New ‘Engines’ Rev Up NSF’s Growing Portfolio of Lab-to-Market Programs

TIP Directorate head Erwin Gianchandani.
(NSF)
The National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships is ramping up its efforts to realize the societal benefits of research advances. The TIP Directorate reached a major milestone when it announced
Though still in its infancy at just under two years old,
“One focuses on diverse innovation ecosystems at a regional and international scale,” Gianchandani explained. “Another is trying to accelerate technology development and translation from lab to the market and to society. I want to stress that it’s lab to market and society.”
The final pillar covers workforce development and aims to train “folks at all levels — K–12, community colleges, technical schools, four-year universities, graduate schools, folks who are in the workforce today looking to maybe do a pivot,” Gianchandani said.
The ecosystems pillar includes the Engines program. The first 10 Engines span 18 states and will receive up to $160 million each in funding over 10 years.
Engine awards historic in size for NSF
The Engines program is unique within the agency for its regional approach and the size of its awards, said program director Dmitri Perkins during the webinar.
“NSF is making history in that this is the largest investment to a single awardee over a 10-year period — over a decade this would be up to $1.6 billion for all ten awardees,” Perkins said. The total number of partners involved across all projects exceeds 450, he added, and those partners range from large companies to entrepreneurs and startups, to government agencies and community organizations.
One feature that distinguished the ten selected Engines from their competition was the level of regional investment pledged by state and local governments and private capital, Perkins explained. NSF also made sure the Engines are spread widely across the country and not concentrated only in regions where the local economy is already strong, he said.

Map of the 10 inaugural Regional Innovation Engines.
(NSF)
The regions covered by the Engines vary greatly in scale. At the Central Florida Semiconductor Innovation Engine,
All 10 Engines will be supported by the NSF Engines Builder Platform run by an MIT-founded public benefit corporation called The Engine Accelerator. NSF describes
NSF has also made dozens of smaller development grants to help communities grow their regional partnerships, sowing the seeds for potential future Engines. Similarly, the TIP Directorate recently created the Enhancing Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity (EPIIC) program to build more inclusive innovation systems by helping more diverse institutions such as minority-serving institutions, community colleges, and technical schools participate in the Engines program, Gianchandani said.
The EPIIC program has so far awarded a total of $19.6 million to nearly 50 teams, and a new funding opportunity is open now with an application deadline of May 16.
TIP portfolio growing
Also under the ecosystems pillar, the TIP Directorate manages the Convergence Accelerator program, which funds transdisciplinary teams across the public and private sector to tackle societal challenges. The program was created in 2019, predating TIP, but is now under its purview, explained Gianchandani. To date, the program has covered more than a dozen themes, including AI, 5G, quantum technology, and food security.
Under the pillar of technology translation and development, the directorate has assumed management of NSF’s Small Business Innovation Research program and its I-Corps program, the latter of which supports entrepreneurial education for students and researchers through ten hubs involving nearly 100 universities. A new I-Corps funding opportunity,
Another translational pathway offered by the directorate is the Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program,
The directorate also recently launched the Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program
Among the directorate’s newest translation initiatives is the Responsible Design, Development and Deployment of Technologies (ReDDDoT) program,
Within its workforce development pillar, Gianchandani said the directorate has made progress using STEM education research findings to inform scalable efforts to grow talent pools through K-12 and beyond. The directorate launched
Additionally, the directorate is offering entrepreneurial fellowships through a $20 million cooperative agreement
Asked what other programs are in the works, Gianchandani encouraged people to consult the text of the CHIPS and Science Act, which defines the directorate’s scope.