NSF Regional Innovation Engines Broad Agency Announcement

Time Sensitive Request: For people who have ideas for and interest in participating an NSF Engines submission, please complete the attached short form (1 page) with your ideas for potential grand themes/challenges, partner institutions and planning committee members. Send the completed form to research@uw.edu with “NSF Engines” in the subject line by June 3, 2022.  Submissions received by 5/27/2022 will be given priority.

Background: The Office of Research and CoMotion would like to facilitate UW efforts to participate in the recently announced NSF Regional Innovation Engines (or NSF Engines) opportunity. The NSF Engines program seeks to catalyze/foster innovation ecosystems across the U.S. to: 

• Advance critical technologies
• Address national and societal challenges
• Foster partnerships across industry, academia, government, nonprofits, civil society, and communities of practice
• Promote and stimulate economic growth and job creation
• Spur regional innovation and talent

The expectation is that a center will drive economic growth in a well-defined “region of service.”  NSF will prioritize geographic regions that do not have well-established innovation ecosystems, but regions where there disconnected or loosely connected activities that could be brought together are of interest (i.e. the new system will be much more than the sum of the parts). Type-1 (planning) Awards are $1M for up to two years. Type-2 Awards are up to $160M for up to 10 years.

To support UW involvement in such an effort, we are soliciting 1-page discussion of ideas from the community, with suggestions of regionally-relevant topics, regions of service, and possible coalition partners. We will help researchers make connections internally and externally based on the synergies we see in the submissions.

Application Instructions

Submit this information (no more than 1 page)

NSF Engines: Theme, Partners and Planning committee members

1. General Theme with key questions/challenges that will be addressed, technologies that might be developed, and potential for impact:

2. Region of service (may range from a single metro area to multiple adjacent states):

3. UW departments/centers/institutes that should be involved to be successful for this theme, listing strengths of each:

4. Potential regional partners (industry, startups, government, other universities and community colleges, and/or community groups) in the region, listing strengths of each:

5. Key individuals from UW and/or other institutions who should be involved in a planning committee for this theme: