The untold behind-the-scenes story about CHIPS
Big federal programs tend to arrive in the public eye fully formed: a bill signing, a press release, a list of awardees. The years of groundwork that make them possible rarely get told. In *The Untold, Behind the Scenes Story of the CHIPS and Science Act: Launching the NSF Regional Innovation Engines Program*, published by Harvard Kennedy School's Reimagining the Economy project, Urban Impact Advisors Senior Consultant Daniel Goetzel tells that story from the inside.
Daniel served as Director of Strategic Partnerships for the National Science Foundation's Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Directorate and helped lead the Regional Innovation Engines program, the $1.6 billion flagship initiative that emerged from the CHIPS and Science Act. Drawing on interviews with the federal employees, scientists, and program leaders who built it, his account traces the program from a May 2021 workshop of 75 investors, entrepreneurs, and university leaders through the creation of NSF's first new directorate in more than 30 years, to the moment nearly 700 concept proposals arrived from communities across almost every state.
Two details stand out for anyone who cares about regional development. First, the program was designed from the start to reach places historically left out of the innovation economy. As Daniel writes, "too many Americans have remained isolated from these opportunities." Second, it worked: 40 percent of the awarded Engines were led by non-academic institutions, compared with NSF's typical 12 percent, and the geographic footprint stretched well beyond Boston, San Francisco, and New York.
The piece is also a study in how a federal agency moves fast when it decides to, and a reminder, in Daniel's closing words, that "the government can (and will still) achieve ambitious goals."
That experience is a large part of what Daniel brings to UIA's clients. Understanding how place-based innovation funding is conceived, competed for, and won is not an abstraction for him. He helped write the playbook.
Read the full story at Harvard Kennedy School →
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/wiener/programs/economy/our-work/reimagining-economy-blog/untold-behind-scenes-story-chips
