PHASE 2 SUPPLEMENTAL GUIDANCE ON INVESTMENT AND 

POLICY COMMITMENTS

1. Setting the Context

It takes more than federal investment for a region to translate research and technology into a 

globally competitive platform of growth. As part of the Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs 

(Tech Hubs) Phase 2 competition, the Designated Tech Hubs will need to demonstrate that 

consortium members and supporters are committed to institutional and policy change. 

Consistent with the Phase 2 Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) application evaluation 

criteria 3, Investments and Policy Commitments, consortia members must pair funding with 

commitments to policy, program, and regulation changes and investment decisions to put forth a 

full suite of interventions that accelerate commercialization, equity, and economic 

competitiveness. 

“Investment and Policy Commitments” are actions taken by stakeholders (individuals, 

organizations, or other entities) in the region to meaningfully improve the outcomes of EDA or 

other funding. Commitments can come from consortia members or from entities outside of the 

consortia. Commitments can come in a variety of forms and should fit the needs and assets of a 

region or community. Strong commitments do not need to be financial commitments; they can 

include policy or programmatic actions and/or new, specific, partnerships. For examples, see, 

e.g., section 5 of this document or section 1.c.i.(5) of the Phase 2 NOFO.

EDA has extensively reviewed the Phase 1 letters of commitment and “lab-to-market” proposals

of the 31 Tech Hubs’ Phase 1 applications for Designation. To be competitive for implementation

funding, the Phase 2 NOFO asks Designees to increase the detail (i.e., how concrete and 

specific are the commitments?), credibility (i.e., why is EDA confident the consortium will follow 

through?), and ambition (i.e., how will the commitments increase the likelihood and magnitude 

of impact?) of commitments in their Phase 2 applications. Tech Hubs are also welcome to add 

net-new commitments as part of their Phase 2 application. This guide includes common pitfalls, 

best practices, and illustrative examples of “Investment and Policy Commitments”. This guide is 

designed to be a thought starter for Tech Hubs as they build out their Phase 2 applications.

2. Common Pitfalls Related to Commitments

EDA encourages Phase 2 applicants to be cognizant of and mitigate against the following 

common pitfalls related to commitments. Strong applications will not include any of the following 

weaknesses. 

• Letters that conflate general support with specific commitments: While many letters 

signal buy-in, advocacy, and general support, EDA is looking for commitments—new 

actions that an actor or institution will pursue to support a Tech Hub—that are timely, 

measurable, and meaningful. For example, an applicant may have indicated that 

retaining talent is a barrier to local and regional innovation in Phase 1. Then, in Phase 2, 

a commitment could include specific policies at universities, research institutions, and 

governments to incentivize talent to remain in a region. In Phase 2 partnership and 

support letters, EDA expects to see specific, actionable commitments.
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• Lab-to-market ideas that do not address policy change: In Phase 2, applicants

should identify specific policies or program shifts that could accelerate 

commercialization, diversity, or competitiveness (as opposed to discussing existing tech 

transfer policies generally or potential increased scale of existing co-working or 

entrepreneurship initiatives). EDA is seeking bold and substantive policy shifts and 

resource commitments to accelerate commercialization (see Sample Commitments

below; EDA will also address these approaches in its Technical Assistance).

• A lack of specific, actionable input from key actors who have the ability to change 

policy: Policy changes that EDA deem competitive in Phase 2 require significant buy-in 

from executive leadership (e.g., University Presidents, Chancellors, Vice 

Provosts/Presidents for Research (VPRs), Governors, Mayors, CEOs, Lab Directors and 

other leaders) accountable for organizational or policy change. In Phase 2, EDA will be 

looking for proposals that provide strong evidence that senior leaders and decision 

makers are engaged and involved in the process. 

• A lack of collaboration and coordination across multiple commitments in the same 

application: Siloed commitments are better than none at all, but coordinated 

commitments are stronger. For the next phase of the funding decisions, EDA expects 

more details on how those collaborations and partnerships will work together cohesively 

toward the consortium’s strategy.

• Under indexing on diversity and equity: The more inclusive, diverse, and equitable its 

community of innovators, the more the Tech Hub will be capable of innovation. 

Therefore, applications should commit to strong connections between equity, diversity, 

and inclusion initiatives and innovation initiatives. Competitive Phase 2 commitments 

and proposed projects will specifically leverage the equity among and diversity of those 

participating in the innovation process. EDA expects specific ideas to enhance those 

goals as part of lab-to-market strategies and commitments. 

