The Madison Region Economic Partnership (MadREP) strongly encourages the State to increase its investment in child care in Wisconsin’s 2023-25 biennial budget. Economic development in our state is limited by the availability of child care services. Underinvestment in child care will have long-term impacts on Wisconsin’s economy by negatively affecting tax revenues, household income, and businesses. State financial support is critical to supporting the already struggling child care industry that working families and businesses rely on. Past state funding helped child care providers across Wisconsin maintain operations during the COVID-19 pandemic and prevented closures. Decreasing state funding to the child care industry will have severe and long-term consequences, interrupting access to high quality Early Childhood Education during critical child development stages. Significant state involvement in addressing the need for more access to child care is necessary for the success of MadREP’s regional economic development initiatives. Wisconsin will miss opportunities for industry growth and regional economic prosperity if it fails to provide foundational child care support for residents.
The Center Square: Wisconsin apprenticeship programs growing more popular
Apprenticeship programs across Wisconsin are on the rise, as companies fiercely compete for talent in the post-pandemic era.
Wisconsin Apprenticeship Deputy Director Liz Pusch pointed to an ongoing surge in business engagement with the state Department of Workforce Development (DWD), adding that more students and even college-educated workers now view the program as an avenue toward better job opportunities.
“Our average age of a registered apprentice is 28 years old,” Pusch shared during a recent speech at the Madison Region’s Economic Development and Diversity Summit hosted by the Madison Region Economic Partnership and the Urban League of Greater Madison, according to WisBusiness.com. “So people are starting in their career route, and then they’re figuring out, ‘This is not what I want to do.’”
In April, DWD announced a new record-high 8,357 high school junior and senior students were taking part in the Youth Apprenticeship programs during the 2022-23 school year, and just weeks before then state officials highlighted that a record 15,900 apprentices took part in the Registered Apprenticeship program last year. While many of the programs typically train workers for a specific occupation, the youth program is structured to open participants to a growing list of career choices.
“Employers are starting to see some increased retention because you’re making and building this bond with the workers,” said Seth Lentz, executive director of the Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin, adding that more businesses are starting to internalize the long-term advantages of investing in their own workers’ skills.
Wisconsin Inno: Two Wisconsin groups win NSF grants to plot innovation hubs that could land $160 million
Similar to the way in which Silicon Valley is synonymous with information technology, Wisconsin could eventually be known for water innovation or sustainable agriculture.
At least, that’s what two new Wisconsin groups are working toward.
The two separate teams led by The Water Council and WiSys each recently received a $1 million federal grant to plan innovation hubs around water and sustainable agriculture. Each group has two years to assemble a proposal for how they would use $160 million to make those hubs a reality.
The money comes from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines program. The two Wisconsin teams are among 44 U.S. teams to land a $1 million, two-year development grant. Five of those teams will each win a 10-year, up to $160 million grant to establish their regional innovation hub.
“Through these planning awards, NSF is seeding the future for in-place innovation,” NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan said in a statement earlier this month. “This will unleash ideas, talent, pathways and resources to create vibrant innovation ecosystems all across our nation.”
The Regional Innovation Engines program was authorized in the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. It’s designed to increase commercial investment in research and development outside of traditional U.S. tech hubs and create thriving companies focused on emerging technologies that solve national and societal challenges.
Water and energy resilience
One of Wisconsin’s regional innovation teams is focused on water and energy resilience for manufacturers and utilities. It’s led by The Water Council, which has its headquarters in Milwaukee.
Other partners include the MKE Tech Hub Coalition, the Wisconsin Technology Council, Marquette University, the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity and the Madison Region Economic Partnership.
The partners are taking an industry-led approach, involving companies including A.O. Smith Corp., Rockwell Automation and WEC Energy Group. Their goal is to spur job creation and water innovation by connecting companies, universities, governments and other stakeholders to quickly scale solutions that help manufacturers and utilities adapt to the effects of climate change.
“We have industry strengths already around water technology,” Water Council president and CEO Dean Amhaus said. “Can we become that water energy hub that people are attracted to and be able to grow those businesses?”
Sustainable agriculture
Wisconsin’s other regional innovation engine team is focused on advancing sustainable agriculture. It’s led by WiSys, a Madison-based nonprofit that supports technology transfer for the University of Wisconsin System.
Other partners include all 13 University of Wisconsin institutions, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Research Foundation and the Wisconsin Technology Council.
The group’s objectives include translating research into industry collaborations, supporting sustainability tech startups and attracting investment to fund sustainable agriculture.
“This NSF Engine could be a key economic driver for Wisconsin,” WiSys president Arjun Sanga said in a May 11 statement. “Just as a public-private partnership turned Wisconsin into the ‘Dairy State’ in the last century, this potential engine’s public-private partnership could have a profound impact on the future of the state and the world.”
WaterWorld: Wisconsin partners receive $1M NSF award to address water, energy resiliency
The Water Council announced that it and its partners have received $1 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to plan a Regional Innovation Engine in eastern Wisconsin. The NSF Engine will help address water and energy resilience for utilities and manufacturers.
The Water Council applied for the two-year grant with its lead partners MKE Tech Hub Coalition, Wisconsin Technology Council, Marquette University, Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity, and Madison Region Economic Partnership.
