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Opportunity to advance technology adoption in small and medium manufacturers

April 08, 2021
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NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is working with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) to support projects partnering universities and MEP centers to encourage adoption of advanced technologies by small- and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs). APLU is working with Innovation Associates and Jim Woodell & Company to select three collaborative university-MEP pilot projects to develop and test different models of technology transitioning. APLU is currently soliciting two-page, pre-proposals from university-MEP applicant teams by April 16.

Teams are encouraged to create sustainable models involving connections with the broader ecosystem of state technology organizations, community colleges, federal labs, Manufacturing USA institutes and others.

Transitioning to manufacturers the new technologies under development in partnership within and independently at universities will be critical to future U.S. competitiveness — advances in digitization, the use of smart sensors, robotics, simulation technologies, advanced materials, nanomanufacturing, and additive manufacturing techniques. The purpose of the current project is to identify university-MEP partnerships interested in developing and testing new models that will advance technology adoption in SMMs.

APLU and partners will work with the chosen teams to support and track the development, application, and outcomes of these models and share the results with the larger innovation community. Applicant teams must include both an MEP Center receiving current cooperative agreement funding from NIST and a university. The partnership may also include additional “sub-partners” to enhance the core university-MEP partnership model. Additional sub-partners might include (but are not limited to) other universities, community colleges, economic development organizations, state technology organizations, Manufacturing USA Institutes, and others. Either the university or the MEP center may be the prime applicant, or they can be co-applicants.

The full RFP can be found at https://bit.ly/3dlH2zz

 

mep, manufacturing, tech transfer