This week, the U.S. Department of Commerce dubbed Greater Akron a “Tech Hub for Sustainable Polymers,” the lone Ohio region among 30 “hubs” across the country. Nearly 400 other regions didn’t make the cut. The Greater Akron Chamber (GAC) and University of Akron also won a $400,000 “strategy development grant.”
After another selection round early next year, the Biden Administration will pump $40 million to $70 million into five to 10 of the finalist hubs.
The Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub, led by the GAC, hopes to be one of the finalists. Its goal is to spur “advanced materials research, education, training and technology innovation” in the area. The Commerce Department’s decision is anticipated early next year, following a late February application deadline.
The goal of the tech hub program, the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration states, is to strengthen the economy and national security. Elected officials and local business leaders celebrated the designation.
“With our rich manufacturing history, Ohio is a natural fit to host a regional technology hub,” U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said in a statement. “As the historic rubber capital of the world, Akron is the ideal location for the future of sustainable polymers, to produce the domestic rubber and plastics of the 21st century.”
What the designation could mean for Akron and the region
Signal Akron’s Doug Brown spoke with Brian Anderson, GAC’s vice president for the Polymer Industry Cluster, about what the “tech hub” designation could mean for Akron. The conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
What exactly is the Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub?
Anderson: This region has tremendous industry density and assets and capabilities in and around the polymer industry. Polymers are rubber, plastic, and chemicals that make up just about everything around us. If it’s not metal or glass, then it’s probably a polymer. So this region has a lot of economic drivers in that industry.
To your question, the Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub – we call it the polymer industry cluster locally – is a consortium of multiple universities and dozens of companies that have come together to find areas of collaboration, tackling big challenges together. It’s better to work together than independently.
And in this case, we’re focused on sustainability in and around the polymer industry. There are multiple, multiple partners, including the University of Akron, which is ranked number one in the world in polymer science and plastics engineering. And Kent State has really strong, complementary, advanced material science programs through their advanced materials and liquid crystal Institute. And then Case Western, as well, has a really strong polymer program.
And then on the industry side, dozens of companies, including some incredibly large companies – Goodyear, Bridgestone, Continental – and then also small companies. Broad perspectives are coming together to identify common challenges and develop shared solutions together.
What did the chamber have to do to get this designation? Did you compete against other potential hubs? How did you compete? Why seek this out in the first place?
This is an official designation from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) under the Department of Commerce … that a region is the best at, fill in the blank. So we are the Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub of the country.
The EDA has designated 31 regions as tech hubs in fields where those regions excel. And they’ve identified these 31 because the technologies and industries that were focused on are critical to national and economic security and are ways that the federal government sees to be able to invest in America in a way that catalyzes important, sustainable economic growth.
That’s huge, right? The recognition of our tremendous assets and capabilities in and around the polymer industry is huge for us. The validation that the work we’re doing is important, and that we’re kind of on the right track, is really encouraging. And importantly, it’s a step towards significant investment coming into our region to elevate our ability to drive economic growth and accelerate industry innovation.
And now you’re trying to get that $40 million to $70 million from the federal government. Is that ultimately the goal of seeking this designation?
Right, so about 400 applicants applied for this designation and we were one of 31 [chosen].
That’s the competing part, … and the designation is very valuable in and of itself. So we’ve gotten the designation. But one thing that it does is the designation offers an exclusive invitation for the region to apply for an implementation grant, which it sounds like it’ll be between $40-$70 million each for the five to 10 that are ultimately awarded.
And this is the first time they’re running this program–it’s possible that they will run it multiple times in the future. But this is the first time that there is a tech hubs program to compete for.
If you do end up getting that $40 million to $70 million, where does that money go? Who manages it? How is that money going to be spent?
Half a step back: when we started this work, we understood that regions that… are successful in establishing a thriving industry cluster do it around, you know, what they’re really good at. Taking a region from, “we’re really good at” it to “now we are generating continuous compound significant economic growth that attracts new businesses and attracts workers and attracts capital to a large degree,” that’s expensive, and it’s time-consuming, right?
So we came into this work, thinking that this might take $200 million of investment over a decade or two. And so these opportunities to compete for state and federal funding that can provide tens of millions of dollars to implement these growth plans are massive. The kinds of projects that these kinds of investments would go to funding, they will typically include research and development projects, commercialization and startup support projects, workforce development, and talent attraction projects.
All of these can include infrastructure, physical or intangible. So there might be constructing a new facility and putting equipment in it for use in training or scaling up new innovations. And it could also be programming and attracting capital. So lots of different kinds of projects.
And that’s, that’s kind of why they build these programs to provide a significant amount of capital, because there’s sort of lots of different things that regions need in order to create that thriving ecosystem.