“We know businesses and communities are desperately in need of solutions to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. With its strong water and energy solution companies and leading research universities, Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to provide those solutions,” said Dean Amhaus, president and CEO of The Water Council. “This Resiliency Engine could be a true game-changer in terms of local economic development and assisting companies here, across the U.S. and globally adapt to the realities of climate change and the growing nexus of water and energy challenges.”
The grant is awarded through NSF’s Regional Innovation Engine program, meant to advance critical technologies; foster partnerships across industry, academia, governments and nonprofits; promote and stimulate economic growth and job creation; and more. At the end of the two-year Development Award, the Engine team will apply for a Launch Award of up to $160 million over 10 years.
“These NSF Engines Development Awards lay the foundation for emerging hubs of innovation and potential future NSF Engines,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “These awardees are part of the fabric of NSF’s vision to create opportunities everywhere and enable innovation anywhere. They will build robust regional partnerships rooted in scientific and technological innovation in every part of our nation. Through these planning awards, NSF is seeding the future for in-place innovation in communities and to grow their regional economies through research and partnerships. This will unleash ideas, talent, pathways and resources to create vibrant innovation ecosystems all across our nation.”
The primary region for the aspiring Engine – from Milwaukee west to Madison and from northern Illinois to the Fox Valley and Green Bay – already boasts many of the necessary resources, including research universities, energy and water technology companies, and a strong manufacturing sector. The goal of the Engine is to align these resources around the theme of water and energy resiliency while ensuring the area offers a strong innovation pipeline and diverse, trained workforce to identify needs and quickly move solutions from the laboratory to the factory floor.
“Working with water is imbedded in Wisconsin’s DNA,” said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. “Those same roots run deep in manufacturing and its relationship to energy and water use. The nexus of the three will result in innovation that can address climate change, confront rising energy prices, create efficiencies and encourage private investment. As a partner in the Resiliency Engine, the Wisconsin Technology Council will work to lever related resources across the state.”
Wisconsin State Journal: Tom Still: With big goals in mind, National Science Foundation invests in 2 homegrown ideas
Source: Wisconsin State Journal
During a fireside chat on the UW-Madison campus in March, a leader in the National Science Foundation’s newest and most hands-on program gave a tip of the hat to what he was seeing in his quick tour of Wisconsin.
“There’s talent all around this state,” said Erwin Gianchandani of NSF’s Technology, Innovation and Partnerships directorate. “And it’s incumbent on us to be able to find ways to be able to create opportunity for that talent … to create pathways for that talent to become a part of the STEM-driven workforce and economy of the 21st century.”
Roll forward a couple months, and NSF is making good on Gianchandani’s observation that Wisconsin has the tech, talent and market-based tools to help build a brighter future.
Capping a competitive process that began in early 2022 with a nationwide call for ideas, the NSF announced May 11 that two Wisconsin partnerships had been awarded $1 million “Type 1” grants through its Regional Innovation Engines program. Two-year grants were awarded to:
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A team led by The Water Council in Milwaukee to plan how water and energy can be more efficiently used by manufacturers and utilities, with goals of addressing climate change, confronting higher energy costs and levering private investment over time.
A group led by WiSys, a foundation that primarily works with researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs in communities outside Madison and Milwaukee, to model ways to make agriculture more sustainable and responsive to markets and labor needs.
A few million dollars won’t get all that done, of course, but if the two Wisconsin teams create interdisciplinary plans that can be applied statewide as well as nationally, the next stage in the NSF process would be $160 million “Type 2” grants to implement those ideas over 10 years.
Of the 500-plus applications for the Type 1 NSF grants, only 44 were awarded. The fact that two landed in Wisconsin — with its long history of water, agricultural and manufacturing innovation — speaks well of the state’s potential to apply science and technology to core assets in ways that can be adopted by others.
It also represents something that can be rare in society today, which is collaboration among groups and regions that might not always have a lot in common.
Partners in The Water Council proposal are the MKE Tech Hub Coalition, Marquette University, the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity, the Madison Region Economic Partnership and the Wisconsin Technology Council.
The 30 partners in the WiSys grant include the 13 UW System campuses, many private companies and foundations tied to farming or natural resources, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. and the Tech Council.
By creating its new Technology, Innovation and Partnerships wing — the first new directorate in 30 years — the NSF signaled it was adapting to the times. Long known for its basic science research grants, the NSF resolved to become more attuned to markets, workforce needs, diverse communities and emerging national challenges.
It also determined to dig deeper for good ideas in places outside traditional tech corridors on the East and West coasts. Only two of the 44 Type 1 grants are based in California, for example, and six in the nation’s northeast states. The bulk of the selected proposals are east of the Rocky Mountains, in the Midwest or the South, and they address many tech-based challenges. Wisconsin is among a dozen states with two or more awards.
“In many ways, this is a generational opportunity,” NSF’s Gianchandani said during his March visit to Madison. “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment, and we’re not going to be able to solve it if it’s just a few of us. It has to be all of us working together on the same page to be able to get where we want to get.”
It’s good that Wisconsin has a few words on that ambitious page.
Tom Still
Tom Still is the president of the Wisconsin Technology Council.
Email: tstill@wisconsintechnologycouncil.com
“This is our generation’s Sputnik moment, and we’re not going to be able to solve it if it’s just a few of us. It has to be all of us working together on the same page to be able to get where we want to get.” –Erwin Gianchandani, National Science Foundation
