, we can win major awards and designations that are going to help drive our economy forward.”
The competitive award is one of a dozen that were granted nationwide. The initial call for proposals for the NSF Engines grant netted nearly 300 letters of intent, the NSF said in its announcement of the finalists. That group was narrowed to 71 who submitted full proposals, then 29 semifinalists, before being culled to the 15 that received in-depth site visits.
The award has been more than four years in the making, said Michael Oakes, the executive vice president for research and economic development at Case Western Reserve University, which housed the effort. Oakes said he sees the grant as an opportunity to recreate a 1920s-era Northeast Ohio, when the region was akin to Silicon Valley in its draw and its levels of innovation.
“It’s wonderful we won,” he said. “What we did is we won an opportunity to do good things. … All the real work is coming.”
Akron’s polymer cluster key to getting funds
The regional application of NEO-SMART, or Northeast Ohio Strengthening Manufacturing for American Resilience through Technology, focused on the three areas of advanced manufacturing: polymers, metals and chemicals and coatings.
With the grant, which begins Aug. 1, the region hopes to cement itself as a hub for research and development across all three areas, Oakes said.
In Akron, the Polymer Industry Cluster has already garnered $100 million of investment. Most recently, the city approved the Lincoln-Mill Redevelopment Plan, where the University of Akron will build a pilot innovation facility to help polymer businesses test and scale their ideas. The city hopes the facility will draw polymer-related businesses to the area.
Of the three categories the NSF grant will focus on, the polymer industry is the furthest along, Oakes said. He said the share of the money that goes toward polymers will serve as an accelerant to help speed along efforts to make novel polymers, cheaper polymers and those that are less environmentally noxious.
Oakes said it was the polymer cluster’s work to connect government, higher education and industry that helped impress the NSF evaluators who selected the region for the Engines grant.
“This Engine thing would never work without Akron and the tech hub,” Oakes said. “It was a massive advantage to us.”
Steve Millard, the president and CEO of the Greater Akron Chamber, said he thought the success of the polymer cluster was a positive sign that organizations across the region were capable of collaborating — and that it was, perhaps, the first time doing so had succeeded in Northeast Ohio.
Millard said he expects about $1 million of the NSF grant to flow into Akron at the outset. He said the win is “very, very validating” for the region, which can often sell itself short.
“When you’re competing with things at the national level, there’s a little not believing you can do it,” he said. “This is a vote of confidence we can do it.”
The regional collaboration will be the first time a federally funded tech hub will work with an NSF Engine, something Oakes said would benefit the continued relationship. Millard said it was difficult to get the polymer cluster off the ground, but the work that had already been done would be useful as NEO-SMART continues to build itself out.
Grants for innovation across polymers, metals, chemicals and coatings
At first, Oakes said, the $7.5 million in annual funding will go to building a staff and office to run the NEO-SMART Engine, including legal compliance.
From there, the bulk of the money will go toward providing grants — likely somewhere between 20 and 50 in number, depending on the proposals. Oakes said he expects money to be spent equally across the different categories of polymers, metals and chemicals and coatings.
The innovation efforts are likely to focus on improving the base manufacturing processes across all three, Oakes said, along with how they can be scaled.
Those efforts are further along with chemicals and coatings than with metals, he said, and most advanced in the polymer space.
Shah said he sees the investments as a statement of collective innovation. It will help put the region at the leading edge, giving access to applications like aerospace, defense and medical technologies, where ideas formed through the NSF Engine can be used.
“You want to be in a region that is creating the future in different marketplaces,” Shah said. “We’re not just relying on the past. We can invest and innovate in the future.”
That, he said, can help keep and bring jobs to the area, creating a “virtuous growth cycle” that will accelerate the region’s success. Millard also said he saw the award as an opportunity to keep building.
“We make things here in Ohio,” he said. “We can double down on that.”
What are the goals of the NEO-SMART Engine?
If the region delivers on expectations, the $7.5 million annual grant for the first two years will increase to $15 million annually for the next three years, then $20 million annually for each of the following five years. Additionally, organizers hope the $120 million in leverage becomes more than $500 million in public, private and philanthropic investment.
Already, more than 70 partners across 18 counties are involved in the project. The region stretches as far south as Canton and includes everything from Lorain County to Youngstown.
“It’s a lot of people coming together for a shared vision to reinvigorate the Cleveland-Akron-Canton industrial base,” Oakes said. “I’m so thrilled.”
Through the investment, NEO-SMART intends to create or retain 20,000 jobs across the region, including training 12,000 workers using new materials and manufacturing curriculum over 10 years. Oakes said the bulk of that training is likely to be in the grant’s early years.
Additionally, he said, the investment will allow for research into AI usage in manufacturing and will help focus on creating pathways for industry and higher education to work more closely together. While Oakes said he didn’t think universities should be labs for private businesses, he thinks researchers should know what industry’s needs are.
The result, he said, could be research in anticipation of marketability — in other words, research that’s inspired by potential future uses.
As such, the Engine intends to support 1,000 ventures and provide more than 250 seed investments for startup companies, some of which are expected to come out of universities.
That effort can help bring corporate venture capital into the region, Oakes said, encouraging businesses to invest in research and innovation, in addition to traditional venture capital that can support the work that’s underway here.
With reshoring a priority of the Trump administration and supply chain woes that were underscored during the coronavirus pandemic, Oakes said he thought there was a lot of momentum to bring smaller manufacturers and innovators back to the region.
Doing so, he said, could help attract businesses and convince workers who might traditionally leave the region to stay in Northeast Ohio.
“It unlocks opportunities for us at the national level,” Millard said. “It gives us a chance to compete internationally.”
Working together across communities
Oakes said there’s always the possibility that the Engine might not deliver on its goals, but he’s confident it will be able to. He’s more concerned about a possible cut in federal funding, including to the National Science Foundation. This is the second round of grants that NSF has given through this program.
“Let’s hope the government doesn’t change its mind,” he said.
Still, the federal funding is just a piece of the ultimate process, Oakes said. He said he wants the NEO-SMART Engine to be self-sustaining so it can carry on long after any federal dollars are gone, whether 10 years from now or sooner than that. He hopes to do that by building a vibrant ecosystem that makes people recognize Northeast Ohio as a hub for this work, improving the tax base and increasing prosperity.
Already, Shah said, business leaders who hadn’t previously met are making connections and beginning to create durable jobs across the targeted sectors. The federal validation of Northeast Ohio’s efforts can bring attention and confidence to what’s happening here and further align people toward a similar goal.
Leaders are, more and more, seeing successes for one community as successes for the region, Shah said, as people live and take advantage of services and experiences outside the community jobs are created in.
“The more we can speak with one voice, the more we can continue to win,” he said.
It’s a change from years of balkanization, and Millard said it was validating for the efforts of a number of partners.
In a statement, Gov. Mike DeWine said he was “grateful for the extensive partnership effort that made this award possible.”
“This is great news for Northeast Ohio and for the entire state of Ohio,” he said. “When federal dollars come to our state to strengthen manufacturing and build up our workforce, every Ohioan benefits.”
Continuing to collaborate over a decade as the NEO-SMART Engine grows will be a challenge, Millard said, but one that will be worthwhile.
“We’ve never done anything like this before,” he said. “Every one of these wins gives us more confidence to chase after the next.”
