EDA announces University Center Competition winners

The EDA University Center Economic Development Program Competition recently announced $2.5 million in grants awarded to 25 colleges and universities in the Chicago and Philadelphia EDA regions to leverage assets, promote innovation and strengthen regional economies. The goal of these awards is “to boost innovation, create good-paying jobs and ensure American competitiveness in the global economy” while funding research as well as innovation economy development services.

Funding for the awards is made available through the EDA University Center Program, which helps institutions of higher education and consortia of institutions establish and operate University Centers that will build regional economic ecosystems to support innovation and high-growth entrepreneurship, resiliency and inclusiveness. Centers focus on regional commercialization, entrepreneurship and innovation, business expansion, developing a highly skilled workforce, and/or regional resiliency. The awardees will receive EDA grants for the next five years to support regional economic development ecosystems and provide expertise, applied research, and technical assistance.

Approximately 60 centers are in operation at any given time and the competition rotates to different EDA regions each year, with this year’s competition open to states and territories supported by EDA’s Chicago and Philadelphia regional offices. Among the awardees were a SSTI members including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which received $70,000, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University received $101,923.

A full list of this year’s awardees is available here.