Florida Selects Three Centers of Excellence

To help build the state's technology sectors, Governor Jeb Bush and the State Board of Education have selected Florida's first three Centers of Excellence. The Centers are designed to foster innovative, cutting-edge technology research at Florida’s colleges and universities, develop commercially viable applications for that research, and recruit high-tech industries and thinkers to the state.

The three projects are:

• Center of Excellence in Regenerative Health Biotechnology to be established at the University of Florida;
• Florida Photonics Center of Excellence at the University of Central Florida; and,
• Florida Center of Excellence in Biomedical and Marine Biotechnology at Florida Atlantic University.

The Centers of Excellence program was enabled during the 2002 legislative session as part of the Florida Technology Development Act. This Act authorized the use of $30 million to fund up to five Centers of Excellence as recommended by the Emerging Technology Commission, also established under the Act. Each of the Centers will receive $10 million to spur new facilities, laboratories and endowed academic chairs and will spur entrepreneurial investment in the state.

Descriptions of each of the centers is available at http://www.myflorida.com.