In a roundtable discussion with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, you mentioned “filling in the gaps of the region’s innovation infrastructure.” What are those gaps in Akron? How can this help fill them?
I think the clearest example is what’s often called a pilot plant or scale up facility. So what happens in polymer science and engineering, for example, is we decide we need a new kind of material that’s recyclable instead of toxic, or it comes from plants instead of fossil fuels, or, whatever the case is, we need to develop new materials.
And so our expert polymer scientists and engineers will develop a new material in their labs. Those labs are often equipped to produce maybe a couple of grams of material and get a spoonful of the material. The ultimate goal is to bring this new material to industry to make these worldwide products out of this new material. So in order to do that, companies need to test an incredible amount of this new material to see if they can now replace their old material with the new one.
But the original scientists, the innovators, can’t produce a lot of material, and so the process can stop. And these innovations can get shelved. And then we don’t enjoy the economic benefit of all the great innovation that’s happening. So that gap, where we’ve developed an innovation to a certain point, but it’s not enough to make a market impact, that’s called the valley of death.
And so we have designed a polymer scale up and production facility as an example of a facility with equipment that can provide access to these equipment and capabilities to enable these innovations to reach the market. And so that’s something that the largest companies can afford to provide within their own companies. But all the small- to medium- sized companies, startups, there’s no way that each of them can afford these kinds of facilities.
That’s an example of a gap in our region that if we add that piece to the puzzle, then now it’s a much smoother pathway for researchers at universities and for startups and entrepreneurs and small businesses to engage in this really impactful innovation.
The Biden Administration said the goal of the tech hubs is “economic growth, national security, and job creation.” What role do you see your hub playing in those areas?
From an economic development standpoint, that’s the kind of work that we’re doing to identify growth barriers in existing companies and to work to remove those barriers. And creating an environment in our region that is more attractive to capital and talent and entrepreneurs. That process is economic development. More things will happen here, which will, in turn, create more opportunities for sort of the next wave of attraction. So that’s kind of the most direct work that we do in economic development.
From a national security perspective, it’s pretty interesting. Two examples of national security that our work addresses are climate change and supply chain resiliency.
So from a climate change perspective, the work in sustainable polymers is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and that can mitigate the impact of climate change. [That includes] reducing greenhouse gas emissions throughout the industrial supply chain, which includes everything from developing sustainable feedstocks to improving our recycling capabilities to reducing the energy requirements in the production process.
Then, on the supply chain resilience side, there are currently lots of materials that we are not able to source domestically. We rely on other countries, other regions of the world, to produce things that we need. And without control over that supply chain, that poses risks and threats to our national security.
Just one simple example of that is if we lose our access, our supply of natural rubber – which currently cannot be produced in the United States – how can we produce aircraft tires?
These are materials and products that are so basic to international security that developing alternative sources that we can sort of control domestically improves our national security.
In the roundtable discussion, you said there would be investments in low- and middle-income areas. Can you elaborate on that and on districts that would benefit?
The designated region of the Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub is Summit and Portage counties. Now, our polymer industry cluster work throughout the region kind of stretches across the whole 18-county Northeast Ohio region, but certainly it’s concentrated in the Akron MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area). And a lot of communities, unfortunately, throughout Summit and Portage counties are low- and middle-income areas that have been under invested in.
And so the work that we do to support the polymer industry and its stakeholders will largely occur in the low- to middle-income areas throughout the Akron MSA. So if you’re familiar with the Elevate Greater Akron economic development plan, part of that plan is to emphasize the redevelopment of downtown Akron as an anchor, a destination, an economic development driver for the entire region.
It just so happens, right, it’s not a coincidence, but the University of Akron is located in downtown Akron. Bounce Innovation Hub is located in downtown Akron. So you have these innovation drivers located in downtown Akron, which provides a really attractive focal point for investment in the region that can really bring a lot of benefit to an area that’s been kind of hit hard with the pandemic and everything else.
But separate from the sort of physical investments, there is also an intentional focus on the talent development side of this work to activate the entire population of our region in just really, really attractive advanced manufacturing, production, and other kinds of innovation occupations.
So across all of our education training providers, there is a wide range of certificate programs all the way up through graduate degrees. And we want to activate all of our residents to participate in these upskilling opportunities, and potentially participate in and benefit from the growth of the polymer industry.
What’s the timeline for when we could expect phase two? What’s next in terms of this project? When might the millions of dollars up for grabs be announced?
Over the next four months, we will put together a phase two proposal with our coalition members. Feb. 29 is the deadline. We do not know how long it will take for EDA to evaluate the proposals. In our experience these kinds of things might take one to three months to hear back. And so maybe it’s a second-quarter of 2024 announcement.