| Business Oregon Announces Recipients of Regional Innovation Hub Planning Grant Awards
Business Oregon and the Oregon Innovation Council (Oregon InC) announce the recipients of the Regional Innovation Hub Planning Grants. The planning grant awards are the first step in a two-part process to award Regional Innovation Hub designations throughout Oregon. Recipients of the planning grants will produce a plan for how they would create a Regional Innovation Hub. These plans will include a vision, proposed activities, and relevant metrics on how they would provide technical assistance, capital, networking, mentorship, and talent development to innovation-based entrepreneurs in their region.
In 2021, Business Oregon released Oregon’s 10-Year Innovation Plan, which aims to orient the economy around better paying jobs with higher growth potential, help the state weather future economic challenges, and encourage participation among populations presently underserved in the innovation economy. The Regional Innovation Hub designations are a part of this plan to help advance innovation-based ecosystems at the regional level.
Regional Innovation Hubs are industry-agnostic partnerships that provide technical assistance to entrepreneurs with innovation-based business concepts and support a regional innovation ecosystem. The planning grants will fund collaborative partners working together to determine how to advance innovation-based economic development in their region. The intent of the Regional Innovation Hub program is not to create a new entity, but to coordinate existing resources.
There are 11 organizations receiving planning grants to develop Regional Innovation Hub concepts across Oregon. The recipients include:
| Columbia-Pacific Economic Development District |
| Mid-Columbia Economic Development District |
| Onward Eugene |
| Oregon Institute of Technology |
| OSU-Cascades |
| Portland State University |
| South Coast Development Council, Inc. |
| Southern Oregon Regional Economic Development Corp., Inc. (SOREDI) |
| Strategic Economic Development Corp. (SEDCOR) |
| Wallowa Resources |
More information on the Regional Innovation Hub program can be found on Business Oregon’s Regional Innovation Hub webpage. |
