Tech Hubs FAQs for Phase 2 Announcement

Contents

About the Awardees

On July 2, 2024, the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced that it would award 12 designated Tech Hubs a total of $504 million in Implementation funding. For detailed information about the 12 Tech Hubs that will receive Implementation awards, please reference the Tech Hubs Phase 2 Portfolio Fact Sheet (PDF).

These awardees were selected from a pool of 31 Tech Hubs Designees, all of which EDA will continue to support to become globally competitive in their respective technology areas. For more information about the 31 Designees, please reference the Tech Hubs Phase 1 Portfolio Fact Sheet (PDF).

  1. Who are the Tech Hubs receiving Implementation awards?
    • The 12 Tech Hubs that will receive Implementation awards are:
      • Elevate Quantum Tech Hub (Colorado, New Mexico)
      • Headwaters Hub (Montana)
      • Heartland BioWorks Hub (Indiana)
      • iFAB Tech Hub (Illinois)
      • Nevada Tech Hub (Nevada)
      • NY SMART I-Corridor Tech Hub (New York)
      • ReGen Valley Tech Hub (New Hampshire)
      • SC Nexus Tech Hub (South Carolina, Georgia)
      • South Florida ClimateReady Tech Hub (Florida)
      • Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub (Ohio)
      • Tulsa Hub for Equitable and Trustworthy Autonomy (Oklahoma)
      • Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub (Wisconsin)
    • These Tech Hub consortia are led by universities, non-profits, chambers of commerce, state governments, and one Manufacturing USA Institute. Each consortium comprises a range of public, private, and academic partners.
    • See below for a map of the Implementation awardees:
      US Map of EDA Tech Hubs Designee Award locations
    • The remaining 19 Tech Hubs are receiving $500,000 Consortium Accelerator Awards to pursue future Tech Hubs funding and alternative investment in support of their vision; additionally, the awards will help them maintain cohesion across their consortia as EDA awaits further Tech Hubs appropriations as set forth in the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request.
  2. What technology areas are represented among the Implementation awardees?
    • Enabling Safe and Effective Autonomous Systems (Headwaters Hub, Tulsa Hub for Trustworthy and Equitable Autonomy (THETA))
    • Maintaining our Quantum Edge (Elevate Quantum Tech Hub)
    • Advancing Biotechnology: Drugs and Devices (ReGen Valley Tech Hub, iFAB Tech Hub, Heartland BioWorks Tech Hub)
    • Advancing Biotechnology: Precision and Prediction (Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub)
    • Accelerating our Energy Transition (SC Nexus for Advanced Resilient Energy, South Florida ClimateReady Tech Hub)
    • Strengthening our Critical Mineral Supply Chain (Nevada Tech Hub)
    • Regaining Leadership in Semiconductor Manufacturing (NY SMART I-Corridor Tech Hub)
    • Growing the Future of Materials Manufacturing (Sustainable Polymers Tech Hub)
  3. What types of projects are you funding?
    • The Tech Hubs’ projects align with their selected technology area and will be collectively implemented by cross-sector regional coalitions focused on developing industries that make, deliver, and use technologies that are critical to maintaining and strengthening U.S. global competitiveness and national security.
    • Funded projects train workers, support high-potential entrepreneurs and businesses, scale lab-to-market transitions, and build shared testbeds and manufacturing facilities—all designed to ensure the technologies, industries, and jobs of the future start, grow, and remain in the United States.
  4. What are the award sizes?
    • Implementation awards range from approximately $19 million to $51 million per consortium.
  5. Can I read the Phase 2 applications of the Tech Hubs receiving Implementation awards?
    • Yes, EDA has published the 10-page Overarching Narratives of the 12 Tech Hubs receiving Implementation Awards. They are available on each individual Hub’s EDA webpage, all of which are linked here.

Awardee Selection Process

  1. How were the Implementation awardees selected?
    • EDA considered each application and the whole portfolio against the evaluation criteria and selection factors published in the Phase 2 NOFO (PDF).
    • EDA summarized the characteristics of the most competitive applications in a post-announcement webinar, a recording of which is available here.
  2. The NOFO states EDA would award approximately 5 to 10 consortia, but you awarded 12. Why?
    • After the NOFO was released, Congress appropriated an additional $41 million to the Tech Hubs Program for Fiscal Year 2024. This appropriation allowed EDA to award more Hubs than originally planned under the initial $500 million appropriated by Congress.
  3. Will EDA provide feedback to the consortia that were not granted Implementation Awards?
    • Yes, EDA will provide customized feedback to all 31 Hubs, sharing insights from joint programmatic staff and expert technologists’ reviews of Phase 2 applications.
    • The Tech Hubs Team held a debriefing webinar that shares overarching insights and general feedback. In addition, EDA is scheduling customized 1:1 feedback consultations with every Hub through summer and early fall 2024.

