UND, NDSU share major economic development grant
The Center for Innovation has been selected to receive funding under the FY 2010 Economic Development Administration (EDA) University Center (UC) Economic Development Program. A three-year project was approved for $100,000 per year in federal funding which will be matched by $200,000 in state funding per year from the North Dakota Department of Commerce for a total of $900,000.
“The project is led by the UND Center for Innovation in conjunction with the North Dakota State University Research & Technology Park, Inc., to provide development services to tech entrepreneurs requiring highly-skilled talent and connections to university researchers, providing a competitive advantage in the marketplace,” said Center for Innovation founder and director Bruce Gjovig.
“This includes entrepreneurs and tech-based ventures located across North Dakota and especially rural and out-of-state companies that may locate in the region near one of the university’s incubators and tech parks and their Centers for Excellence in Economic Development,” Gjovig said.
“Our Center has teamed up with the NDSU Research & Tech Park for two previous EDA awards over the past five years, which also attracted state matching funds and participation from the North Dakota Department of Commerce. This is a long-standing collaborative effort,” Gjovig said.
The project will build on core competencies of our entrepreneur centers, incubators and tech parks and foster more collaboration with tech entrepreneurs and the state’s Centers of Excellence at UND and NDSU. The project will also utilize the assets of the universities’ three technology incubators and two established technology parks and will include ongoing collaboration with entrepreneur service providers and economic developers statewide.
The project will focus on the following areas:
- Innovation clusters
- Intellectual infrastructure
- Access to capital
- Knowledge transfer
- Technical workforce
- Physical infrastructure
