In the coming weeks, representatives from the National Science Foundation will descend on Northeast Ohio to decide if the region, including Akron, should receive up to $160 million in grants over a decade. The money could further jumpstart efforts to make the area a hub for advanced manufacturing — including polymers.
The region is one of 15 finalists for the NSF Regional Innovation Engines grant, and local leaders are optimistic that their work over the past three years will pay off.
It’s what’s already been done in Akron — where the Polymer Industry Cluster has received more than $100 million in state and federal investment alone — that can help lay the groundwork for the rest of the region. If successful, the efforts will bring in more money to fund innovation in polymers, metals and chemicals and coatings.
While Northeast Ohio’s strengths in those areas are more distinct than they are in polymers, Nick Barendt, the assistant vice president of research, technology and ecosystem growth at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said the polymer cluster’s relative maturity has provided a roadmap for what Northeast Ohio can do.
“We’re drafting on the momentum of that,” Barendt said. “It demonstrates the region has the right culture to collaborate on these kinds of opportunities.”
The site visit is scheduled for late January; an award isn’t expected until April. At this point, it’s not clear how many grants will be awarded. But the NSF gave 10 in the grant’s first round, in 2024, and the Northeast Ohio consortium previously won a development grant to set it up for this next round.
The initial call for proposals for the NSF Engine grant netted nearly 300 letters of intent, the NSF said in its announcement of the finalists. That group was narrowed to 71 who submitted full proposals, then 29 semifinalists, before being culled to the 15 that will receive in-depth site visits.
“We believe we’re well positioned,” Barendt said. “We believe we have a very competitive proposal.”
Suggested Reading
A potentially transformative opportunity
The grants are intended to focus on critical technology that can solve big problems and help develop economically competitive areas, Barendt said. Northeast Ohio’s proposal covers an 18-county region from Sandusky to Youngstown and is focused on advanced materials, from how things are made to how they can be recycled at the end of their lives.
The NSF wants grantees that have a workforce development component. They’re also focused on proposals that solve problems that matter and move from research to taking things to market, Barendt said.
For the first two years of the grant, the region would get $7.5 million annually. If it’s renewed for three more years, that figure would rise to $15 million annually. And a second renewal, for five additional years, would bring the annual grant to $20 million, Barendt said. If the region gets the original award and both renewals, it would bring in $160 million over a decade.
If the region gets the money, the bulk of the award in the first two years would probably go to the polymer cluster, Barendt said. That’s because previous grants have given it a head start as compared to the other focus areas, and it’s important over those first two years to show the region can execute a plan and deliver results in order to get the next tranche of money.
While some of the finalists are in the beginning stages of what their proposals could look like, the work that’s already been done here, with polymers, “really positions us uniquely in the competition,” Barendt said.
“The goal is for Northeast Ohio to be the epicenter for advanced materials and manufacturing,” he said. “I think this is one of the most transformative opportunities nationwide, or regionally, we’ve ever seen.”
Proposal builds on region’s existing expertise
While some of the finalists’ proposals would create industries from scratch in those geographies, Northeast Ohio’s builds on what the region is already doing. Elyse Ball, the vice president of programming for Bounce Innovation Hub, said she hopes that experience makes the pitch much stronger. It’s not theoretical, she said — it’s real.
“The [polymer] cluster is a great centerpiece for the proposal,” Ball said. “It shows what can be accomplished in the grand scheme of things in a relatively short period of time.”
The work that’s being done across industries and geographies reinforces the need for collaboration, said Hans Dorfi, the executive director and chief innovation officer of the Polymer Industry Cluster. Dorfi said while the cluster is focused in Akron, it is bringing the overall region together; the NSF Engine is a natural extension of that work.
“I’m really excited about it,” he said. “I also think we have a very good chance.”
Dorfi pointed to Bounce and the Synthe6 Materials Accelerator as examples of what the other advanced materials focus areas could emulate from the polymer cluster. He said the ability to point the NSF representatives to an already-established polymer ecosystem can give the region’s proposal a leg up in the competition.
Ball said those who have been involved in the polymer cluster have already learned lessons from their own experience creating this kind of collaborative work environment, and “we have the scars to prove it.” That can be beneficial as other participants who would be part of the NSF Engine begin to work together more closely.
Ball also said she sees the Polymer Industry Cluster as a blueprint for what a larger collaboration could look like, from the type of leader who would succeed in this environment to the focus on camaraderie.
“There are concrete examples of what we’ve learned so far,” she said. “We can point to specific successes.”
She sees the additional funding as a seed that could be planted to help the region grow its expertise over the next decade.
“The impact could be enormous, if we play our cards right,” Ball said. “I don’t want to be overly optimistic, but I do like our chances.”
Success attracts more innovators
More money for the polymer cluster could help with early stage research and development funding, Ball said, or later stage commercialization grants. It can help with additional investments or give the cluster the ability to make more bets, to see what’s really successful.
Dorfi said that, in recent months, more than three dozen proposals for polymer innovations came across his desk seeking funding. Even with $100 million, the cluster can only fund a handful. The NSF Engine grant could increase the number of projects that can get money.
The money the polymer cluster has received already is a powerful demonstration of what happens when the region collectively commits to something, said Baiju Shah, the CEO of Greater Cleveland Partnership. Shah called the cluster “a great proof point” to show the NSF reviewers “we are very, very serious.”
“It shows commitment, it shows the follow-through,” he said. “It’s demonstrating the processes are working.”
What that means, Shah said, is that the work is already happening — additional funding or not.
While the federal award would help, businesses across the region are already coming together, with other institutions, to drive innovation. Corporate partners for the pitch include Babcock & Wilcox, Bridgestone, Cleveland-Cliffs, GOJO Industries and Goodyear, as well as Sherwin Williams and Lubrizol, while the University of Akron and Kent State University are collaborating with Case Western Reserve and other research institutions, economic development groups, governments, startup support groups and workforce development groups to partner on the NSF Engine plan.
Shah said by working together, the partners are able to address similar challenges and better identify focus areas.
“Success attracts other innovators, other companies, to be part of our region,” he said. “We will continue this effort because it’s in everyone’s interest to do so, win or lose.”
Win or lose, being a finalist helps region
Even becoming a finalist shows that the region is on the right track with its focus on innovation, Dorfi said. He has no doubt that there will continue to be opportunities to fund and attract this kind of innovation, he said, regardless of the final grant decision.
“There’s momentum building, more companies are reaching out, they want to be involved,” he said of the Polymer Industry Cluster. “Whether we win this or not, the collaboration is going to be valuable. … We’re making a name for ourselves, in a way, that we are the place to be.”
Being a finalist for the grant, Dorfi said, is “already a very good story.”
Barendt, too, said the work to this point has helped reinvigorate the region, raising its profile and attracting jobs.
Collaboration will continue even if the grant doesn’t come through, Barendt said. Getting some of the partners in a room together has already upped the level of collaboration in the region, he said, and helped changed the culture across Northeast Ohio.
Now, Ball said, key partners regularly talk about their priorities and the Polymer Industry Cluster is experiencing great momentum. She said she hopes the progress that’s already been made will position the whole proposal to win.
“It’s an opportunity, frankly, very few regions have gotten,” Ball said. “Northeast Ohio is very fortunate. We worked very hard to put ourself in a position to succeed here.”