Program Mission

  1. What is the benefit of being a designated Tech Hub for those that don’t get an Implementation award?
    • The Tech Hubs Designation itself is a strong signal that the U.S. government recognizes the region has the assets, resources, and capacity to become a global leader in a specific critical emerging technology.
    • The utility of the designation is already apparent: many of the 31 Tech Hubs have reported surging interest in their regions from both national and international technology producers and investors since the October announcement.
      • EDA is offering all 31 Tech Hubs Designees access to several Benefits of Designation, through which the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Economic Development Administration, and several federal departments and agencies are offering technical assistance, network expansion, and access to other federal funding opportunities.
    • If EDA receives future funding for Tech Hubs, designated Tech Hubs will be able to apply directly for Implementation funds.
  2. How does this program prioritize equity?
    • The Tech Hubs Notice of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) for both phases of this competition explicitly required Hubs to design projects with equitably distributed impacts.
    • EDA is funding projects that engage with organizations representing communities historically underrepresented in tech industries—people of color, people from rural communities, women, veterans, and more.
    • Nine of the 12 Hubs that will receive Implementation awards include strong labor participation. In the overall portfolio, 17 of the designated Tech Hubs include strong participation from 30 labor organizations.
    • In the overall portfolio, 22 Hubs support small and rural communities; 13 Hubs include persistent poverty counties; 9 Hubs are partnering with Tribal governments; and 21 Hubs include Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs).
  3. How does this program promote national security?
  4. How are you ensuring that the jobs created are good jobs?
    • The Tech Hubs NOFOs for both phases of this competition explicitly included a focus on good jobs (including alignment with the Commerce and Labor Departments’ Good Jobs Principles) as a specific criterion, in order to ensure that the benefits of these Tech Hubs investments will accrue to the Hub’s regions and communities who live in them.
    • Funded workforce development projects include new and expanded job training programs, K-12 career exposure initiatives, train-the-trainer programs for educators, and childcare and transportation services to ensure job accessibility for all communities.
    • EDA engaged labor unions and workforce training experts when designing the competition and incorporated elements into that design that incentivized projects that incorporate the voice of workers and that include equitable pathways to technical education and entry-level careers.
  5. How does this program advance the Administration’s climate priorities?
    • Our nation’s ability to mitigate climate risk is a key factor in our economic and national security, which itself was one of the evaluation criteria in both phases of this competition.
    • Several of the designated Tech Hubs are focusing on energy technologies, including developing batteries, enhancing grid resilience and improving clean concrete technology. These Hubs are located in: Florida, Idaho/Wyoming, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New York, and South Carolina/Georgia. The Nevada Tech Hub (Nevada), the SC Nexus Tech Hub (South Carolina, Georgia) and the South Florida ClimateReady Tech Hub (Florida) will receive Implementation awards.
    • Other designated Tech Hubs are focusing on component technologies that help reduce emissions and advance our climate goals, such as sustainable polymers, mass timber, forest bioproducts, and lightweight composite materials. These Hubs are located in: Ohio, Oregon/Washington, Maine, and Washington/Idaho.
    • The Tech Hubs Program is also partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to offer technical assistance and technology demonstration opportunities to Tech Hubs and DOE-funded projects that are advancing technologies relevant to the transition to clean energy.
  6. How does this program advance the Administration’s semiconductor supply chain priorities? How is it complementary to other CHIPS and Science Act investments?
    • Several of the Hubs are focused on regaining leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, including securing the critical materials for chipmaking, optimizing elements of the chipmaking process, or training the workforce for the thousands of jobs that will become available in chip fabrication facilities. These Hubs are in New York, Oregon, Texas and Vermont. The NY SMART I-Corridor Tech Hub (New York) will receive Implementation funding.
    • As with all the Hubs, EDA chose to fund projects that were complementary with other federal investments.
  7. How does Tech Hubs align with other EDA programs like the Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC), the Good Jobs Challenge, Build to Scale, or the Recompete Pilot Program?
    • Eleven of the designated Tech Hubs regions were Good Jobs Challenge or BBBRC awardees. Of the 12 designated Hubs receiving Implementation awards, four were Good Jobs Challenge or BBBRC awardees.
    • As described in the NOFO, applicants were asked to explain how their proposed projects were complementary to other federal investments to increase the likelihood and magnitude of shared impacts, and the Tech Hubs team coordinated with other federal program teams to ensure awards were complementary and additive, not duplicative.

Looking Ahead

  1. When will the funds become available to the Tech Hubs?
    • EDA staff is working to process the grants so that Hubs can initiate funded activities. Funds will be obligated before the end of 2024 and disbursed over the projects’ period of performance, which generally will run for approximately two to five years.
  2. How will you measure the success of this program?
    • The Tech Hubs Program has developed a comprehensive framework to monitor and evaluate post-award progress, outcomes, and compliance at both the individual Hub and portfolio level. The framework applies best practices from previous federal programs, including leveraging public data sources to lessen response burden. EDA will conduct a baseline survey and then track progress across Hubs’ core activities including technology maturation, business and entrepreneurship development, workforce, infrastructure and governance.
  3. How will Hubs mitigate risks to the success of their projects and to national security?
    • All Hubs submitted plans covering five risk mitigation elements, from cybersecurity to intellectual property controls.
    • EDA is collaborating with partners in the federal law enforcement, national security, and intelligence communities to educate Hub consortium members on potential risks and risk mitigation strategies, and to facilitate direct lines of communication between the Hubs and these federal partners. They include the National Counterintelligence Task Force and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
  4. Is the Administration seeking resources for EDA to run future Tech Hubs grant competitions?
    • As of July 2024, Congress has appropriated $541 million, or just over five percent, of the $10 billion authorized for the program. President Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 Budget requested more than $4 billion more for the Tech Hubs program to help strengthen U.S. national and economic security.
    • Congress would need to provide more funding for this massively oversubscribed program before EDA could conduct additional Tech Hubs competitions and make significant additional awards to previously designated Tech Hubs as envisioned by the program’s authorization.
  5. Can Tech Hubs Designees reapply for future Implementation awards, regardless of whether they will receive an Implementation award in this 2024 competition?
    • Yes, all 31 designated Tech Hubs are eligible for additional future awards, contingent on additional appropriations from Congress. Previously designated Hubs will need to reapply using previously submitted or new proposal materials to be considered for future awards. These Hubs will also be able to skip Phase 1 and proceed into Phase 2 competitions.
  6. How can I get involved with one of the 31 Tech Hubs?