Jul272015
Posted at 5:38 PM
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker today issued a statement following Vice President Biden’s announcement of the creation of a new National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) institute.
“As part of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI), the new Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Integrated Photonics in Rochester, New York will help keep America on the front-lines of discovery and ensure our manufacturers, businesses, and economy are globally competitive in the 21st century economy. NNMI institutes are designed to foster pre-competitive collaboration among manufacturers, non-profits and academics in cutting-edge technologies, and the Commerce Department plays a major role by leading this network of institutes. With a total investment of over $610 million –$110 million in federal funds, and more than $500 million in non-federal contributions – today’s announcement marks the largest public-private commitment to date for a manufacturing institute launched in the United States. The Commerce Department will continue supporting American innovation that boosts our economy and creates new growth industries and jobs.”
The Department of Defense is awarding the new Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Integrated Photonics to a consortium of 124 companies, nonprofits, and universities led by the Research Foundation for SUNY. The emerging technologies supported by this investment have the potential to transform many industries—from creating “needleless” tests for medical conditions like diabetes, to increasing the carrying capacity of broadband communications ten times over.
This institute is the sixth such public-private partnership to boost advanced manufacturing, foster American innovation, and attract and create jobs that strengthen the middle class, and this hub will build on the important progress that the Obama Administration is making. After a decade of decline in the 2000s, when 40 percent of all large factories closed their doors, American manufacturing is adding jobs at its fastest rate in decades, with nearly 900,000 new manufacturing jobs created since February 2010. Manufacturing production is up by almost a third since the recession and the number of factories across the United States is growing for the first time since the 1990s.
A strong manufacturing sector is critical to our intellectual and innovative capacity, and collaborative research between America’s leading manufacturers is essential to keeping our high-tech industries right here in the United States.
The Department of Commerce is committed to the President’s vision of creating a full national network of up to 45 manufacturing institutes over the next 10 years, which will require Congress to pass legislation. An American network of innovation institutes would play a vital role in enhancing U.S. industrial competitiveness by supporting development of technologies that will enable U.S. manufacturers to develop the cutting-edge tools needed to compete in the global marketplace. Support for this network of industry-driven commercialization hubs will help strengthen U.S. innovation and competitiveness, two key priorities of the Commerce Department’s “Open for Business Agenda.”
Read more about the Vice President’s NNMI announcement here.
