This is an updated version of an earlier report.
Ground was broken Wednesday on a new technology park at UConn and construction of the Innovation Partnership Building, the inaugural building associated with the project. More than $180 million has been earmarked in state and federal funds for the project.
Also introduced Wednesday were six anchor partners — including Eversource, United Technologies Corp., Pratt & Whitney Co. and Comcast — who will operate research facilities within the Innovation Partnership Building (IBP).
In May, the state Bond Commission approved $131.5 million to construct the first building in UConn’s technology park. It will offer specialized equipment and shared laboratory space for UConn researchers, industry scientists and businesses. The borrowing brings the total amount of state and federal funding for the tech park to $183.5 million.
According to a statement from the university, the 113,000-square-foot Innovation Partnership Building will house cutting-edge laboratories and highly specialized equipment. The goal is to have teams of academic researchers, private industry scientists, and business entrepreneurs working together onsite to develop new technologies in energy, electronics, materials science, microscopy, additive manufacturing, cybersecurity and other fields.
In addition to the Eversource Energy Center, the IBP’s other expected anchor partners include:
– FEI Center for Advanced Microscopy and Materials Analysis, one of the world’s foremost facilities for electron microscopy.
– United Technologies Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering.
– Pratt & Whitney Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center
– Comcast Center for Security Innovation
– Fraunhofer Center for Energy Innovation
Last October, UConn and scientific instrument maker FEI Co. signed an agreement to develop a center for microscopy and materials science research to be housed in the new Innovation Partnership Building. It will feature some of the most advanced commercially available electron microscopes.
When the agreement was announced, Mun Choi, UConn’s Provost, said in a statement, “[This] will be the foremost microscopy facility in the world. The transmission, scanning, and ion beam instruments will enable our faculty and students to manipulate and analyze materials at atomic scales. Their ability to create new applications for energy, electronics, and biomolecular sectors will be unparalleled.”
