Ohio Innovation Partnership
Gov. Ted Strickland and the Ohio General Assembly created the Ohio Innovation Partnership in the most recent biennial budget. The Innovation Partnership was intended by the state's political leaders to increase the role of Ohio's higher education institutions in building the talent and research pipelines critical to the state's economic success.
The Ohio Innovation Partnership includes three distinct elements: co-ops and internships, scholarship funds, and endowment funds.
Co-ops and Internships
The Ohio Co-op and Internship Program (OCIP) is designed to retain students in Ohio after graduation, to attract students from around the world to the premier co-op and internship program in the United States and to provide businesses with a well trained workforce in industries and disciplines that are key to the future of Ohio. An Request for Proposal (RFP) issued in March 2009 specifies that programs funded through OCIP the co-op and internship program should be designed to meet the following specific goals:
- Create meaningful linkages to Ohio businesses;
- Retain graduates in Ohio;
- Attract former Ohio residents back to the state;
- Attract non-Ohioans to the state;
- Provide Ohio businesses with highly skilled workers; and
- Increase business utilization of students as interns or co-operative learning participants.
More about Co-ops and Internships
Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program
Unlike most scholarship programs that direct funds to students or schools based on a formula or a set group of criteria, the Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program called for schools to submit proposals describing how they would go about designing innovative Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) programs to recruiting students to into these disciplines, as well as the strategies they would employ to make sure that the students are successful once they enroll. It sought partnerships between public and private institutions, between community colleges and universities, between high schools and higher education, and between education and business to create internships and co-op programs. In short, the goal of the $100 million scholarship program is to recruit students to study in our best and most innovative programs.
More about the Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program
Ohio Research Scholars Program
Jointly funded and administered by the Ohio Department of Development and the Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents, the Ohio Research Scholars Program (ORSP) provides grants to strengthen and increase the number of clusters of research excellence, led by Ohio's academic institutions that support regional economic priorities. The Ohio Research Scholars Program will achieve this through:
- Aggressive investment in the attraction of senior research talent and related facilities and equipment, and
- Promotion of unique collaborations needed to build and sustain scientifically and commercially promising lines of research.
The ORSP program places high priority on building a critical mass of research scientists and engineers in the five targeted technology/research focus areas: Advanced Materials, Biosciences, Instruments-Controls-Electronics, Information Technology, and Power and Propulsion (including Advanced Energy). The emphasis of this program is on the recruitment of research talent from outside Ohio. Awards ranged from $2.5 million to $50 million. For more information, visit the Ohio Department of Development's Web site at: www.thirdfrontier.com.