• A disconnect between commitments and gaps or challenges: A strong regional 

strategy (the precursor to a strong Phase 2 proposal) acknowledges legacy rules, 

practices, incentives, programs, and investments that limit the region’s capacity for 

global competitiveness. Policy commitments provide an opportunity for Designees to 

acknowledge what isn’t working and use the competition to commit to and drive 

improvements, including involving new partners who may bring that set of expertise.

3. Best Practices in Identifying and Developing Commitments

To support applicants in securing commitments over the course of the competition, this 

document includes:

• Best practices in identifying and developing commitments across regional stakeholders; 

and

• A sample list of potential commitments that applicants may consider requesting as they 

develop their approaches to improve commercialization and local production of 

innovative research. 

Note that while the list presented below is meant to be a sample of potential commitments, it is 

in no way comprehensive or complete, and applicants are encouraged to prioritize the 

investment, policy, or other interventions that are most appropriate and applicable to their 

regions and communities.

EDA encourages Tech Hubs to secure commitments not only from consortia members (including 

but not limited to the Lead Applicant and Component Project Leads) but also from other public, 

private, and philanthropic organizations in their communities and regions that can best 

complement EDA-funded projects. When considering which organizations are best suited to 
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support their proposals, applicants should consider the following elements that contribute to a 

good commitment:

a. New: A commitment should relate to activities that are new and would not have 

necessarily happened if not for the commitments established as part of the Tech Hub. 

Any organization willing to commit to supporting a project, policy change, or investment 

should articulate how the commitment will lead to things that would not have happened if 

the commitment had not been made. 

b. Timely: Commitments should be timebound with a clear starting date and expected 

outcomes. A strong commitment will have a well-defined and realistic timeframe for 

planned activities.

c. Targeted: Commitments should be specific and have clear, well-defined inputs and 

objectives. Ambiguous commitments lack accountability, and reasonable commitment 

details allow for greater believability.

d. Measurable: Commitments should have clear outcome metrics that can be measured 

with available information. Metrics of success should be collected early and on a regular 

basis to signal accountability. 

e. Meaningful: Most importantly, commitments should be things regional stakeholders 

genuinely believe will improve the commercialization potential, diversity, and 

competitiveness of a Regional Technology Hub. The commitments’ goals should be 

ambitious and achievable.

EDA encourages letters of commitment to include a description of how the given commitment is 

new, timely, targeted, measurable, and meaningful, in line with the above. EDA will be 

evaluating commitment strength as part of the Phase 2 evaluation criteria.

4. Investment Commitments

Hubs may secure and align diverse investment commitments—e.g., private entities may commit 

to an investment to build out a new manufacturing line in a Hub; a state or local government 

may commit funds to a training program; an investment fund may create a targeted pool of 

capital focused solely on a Hub’s technology and region; multiple actors may pool funds to 

repurpose an existing facility into a demonstration facility. EDA encourages Hubs to pursue and 

secure significant investments that are aligned with the Hubs’ respective strategies and with 

proposed EDA Tech Hubs-funded projects; in most cases, EDA Tech Hubs funding alone will not 

sufficiently enable Hubs to realize their visions and achieve global competitiveness.

5. Sample Policy Commitments (Not Comprehensive)

As stated in the Phase 2 NOFO section A.1.b.iv at page 8 and sections A.1.c.i.(4),(5) at pages

17-19, examples of commitments could include both investments and policy changes, made by 

Tech Hub members or partners, that will foster a culture of innovation.

When considering what types of commitments would be most impactful in a given region or 

community, applicants should consider gaps in their local policies and strategies that, if filled,

might help their region become globally competitive in its selected core technology area. 

Applicants should also consider how these commitments complement the projects they are 

asking EDA to fund.

Commitments may come from a range of stakeholders, including but not limited to 

governments, private-sector entities, nonprofits, philanthropies, educational/research 

institutions, and other organizations. These entities may be members of a Tech Hub 

consortium or not.

