Business leaders and public organizations from the Cincinnati and Dayton region have partnered on a joint application to become a federally designated aerospace hub, opening the door to a pool of billions in federal dollars over the next decade.

A federal tech hub designation would be a widely recognized indicator of the region’s potential for rapid technology-led economic growth. But getting the designation is a tall order. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), which is overseeing the program, transparently describes it as “a competition.” 

The University of Cincinnati led the application effort in partnership with REDI Cincinnati, the Cincinnati Business Committee, the Dayton Development Coalition and the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission. UC convened meetings of public and private participants to help formulate the application. 

REDI first confirmed a collaborative application for the “highly coveted” tech hub designation to the Courier in May 2023. However, it has kept the application details under wraps to preserve what it described as a “competitive advantage” in the grant round.

On Thursday, Aug. 17 – two days after the application window closed – REDI offered a joint statement on the applicants’ behalf noting the collaborative nature of undertaking. "The collective Cincinnati-Dayton region boasts a strong technology and innovation ecosystem, and we see tremendous value in earning this designation.”

A spokesperson with GE Aerospace confirmed the company's involvement and support for the application.

GE Aerospace is working with NASA on a cutting-edge hybrid electric aircraft that will undergo ground and flight tests in the middle of this decade. GE Aerospace announced in May 2023 it would invest $20 million into its Dayton facility, where it plans to develop the systems and hardware needed for the aircraft.

A REDI analysis of Greater Cincinnati’s aerospace ecosystem shows it is home to 157 suppliers and more than 16,000 industry workers with a $4.8 billion regional impact. Ohio supplies more parts to Boeing and Airbus than any other state in the country, and it ranked fourth in aerospace manufacturing attractiveness in 2022, according to PwC, an aerospace and defense consulting firm.  

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) disclosed four Ohio applications in a letter of support dated Aug. 16:

Separately, Brown has called for the Biden Administration to locate the U.S. Space Command headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. 

The tech hubs program was established by the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. It is separate from the CHIPS for America program, which provided funding for Intel’s Central Ohio investment, in that the tech hubs program focuses broadly on innovation ecosystems rather than exclusively on the semiconductor sector. 

The EDA published the program’s first notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) on May 12. Local consortia could apply for a tech hub designation, a strategy development grant or both. By the fall, the EDA will select the tech hubs and separately award around $15 million for the strategy development grants to accelerate development of other hubs in the future. A second NOFO will be released in fall 2023 where the designated hubs can apply to the EDA for implementation awards, which can be used to build new facilities or invest in infrastructure. 

Consortia applying for the program must include at least one institution of higher education, a government entity, an industry group or firm, an economic development organization and a workforce training organization. The EDA encouraged two or more firms directly relevant to the selected core technology area to participate as members. REDI did not confirm whether any individual firms were involved apart from the involvement of the entities listed above. The EDA required each consortium to identify a lead member – here UC – to serve as the main point of contact during the competition and implementation and ensure the money goes where it should. 

The program is designed to drive regional technology and innovation-centric growth by strengthening a region’s capacity to manufacture, commercialize and deploy critical technologies to strengthen the U.S. economy and national security. It focuses on rapidly scaling up and commercializing products and services in critical areas through demonstration, deployment and delivery. The program explicitly does not focus on research and development, only its capacity to deliver. 

“The Tech Hubs program seeks to identify market failures in specific regions that, if overcome, can unlock the region’s existing technological strengths,” the agency’s guidance reads. 

The CHIPS Act authorized $10 billion to be invested over the next five years in around 20 tech hub locations nationwide. Congress appropriated the first $500 million to launch the program in 2023. 

Prospective hubs must have the right concentration of assets, capital, R&D, labor market and infrastructure to transform into globally competitive innovation centers for industries within a decade. The resources must be “strongly relevant” to the hub’s selected core technologies. The statute contains an exhaustive list of ten key technology focus areas (KTFA): 

Consortia could select one KTFA or define a core technology that crosses multiple areas, so long as the hub has the potential to become self-sustaining and globally competitive in that area within the decade. 

EDA staff weren’t allowed to offer any help to a consortium in determining whether a selected core technology area fell within a KTFA. Nor could EDA staff provide any guidance on whether an organization qualified as one of the required consortium entities.