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 clearly 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 two distinct elements – scholarship funds to recruit talented students to the science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine, known as STEMM, and STEMM education fields - the Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program – and endowment funds to recruit faculty to academic Centers of Excellence tied to the strength of our regional economies - the Ohio Research Scholars Program. The legislative leaders and the Governor agreed that both of these funds should be competitive in nature to ensure that the highest quality standards are met, but that the Board of Regents should also work with schools across the state to assist in the development of quality programs.

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 recruiting students to the STEMM 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.

FY 2009 Request for Proposals (RFP)

Building upon the success of the FY 2008-2009 program, the Chancellor issued an FY 2009 RFP to fund innovative academic programs that will be developed to recruit and graduate the next crop of Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program students in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine. Proposals are due from Ohio colleges, universities, and their collaborating industry partners by Feb. 6, 2009.

FY 2008 RFP

The first round recipients of the Choose Ohio First Scholarship Program consisted of eight collaborations that share more than $23.6 million in scholarship funds in areas of pharmacy, nursing, science, engineering and mathematics. Collaborating institutions in round one will put forth more than $38 million in cost shared funds in support of their proposed scholarship program.

The second round of awards was directed to 28 Ohio public and private colleges and universities across the state, who will provide almost $30 million in cost shared funds to be used specifically to attract, retain and graduate more than 2,600 new STEMM students over the next five years. When combined with the first group of recipients announced in March 2008, Ohio expects to see more than 5,700 STEMM graduates who have been scholars in the state's 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 ORSP will achieve this through:

1. Aggressive investment in the attraction of senior research talent and related facilities and equipment, and
2. Promotion of unique collaborations needed to build and sustain scientifically and commercially promising lines of research.

The ORSP is placing high priority on building a critical mass of research scientists and engineers in the five targeted technology/research focus areas identified below. The emphasis of this program is on the recruitment of research talent from outside Ohio. Some funding, however, will be available to support the retention or hiring from within Ohio of personnel that are important to the growth of a research cluster. The RFP was opened on Oct. 29, 2007, and the Statements of Intent were due on Jan. 7, 2008. The ORSP accepted proposals from Ohio's universities and colleges. (No Longer Accepting Letters of Intent or Proposals) Each proposal must define the technology/research focus area of the research cluster and the areas of investigation to be pursued by the newly hired scholars in one or more of the state's targeted technology/research focus areas:

1. Advanced materials;
2. Biosciences;
3. Instruments-controls-electronics;
4. Information technology; and
5. Power and propulsion (includes Advanced energy).

Awards will be made in the range from $2.5 million to $50 million. For more information visit the Ohio Department of Development's web site at: www.thirdfrontier.com.