Smaller Ohio cities such as Akron could compete for $150 million in state funding in fiscal 2025 to create innovation hubs.
The hubs would be smaller versions of the innovation districts that the state helped launch in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati in 2020 and 2021.
"These hubs will bring together each community’s strengths to encourage more economic development and attract the very best talent," Gov. Mike DeWine said during his state of the state address in January.
Ohio has committed to invest more than $550 million in the Cleveland Innovation District, a collaboration of health care, research and higher education institutions focusing on virus and pathogen innovation.
But smaller cities such as Akron don't have the research and talent-production assets to create Level 1 research districts, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted said during an InnovateOhio board meeting on Wednesday.
Such districts, "involve a lot of research, a lot of talent production" and have other qualifications, such as high levels of grant funding, that universities and research institutions in most smaller Ohio cities lack, Husted said.
"But we can do a smaller concept of an innovation hub" that focuses on industrial, employment and research strengths in these cities, he said.
"Akron's talking about doing one in sustainable polymers," Husted said.
Akron is called the "Rubber City" because it has hosted so many tire and rubber manufacturers over the decades.
"Toledo... (is) talking about doing one in glass," he said.
The Toledo area is the birthplace and longtime headquarters for O-I Glass Inc., one of the world's largest producers of glass bottles and jars.
"We're going to hopefully get the general assembly to pass this funding," Husted said.
Then, the state would ask corporate, educational and research communities around the state to collaborate to compete for funding and to build innovation hubs around their research and talent, he said.
Youngstown, Ohio, already has formed a partnership anchored by America Makes, the national accelerator and developer of additive manufacturing and 3-D printing efforts, to apply for innovation hub funding, according to the Youngstown Business Journal (which is not related to Cleveland Business Journal).