The sample policy commitments below are organized under five thematic areas:
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a. Ensuring the benefits of innovation and commercialization accrue locally

b. Promoting research-based entrepreneurship

c. Attracting and retaining talent

d. Accelerating innovation through diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility

e. Creating and elevating economic development leadership for local cross-collaboration

As noted above, this list of sample policy commitments is intended only as a thought starter for 

Phase 2 applicants. Applicants are encouraged to prioritize the interventions that are most 

appropriate and applicable to their regions and communities, whether or not they are on the 

following list. Investment commitments are inherently financial, while policy commitments may 

or may not require funding to implement. It may be possible to use EDA Tech Hubs funding to 

supplement or enable the implementation of certain commitments depending on the nature and 

magnitude of the proposed EDA-funded activities; reach out to your assigned Program Officer 

or the Tech Hubs inbox with specific questions.

a. Ensuring the benefits of innovation and commercialization accrue locally:

• Create innovation voucher programs that reduce the barrier for small- and mediumsized manufacturers to receive technical (including but not limited to collaborative 

research programs, legal, engineering, capital, etc.) support from researchers

• Incentivize partnerships with local firms and entrepreneurs within broader corporate 

relations strategies

• Increase access to and expand pools of capital, which could include university 

endowment investments in local venture capital funds or directly in local startup 

companies; university proof-of-concept funding to help technologies cross the valley 

of death; regional venture capital funds focused on regional startups; strong regional 

interfaces to national or global capital markets; or other funding mechanisms to 

support taking technologies from lab to market (note, however, that while EDA dollars 

can be used to administer and operate these initiatives, EDA dollars cannot be used 

to capitalize a fund or otherwise be used to invest in or serve as debt for funds or 

companies)

• Provide opportunities to share knowledge and practice entrepreneurial skills, such as 

grant and business plan competitions, communities of practice, or hackathons

• Develop “first of its kind” demonstration facilities/testbeds/core facilities/access to 

lab-based equipment that provide startups access to shared facilities to accelerate 

commercialization of products and services in a consortium’s selected core 

technology area

• Establish opportunities and venues for local design, creation, and testing of products 

and services, such as makerspaces and core facilities

• Offer grants to reduce the cost of novel manufacturing processes and 

experimentation and pilot production lines

• Provide local small- and medium-sized enterprises (and other employers) with 

assistance to access and utilize available R&D and CapEx tax credits

• Create and sustain capital networks that crowd in and syndicate follow-on funding for 

local startups

• Incentivize venture capital and other funds to create local pools of capitals that will 

invest in regional startups committed to domestic manufacturing and job creation

• Establish infrastructure banks to support large-scale infrastructure projects that use 

new energy or transportation technologies that bridge the gap between public and 

private capital, especially relevant for first-of-their-kind demonstration facilities

b. Promoting research-based entrepreneurship:
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• Establish commercialization sandboxes with specific focuses for researchers, 

industry, and startups to experiment with technologies, such as manufacturing 

development facilities

• Expand the capacity of technology transfer offices to accelerate, incubate, and 

commercialize research, for instance by providing training, budgets for patent 

protection, hiring of staff with specific skills, launch funding for creating support 

structures such as Executives-in-Residence of graduate student Fellows programs, 

startup Pitch Days, etc. 

• Create startup academies to train and coach potential entrepreneurs from research 

institutions in skills needed to succeed in a startup, as well as how to pitch their ideas 

to investors

• Pilot technology transfer office programs that take risks and try experimental 

approaches to commercialization, such as student competitions with startup funds as 

a prize

• Create networks of technology executive talent (e.g., executive-in-residence 

programs) to enable researchers and technologists to connect their innovations to 

business expertise

• Recognize commercialization and entrepreneurship in promotion and tenure 

guidelines

• Measure commercialization activity and impact on economic development, such as 

the number of invention disclosures received, the number of patents filed within the 

region, the volume of IP licenses and options to local companies and startups, the 

number of startups created within the region, number of jobs or companies created, 

and other measures of entrepreneurship at different stages

• Create funding pools at intermediary organizations that support researchers 

translating ideas from lab to market and develop startups, especially at research 

institutions

• Change leave policies to encourage students and faculty to take entrepreneurial 

risks so that students can retain full-time student status while launching companies 

and so that faculty can take leave without risking their status, lab, or funding

• Incentivize entrepreneurship- and industry-focused faculty researchers and 

innovators to be a part of multiple institutions through joint appointments at 

universities, labs, and private sector companies

• Create new leadership positions at public, private, and educational institutions 

specifically to accelerate technology-based global competitiveness (for instance, 

Innovation Officer roles)

• Leverage federal Enhanced Use Lease authorities (granted to DoD, NASA, and 

some national labs) to invite firms and non-federal entities onto federal R&D property

c. Attracting and retaining talent:

• Create networks of industry-focused workforce programs to train workers on new 

and emerging technologies at their workplace or demonstration facilities

• Create policies to sponsor immigrant entrepreneurs with advanced degrees exempt 

from the H-1B visa cap, including potentially through entrepreneur-in-residence 

programs at research institutions

• Partner with organizations that enable employers to adopt practices that tap into the 

talents of existing workers and remove barriers to good jobs, such as skills-based 

recruitment and hiring practices 
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• Create mentorship programs for pre-IP generation to encourage researchers 

(especially women and underrepresented minorities) to consider commercialization 

of their innovations

• Implement policies that would incentivize high-skilled (both U.S. and foreign-born) 

students to remain in the region as entrepreneurs and workers

• Utilize one of several immigration pathways for entrepreneurs to work in the U.S. 

