Accelerating disruptive technologies and bolstering U.S. competitiveness and security

We were delighted to celebrate another year of the U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP) — another year of investments that are powering a new generation of American talent and technological leadership. Our collaborations across NSF and with partners in the private sector, philanthropy and venture capital are enabling us to drive innovation for U.S. competitiveness, security and economic growth. 

To that end, we couldn't be prouder of the impact that you all have had in just a few years of NSF TIP's evolution: Through investments and your efforts, TIP has helped train more than 14,000 people in key technologies, launched over 2,000 deep-tech startups and seeded over 6,000 new jobs requiring a skilled technical workforce. The startups and projects funded by TIP in the last few years — an investment of less than $2 billion — have received more than $4.5 billion in follow-on investment. For example, the NSF Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) program alone has seen a tenfold return on taxpayers' dollars — an initial investment of $135 million across nine NSF Engines has garnered more than $1 billion in matching commitments from states and private industry. To see how TIP has moved America's economic advantage, download the TIP impact one-pager and visualize the scale of our investments across America in key technology areas on the TIP investment pilot portal.

As a reminder, the TIP investment road map guides the directorate as we stage investments in key technology areas. The investment roadmap identifies four near-term TIP focus areas for use-inspired and translational research and testing, as well as workforce development, to address key vulnerabilities to U.S. competitiveness.

We encourage you to read on about how we are advancing American interests in three core areas: building regional innovation and economic growth, accelerating technology translation and development, and preparing the U.S. workforce. Thanks to all of you for your passion and dedication toward the TIP mission and stay tuned for TIP news and funding opportunities in the coming weeks.

Building America's new industrial innovation base through regional innovation and economic growth

We continue to see unprecedented interest in TIP's work to build regional economies. In response to the funding opportunity for the second round of NSF Engines, TIP received and published nearly 300 letters of intent spanning every U.S. state and territory. Of those, 71 teams were invited to submit proposals. The full proposal deadline is April 15.

Meanwhile, the inaugural cohort of NSF Engines is demonstrating the potential of place-based research and development as a driver of economic development and job creation. NSF Engines all across the country are seeing companies establish new sites, including relocating headquarters into their backyards; cultivating new instructional material for high schools and community and technical colleges to train talent with the technical skills necessary for a myriad of jobs in technology-rich sectors; and powering new deep-tech ventures. To get a sense of what each NSF Engine has accomplished in the last year, check their individual webpages. See the NSF Central Florida Semiconductor Innovation Engine page as an example.

The NSF Convergence Accelerator is expanding from a single national program to 10 regionally focused NSF Convergence Accelerators that will enhance competitiveness in research, innovation and workforce development in their communities.

Accelerating technology translation and development 

Even beyond the technological innovation enabled through the place-based approach described above, TIP has initiated strategic and focused investments in key technology areas, bringing academia, industry, government, philanthropy and nonprofits, and venture capital and investment together around topics critical to U.S. competitiveness. This past year, following a canvassing across the key technology areas, TIP launched four new, technology-specific funding opportunities in areas where federal investment into multi-sector research teams could potentially overcome barriers to translation, unlocking entire ecosystems of technology innovation and follow-on investment:

• Breaking the Low Latency Barrier for Verticals in Next-G Wireless Networks will simultaneously grow the demand for advanced 5G and next-generation telecommunications network deployment and accelerate the adoption of a range of emerging applications that depend on them, from autonomous vehicles to telemedicine platforms.  The success of this program will help the U.S. establish itself as a global leader in next-generation wireless telecommunications as well as emerging wireless vertical industries.
• Use-Inspired Acceleration of Protein Design is designed to accelerate artificial intelligence-based translational research in protein design. This initiative brings together experts from industry and academia to build a strong foundation and ecosystem and positions the U.S. to lead in applications of importance to the U.S. bioeconomy.
• Advancing Cell-Free Systems Toward Increased Range of Use-Inspired Applications looks to speed up the adoption of cell-free systems for biochemical applications, potentially transforming the entire industry sector. This collaborative initiative between industry and academia aims to overcome key limitations of cell-free technology and drives continuous cycles of improvement to advance biomanufacturing capabilities, which will revolutionize biotechnology efforts from health care to the bioeconomy.
• Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing in Practice seeks to spur the development of practical and scalable privacy-preserving data-sharing solutions. The program aims to accelerate the translation of technologies that enable data sharing and collaboration while preserving privacy, facilitating the ability to responsibly harness value from data, including in the development and use of artificial intelligence.  

We will soon be announcing the initial investment portfolios in these areas, so stay tuned!

Preparing the U.S. workforce

TIP is partnering with the private sector to create opportunities that seek to enable all Americans with access to good-quality, high-wage jobs, particularly as the introduction of new technology transforms the types of jobs available to American workers. Over this past year, TIP invested in training people and building partnerships across sectors, bringing together experts in key technologies and workforce development. And these investments are paying dividends: TIP invested in the expansion of the NSF Entrepreneurial Fellowships powered by Activate.org, resulting in 36 innovators and 28 companies all across the country raising $56 million in capital, versus an average of $44 million per community for Berkeley, California; Boston, Massachusetts; and New York, New York. In other words, the initial data are clear that geography is not necessarily a barrier to entrepreneurs being able to raise capital or secure grants; rather, the TIP-funded Activate Anywhere is expanding the path to science and technology entrepreneurship in America.

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