Strategic Partners:
NC IDEA: supporting founders through grants and entrepreneurial programs
SBTDC: offering business counseling for faculty teams and startups
RIoT: helping innovators build hardware, IoT products, and emerging technologies
EDPNC: aligning innovation with statewide business recruitment and expansion
NC DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE: shaping statewide industry and economic priorities
COUNTY AND REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONS: connecting innovation to local opportunities
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT BOARDS: preparing talent for innovation-driven industries
COMMUNITY COLLEGES: providing skills training and applied learning
CHAMBERS, BUSINESS ALLIANCES, AND REGIONAL NONPROFITS: strengthening local innovation ecosystems
WHY YOUR PARTNERSHIP MATTERS
North Carolina’s universities generate powerful ideas across many fields. State leaders recognized that while research excellence is strong, many discoveries stall before reaching customers or communities. Your partnership helps close this gap and builds the statewide innovation ecosystem needed to move ideas forward.
You Help By:
Connecting researchers with customers, investors, and pilot partners
Providing entrepreneurial training and business support
Strengthening regional talent pathways
Building trust-based networks that help ideas move faster
Supporting innovation in both rural and urban communities
Your involvement helps ensure that the benefits of innovation reach every part of North Carolina, not just regions with established innovation ecosystems. You help turn university discoveries into North Carolina companies and jobs that stay here and grow here.
REGIONAL HUBS
NCInnovation (NCI) coordinates four regional innovation networks covering the East, West, Piedmont, and Charlotte areas to connect our public research universities, industry partners, and business leaders and drive more effective regional and statewide commercialization strategies.
Each regional innovation network includes the public research universities within that region and is anchored by “hub” institutions. As part of NCI’s support for the four regional innovation networks and each hub institution, NCI positions seven Regional Innovation Network Directors across the state to lead regional operations.
The current NCI Regional Innovation Networks consist of:
OUR PARTNERS
