Chasing a nationally competitive innovation grant (again)
For the past six weeks, I've been in grant-writing and consortium-organizing mode in partnership with the University of New Hampshire for the Department of Commerce's i6 Green national competition, which seeks out the best ideas to implement green energy and clean technology regional innovation clusters. DoC's Economic Development Administration is the lead agency and has funding and support from four partner agencies. This multi-agency award is one of many examples of the federal initiative started last year and described several times in Mainebiz, most recently in "Aligning agencies" in the May 16 issue.
The i6 Green is this year's i6 Challenge, which was the first ever of EDA's competitive cluster matching-grant competitions. I6 Challenge sought the best six — one for each EDA region — examples of high-performance innovation ecosystems. Innovation ecosystems represent the public, private and nonprofit players that support a given job-creating sector within a defined region, for example, biotechnology in greater Boston or offshore wind and composites in Maine. As described in "All together now", bringing together the different market participants is a big part of realizing the advantages of cluster development: increased productivity, innovation and entrepreneurship leading to higher-wage jobs and economic growth.
I6 Green is a clean-energy variant of last year's i6 Challenge, which was agnostic as to sector. The "green" flavor focuses on six subsectors: renewable energy, energy efficiency, manufacturing, reuse/recycling, green building and restoration. Also different from last year's i6 Challenge is a refined focus on what the federal government considers an innovative ecosystem: proof of concept centers. As demonstrated by the Desphande Center at MIT, a proof of concept center typically combines seed funding in the form of equity or grants, mentorship, technical and operational assistance, and education and networking events. The feds believe PCCs are the secret to accelerating innovation.
A multi-state approach
I was looking for strategic institutional partners for a northern New England bid for i6 and found a willing partner at UNH. UNH had a running start at this PCC through its Green Launching Pad initiative, a Recovery Act-funded model that was modeled on best-in-class PCCs such as the Desphande Center. The GLP organized two years' worth of PCC program elements: a business plan-style, seed grant competition (for which I've served as a judge), mentorship and the other PCC components listed above.
We came up with a program called Clean Start, which seeks to leverage the existing sector and entrepreneurship support assets of a given region and apply GLP's proof of concept center framework to fill program gaps. Clean Start Challenge is a seed grant competition; Clean Start Collaborate reflects education and networking events designed to bring the cluster together; and Clean Start Connect is a suite of regional activities and services designed to create "connective tissue" among the various consortium members.
This proposed concept attracted more than three dozen organizations and institutions. Maine's contingency included: Maine Technology Institute, Maine Center for Enterprise Development, E2 Tech, TechMaine, University of Maine, Small Enterprise Growth Fund, Coastal Enterprises, CEI Ventures, Bigelow Laboratories, the state's Small Business Development Centers and Manufacturing Extension Partnership offices, law firm Bernstein Shur and accounting firm MacDonald Page. The program got a support letter signed by northern New England's six senators and separate letters from each state's governor. The Maine program proposes to create competitive seed grant competitions facilitated by MTI, activate mentorship and technical and operational assistance in partnership with MCED, and deploy education and networking events with E2 Tech and TechMaine.
As was the case last year, this highly competitive grant will award one $2 million matching grant to one consortium in the 13-state EDA Region 1, which spans from New England down to Virginia. Last year's i6 Challenge was awarded to Innovation Works, a 20-year-old entrepreneurship support organization based in Philadelphia. The majority of applicants will likely fall into the city- or county-centric category; UNH and the consortium are betting that a multi-state proposal ought to stick out among the likely hundred or more applicants in Region 1. That said, there are at least three other multi-state applications from New England alone, so UNH's won't be the only game in town in that respect.
There's not a lot of new program money coming out of Uncle Sam these days, and for good reason. With deficit reduction rightly the order of the day, seeing this new initiative funded two years running is evidence of the administration's clear view that this bipartisan-supported initiative is a worthy place to make small (by federal standards) bets to drive job and wage growth at a time when the country could use more than its share of each. I6 will announce in September; win or lose, I'll let you know whether UNH takes this year's prize.
Michael Gurau, president of Clear Innovation Partners, a Maine-based cluster development organization, can be reached at mgurau@clearinnovationpartners.com.
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