NSF Award
2431733
Creating equitable economic development in under-resourced areas using technological innovation requires converging various groups at multiple scales, such as local communities, colleges, local and state government agencies, and support organizations for entrepreneurs, investors, and businesses. Given this complexity of actors and interactions, regional economic development must consider the socio-economic context of communities and the enabling policy environment. Indeed, failure to understand these dynamics while developing innovation may perpetuate disparities, overlook historical legacies, and make assumptions about community and regional needs. However, no broadly applicable framework for rural community engagement in emergent innovation exists to guide the development of rapid, equitable outcomes for residents while ensuring opportunities for medium- and long-term workforce development. The overarching goal of this project is to develop a framework that merges social, psychological, and economic considerations to guide community selection poised for economic transformation.<br/><br/>The overarching objective of this project is to establish an extended Lab to Market framework for harmonizing indicators across diverse social and economic dimensions. The North Carolina Ecosystem Technology (NC EcoTech) Developmental ENGINE, located in coastal North Carolina, will serve as a test case to design and deploy exploratory mechanisms that create scalable and reproducible systems of innovation-based economic growth and equitable workforce development. This project hypothesizes that identifying and prioritizing community assets within a given ENGINE Region of Service (ROS) will maximize the economic and social impact of technology and innovation, enabling workforce development and local livelihood considerations over the long term. This project will explore this objective in twenty counties in Eastern North Carolina. It will use a mixed-method approach, combining economic impact analysis, focus groups, questionnaires, and scenario planning activities. This project will (1) integrate social, psychological, and economic variables in L2M Frameworks, (2) develop the substructure embedded within an L2M to clarify and intentionally integrate beneficiaries throughout ENGINE lifecycles, and (3) identify drivers and barriers that may limit the scaling up of ENGINES through the ENGINE timeline. This project will produce a shareable L2M framework for other NSF ENGINES operating in under-resourced rural regions where there is limited research on successful innovation-driven approaches.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
