hub

The Advanced Research Projects for Health (ARPA-H) released plans to establish hub sites in three locations across the United States and announced their strategy for site selection. With one site to be located in the National Capital Region (NCR), ARPA-H will issue a draft Request for Consortium Agreement (RCA) to solicit recommendations for the second and third hub sites.  The ARPA-H hub sites are planned to support a network of partners, or spokes, that will form the foundation of a nationwide health network to “accelerate better health outcomes for everyone.”

Although no Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) has yet been issued, interested parties have submitted responses to the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Request for Information from stakeholders on issues related to the Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub FOA strategy. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included $8 billion for four regional clean hydrogen hubs that will be designed to create jobs to expand the use of clean hydrogen in the industrial sector and beyond.

The U.S. Department of Defense is envisioning a public private partnership of regional innovation hubs that would help support and expand the microelectronics industry in the United States. The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) is seeking input from the domestic microelectronics community through a Request for Information it issued last week as it works to “foster a pipeline of innovation ideas and talent residing in university labs and small business R&D teams” through what it is calling a Microelectronics Commons.

NSF announced five new multi-institution I-Corps Hubs to deliver entrepreneurship training to academic researchers and scale the National Innovation Network. Each hub is funded at $3 million per year for five years and comprises a regional alliance of at least eight universities. The hubs are intended to offer a more integrated approach than the previous I-Corps Nodes and I-Corps Sites, which were funded separately. The new model will provide increase funding and enable scaling I-Corps across the country.

Tulsa Innovation Labs has received a $50 million commitment from the George Kaiser Family Foundation to help develop the city of Tulsa as a technology hub. The funds will go towards assisting the new organization to support local talent, startups and academic innovation.