Odessa College, UTPB part of NSF funding opportunity

The National Science Foundation has announced a funding award to lay the groundwork for a new regional innovation engine in the Texas and New Mexico Permian Basin. The grant funding—$1 million to cover a two-year period—is the first step toward a potential ten-year, $160M NSF investment.

NSF is an independent federal agency that provides billions of dollars in grants each year to support basic scientific research. Its innovation engines program is managed by the directorate for technology, innovation, and partnerships, an NSF entity created by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The innovation engines program reflects a new focus on helping places thrive—especially places that have not fully participated in the tech boom of recent decades. Community engagement plays a critical role in the NSF approach, helping foster trust and inclusive growth.

Community engagement is also at the heart of the Permian Energy Development Lab’s approach. Soft launched in March, the Lab will focus its work on three areas: conducting advanced energy research and deployment, educating the next generation of energy professionals, and supporting energy-intensive communities and the natural resources they depend on.

The NSF award will accelerate the Permian Energy Development Lab’s progress in all three areas, with particular attention to bridging the gaps between research, entrepreneurship, and job creation in the region.

“NSF is seeding the future for in-place innovation in communities and to grow their regional economies through research and partnerships,” NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan said in a statement. “This will unleash ideas, talent, pathways, and resources to create vibrant innovation ecosystems all across our nation.”

The University of Texas at Austin led the application effort, bringing together a diverse coalition of academic institutions, non-profit organizations, companies, and national laboratories. In alphabetical order, these include:

• The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation
• GTI Energy
• Houston Advanced Research Center
• Midland College
• The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
• New Mexico State University
• New Mexico Tech
• Odessa College
• Sandia National Laboratories
• Texas A&M University
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Texas at El Paso
• University of Texas Permian Basin

The Permian Energy Development Lab (PEDL) is a project launched and incubated by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation. CGMF established the Mitchell Innovation Lab in 2020 to focus on emerging issues and develop a portfolio of breakthrough sustainability ideas and opportunity areas to develop, seed, and incubate. PEDL is the Mitchell Innovation Lab’s first initiative.

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