The National Science Foundation, the prestigious US funder, is taking a step beyond funding only top-tier research universities towards ¡°heartland America¡± and different kinds of institutions in higher education and beyond, embracing the ¡°geography of innovation¡± in an aim to secure global strength.

In December, Congress passed an omnibus package that included a $9.5 billion (?7.9 billion) annual budget for the NSF ¨C up from $8.8 billion the previous year, the largest dollar increase in the organisation¡¯s 70-year history.

Some of that funding will enable the independent federal agency?to?progress its?Regional Innovation Engines programme, authorised in last year¡¯s CHIPS and Science Act, the legislation aimed at boosting US semiconductor research and manufacturing to counter Chinese power,?and scientific research more generally.

The NSF??the competitively awarded Engines programme as ¡°investing in key areas of national interest and economic promise in every region¡±, providing regional coalitions of ¡°academic institutions, non-profits, for-profit companies, and government entities, among others¡± with up to $160 million each over 10 years, supporting ¡°use-inspired¡± research and translation to impact.?

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The NSF?aims to fund up to five Engines initially and to make announcements on those in the autumn.?But hopes for a bigger Engines programme will rely on further funding.

This underscores a?broader US shift to ¡°place-based industrial policy¡± aimed at boosting struggling regions, also including the Biden administration¡¯s Build Back Better Regional Challenge, where?universities are central to winning bids.?But with the BBBRC awards averaging under $50 million, the NSF Engines are seen as still more significant.

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¡°Most often the nation¡¯s ¨C and the NSF¡¯s ¨C innovation activities have revolved around R&D investment into leading Research 1 universities,¡± said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank, who has?advocated?for using federal R&D funding to foster innovation economies beyond the ¡°superstars¡± of Silicon Valley, Boston and New York,?to increase?the nation¡¯s innovation capacity?while addressing?the social and political damage?of growing regional inequality.

Now, he added, the NSF was endorsing ¡°newer ideas that take seriously the geography of innovation¡± and the place of local innovation ecosystems involving ¡°myriad local actors beyond those in the great universities¡±.

Erwin?Gianchandani, NSF assistant director for technology, innovation and partnerships ¨C a new directorate also authorised by the CHIPS and Science Act ¨C said NSF leaders, Congress and administration shared the aim of ¡°ensuring that we continue in the vanguard of competitiveness in key technology areas, from AI to quantum, to biotechnology, to semiconductors and microelectronics¡±.

¡°We see a real opportunity space to be able to tap into that talent in every location in the country,¡± Dr Gianchandani continued. ¡°We¡¯ve invested quite a bit on the coasts¡­But we need to think about the heartland of America, we need to think about rural communities.¡±

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Fostering new technology and workforce capabilities, he?said, would ¡°require the deep engagement¡± of ¡°all different kinds of institutions in higher education¡­four-year universities, R1 institutions, but also minority-serving institutions ¨C some of them might be R1, some of them might not be ¨C also community colleges, also institutions that are maybe up and coming¡±.

Dan Breznitz, Munk chair of innovation studies at the?University of Toronto, fully supported?fostering innovation economies?in?more regions.

But a key question, he said, was whether the NSF has, or should have, ¡°the capacity to allocate resource not on the basis of the best and highest scientific research criteria¡± but with the aim of fostering regional growth.

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com