(EB-1A, EB-2, EB-5, etc.) 

• Create a Global Entrepreneur-in-Residency program that supports domestic and 

foreign alumni to stay in the region and build their startup, while mentoring others

• Incorporate workers earlier and more intensively in the R&D and commercialization 

processes through collaborative efforts between research institutions and labor 

unions (and other groups that represent workers)

• Create entrepreneurial leave programs at national labs and universities

• Establish clear and flexible Conflict of Interest agreements (consistent with Federal 

COI rules) among consortium members that do not stifle researchers from creating 

startups

d. Accelerating innovation through diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility:

• Unlock the innovation potential of rural and underserved areas through activities 

such as funding pilot programs, partnering with young companies, and providing 

professional assistance for prototype development 

• Expand innovation and entrepreneurial activities beyond anchor institutions through 

tailored outreach to and engagement with underserved communities

• Create a supplier diversity program with proactive commitments to diverse suppliers 

and working with organizations to grow and expand the pool of diverse domestic 

suppliers throughout the supply chain

• Support a regional technology supply chain program that helps existing small 

manufacturers become key components of the domestic supply chain in the 

consortium’s selected core technology area by allowing them to purchase necessary 

equipment, hire skilled workers, and access demonstration facilities to try out new 

machinery

• Make labs at research institutions more accessible to industry and small- and 

medium- sized enterprises, including off-campus micro-labs and other precompetitive environments

• Create programs to ensure that workers have opportunities to collaborate directly in 

the demonstration of new technologies to inform the design of those technologies—

as well as their development, production, and delivery—with the perspective, 

experience, and input of workers

• Promulgate policies that can better ensure affordable housing availability, 

transportation, and child care of entrepreneurs especially as the region develops and 

grows

• Include environmental justice organizations and other local nonprofits in regional 

governance and leadership bodies to address past injustices and proactively address 

potential harms to communities with industrial activity and development; clearly 

outline decision making authority and resources for those organizations to lead.

• Coordinate and facilitate researcher access to private sector R&D facilities to 

accelerate commercialization of technologies

• Co-locate research institutions and the private sector through micro-labs and other 

innovative solutions
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e. Creating and elevating economic development leadership for local crosscollaboration:

• Establish an “Office of Regional Innovation” led by a Regional Innovation Officer to 

spearhead the entire industry transition strategy, ensure common industry 

engagement between the labs and universities, and oversee industry partnerships at 

the new demonstration facility and ensure they are well-staffed with industry-focused 

economic development and technology practitioners

• Establish other economic development leadership positions, with actual authority and 

reporting to principles

• Create networks that connect research institutions, industry, capital sources, and 

startups to share knowledge through entrepreneurship, educational, and mentorship 

programs

• Establish a regional framework for synthesizing and coordinating multiple funding 

sources and programs around a comprehensive strategy to address industry needs 

related to the consortium’s selected core technology area

• Standardize licensing and technology transfer rules among research institutions 

across the region

• Standardize contracts for research institutions to partner with small- and mediumsized enterprises and industries in the region, such as standardizing licensing IP to 

startups

• Coordinate across various organizations in the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem 

through strategies such as standardization of outcome reporting

6. EDA’s Policy Commitments Technical Assistance Process

As part of the Phase 2 application period, EDA will provide technical assistance to Designated 

Tech Hubs on how to improve the quality of their investment and policy commitments. EDA 

anticipates that the quantity and quality of commitments will improve in Phase 2, as compared 

to Phase 1, and applicants are encouraged to work with all relevant regional stakeholders to 

make credible, specific, and timely commitments.

As stated in the Phase 2 NOFO A.1.b.iv (page 8) and A.1.c.i.(4),(5) (page 17-19), examples of 

commitments could include both investments and policies that will foster a culture of innovation. 

EDA will host virtual sessions on a range of topics (schedule forthcoming) during the application 

period.