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May 29, 2024

Lamont announces $100M program to support ‘innovation clusters’

HBJ PHOTO | DAVID KRECHEVSKY Gov. Ned Lamont speaks during the 2024 Yale Innovation Summit in New Haven.
By David Krechevsky

Gov. Ned Lamont on Wednesday announced the creation of a $100 million initiative to support and accelerate growth in key sectors of the state economy.

Speaking at his alma mater during the 10th Annual Yale Innovation Summit, a two-day event that kicked off Wednesday at the Yale School of Management in New Haven, Lamont said the Innovation Clusters Program will support several sectors critical to the state’s economy, including biotechnology, financial technology, insurance technology, and advanced manufacturing in support of national defense.

Administered by the state Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), the program will leverage private and public investment to support the application of next-generation technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing, to accelerate innovation in those high-growth clusters where Connecticut excels.

The state has gotten a jump on capitalizing on the next frontier of technology development, recently launching QuantumCT — a partnership among the state, Yale University, UConn and others — that will provide the “thought leadership” and strategic planning needed to benefit from the application of new technologies.

“We were once the most entrepreneurial state in the country. We did everything from the cotton gin to the sewing machine to submarines to helicopters. We were pretty good,” Lamont told a standing-room only audience in the Zhang Auditorium. “We got a little flat.”

But, he added, “over the last five, 10 years we’ve had more innovation, more new startups, more job creation, more new people moving into the state than ever before, and that’s in no small part thanks to the great role Yale plays here.”

He added that the new initiative will allow Connecticut “to play to our strengths.”

DECD Commissioner Daniel O’Keefe said unlike some past incentive programs, this new one is focused on clusters, not just individual companies.

“This is focused on where we as the state of Connecticut have comparative advantage,” O’Keefe said. “If you look around the state you see these natural clusterings happening around industries where we have established expertise, we have the workforce, we have the constituent parts that make these clusters successful.”

“The goal here,” he added, “is to recognize that these clusters are already happening and start to invest behind them and start to accelerate their growth.”

O’Keefe said businesses in the clusters can apply for program funding. Priority will be placed on capital projects that incorporate a strong focus on workforce training, economic development, neighborhood vibrancy and regional stakeholder collaboration.

Other criteria for funding include:

Leveraging partnerships with local businesses, universities, and not-for-profit institutions to maximize investment.
Attracting and developing talent.
Supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts; and
Ensuring local improvements through community benefit agreements.

DECD said it will issue a request for information (RFI) on June 3, and expects to issue awards on a rolling basis.

For more information on the program, visit the Innovation Clusters portal.

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