Bioeconomy & transportation advisory group

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Feasibility Issues

The feasibility of this policy option will depend in large part upon the ability to develop a partnering agreement between the universities, government, and private industry

Status of Group Approval

Pending

Level of Group Support

TBD

Barriers to Consensus

TBD

BT-3.3: Increase Regional Research Collaboration

Policy Description

The Midwest lags the coasts in the number and scale of new company formations in biofuels, bio-agriculture, bio-forestry , biorefining, battery technology, hydrogen and fuel cells, and other advanced transportation technologies. This is primarily due to the coastal concentration of the risk capital community, the biotech community, and large pharmaceutical, chemical, and energy industries. The Midwest must aggressively develop policy alternatives that will capture the companies and technologies that can add high value in the emerging transportation fuel and vehicle markets. The Midwest must leverage its existing natural, people, and intellectual assets so it does not become relegated to providing low-value commodity inputs for conversion to higher value products by companies located in or controlled from other parts of the country.

This policy option should leverage the Region’s exceptional research and intellectual property generation capabilities in order to better bring them to bear on transportation fuels, vehicles, and related technologies. This policy option should increase the commercial results of cross-institutional collaboration at the Region’s colleges, universities and research institutions which should increase the number, size, complexity and survivability of projects created with intellectual property generated within the Region.

As part of this regional research collaboration, centers that bring together producers, the research community, economic developers, and end users could be created to help build collaboration between universities, government, and private industry, and to help develop new technologies and launch projects.

Policy Design

Goals:

By 2009: Appoint a group comprised of leaders from research institutions across the Midwest to identify barriers to commercialization resulting from energy collaborations among institutions and to recommend policies and programs to further collaborations and more specifically, the commercialization resulting from collaborations, among these institutions.
By 2010: Develop and staff an information clearinghouse on advanced bioenergy technology among institutions doing research on the topic in the Midwest.
By 2010: Develop working relationships and agreements with risk capital sources in the Midwest to help secure funding for projects resulting from this collaboration.
By 2010: Identify and catalog both commercial and academic sources of advanced cellulosic and other low-carbon transportation fuel technology within the region.
By 2012: Provide the funding necessary to provide grants needed to pilot three projects resulting from technology developed by aggregating multiple technology sources from Midwestern colleges, universities, and commercial companies.
By 2025: Average fossil fuel inputs in the production of conventional biofuels in the region will be reduced by at least 50 percent.
BY 2025: At least 50 percent of all transportation energy consumed in the region will be supplied by regionally produced biofuels and other low-carbon advanced transportation fuels, with the expectation that a significant and additional portion of the region’s biofuel production will help the U.S. meet a national 25 x' 25 goal.
Timing: As described above
Parties Involved:

All research institutions in the Midwest doing research on topics related to energy crops; biomass to energy conversions; and bioenergy process technology.
University technology transfer institutions in the Midwest.
Midwestern venture capital funds and their managers.
Midwestern college and university retirement and endowment funds and their managers.

Other: None cited.

Implementation Mechanisms

Implementation of this policy option will primarily be done by bringing research collaboration groups together, comprised of universities, government, and private industry to share ideas and new technologies.

Promote “innovation corridors” that connect multiple clusters of university and private sector expertise around specific issues. Corridors could be connected by high speed rail to improve the flow of people and ideas and improve the prospects for collaboration. The high speed rail investments proposed in another policy could be leveraged to create one element in these innovation corridors.

Related Policies/Programs in Place

The Madison Entrepreneur Resource, Learning and Innovation Network (MERLIN^¹²) is comprised on experienced business leaders who volunteer their time, knowledge and experience to help convert entrepreneurs’ ideas into developing companies.
The Council of State Governments has established through its Midwestern Legislative Conference on Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee a forum of state legislators to exchange information and ideas on key agricultural and natural resource policies.^¹³
The Midwest Consortium for Biobased Products and Bioenergy, a group of four universities and three federal laboratories that work together to expand and improve the technologies for the conversion of plant material to industrial products.^¹⁴
The Midwest Alliance for Renewable Energy^¹⁵ Encourages the development of workable and renewable sources of energy to responsibly meet the demands of a growing Midwest economy.
The North Central Bioeconomy Consortium^¹⁶ is a partnership between land grant universities and state departments of agriculture in twelve Midwestern states.

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