NSF Textile Innovation Engine in North Carolina

Award ID: 2315305

The NSF Engines award to the Textile Innovation Engine of North Carolina will advance our nations capacity for innovation in textiles, positioning the NSF Engine as a global leader in this sector. Centered in the textile belt of North Carolina, the NSF Engine aims to disrupt and revolutionize the $68B textile industry. Textiles are ubiquitous. If successful, the innovation ecosystem driven by the NSF Engine will result in unprecedented advances in technical and everyday textiles to safeguard the fabric of our nation. While other regions of the US have lost textile jobs, this regions textile jobs have stabilized, and the region boasts the largest concentration of textile workers in the US, with over 27,000 workers and an additional 30,000 in adjacent industries spanning almost 2,000 companies. The NSF Engine is led by The Industrial Commons, a non-profit with a strong reputation within the textile sector for being a hub of regional, rural innovation with deep local, national, and sectoral knowledge and relationships. North Carolina State Universitys (NC States) Wilson College of Textiles is leading the NSF Textile Engines research and development (R&D) innovations. The NSF Textile Engine also includes partnerships across community colleges, manufacturers, brands, economic development, and state government, among others. The team is thus poised with the infrastructure and ties to rapidly develop, revitalize, and scale a cutting-edge and resource-efficient textile industry that will address national security imperatives and maintain a competitive edge in the global market. The NSF Textile Engine will research and advance new materials, clean chemistries, automated manufacturing, technology-driven operations, and chemical and mechanical recycling. The NSF Textile Engine will also be forward-looking with textile applications in fiber-based materials used in adjacent industries such as aerospace, automotive, furnishings, biomedical, military, geotextiles, and construction. Textile-to-textile circularity is one of the catalytic projects due to the multi-faceted benefits of creating a resilient raw material supply from textile waste. The NSF Textile Engine will work to use new technology with AI and robotics to build blueprint pilot systems that collect and process post-consumer waste at scale to create new fiber, yarn, material, and finished goods. The NSF Textile Engine will also focus on the increased re-use of materials, driving to maintain material value at the highest possible level, and downcycling options, such as innovation and production of nonwovens. Last, the NSF Engine will also seek opportunities to both develop and inform policy, standards, and labeling that create clear incentives for domestic manufacturing, new material adoption, and textile circularity, while facilitating a broader understanding of advanced, resilient, and renewable materials, their manufacturing, and potential applications. The NSF Textile Engine has a region of service that encompasses the regional textile supply chain covering all of North Carolina, and stretching into the Appalachian regions of upstate South Carolina, eastern Tennessee, and southern Virginia. The NSF Textile Engine has a strong foundation in regional economic development and workforce development through The Industrial Commons, which founds and scales employee-owned enterprises and industrial cooperatives and supports frontline workers to build a new southern working class. NC States Wilson College of Textiles, a global leader in textile science and innovation, will drive R&D together with other academic institutions. The NSF Textile Engines translation of R&D to products is built on partnerships such as the Manufacturing Solutions Center, which supports U.S. manufacturers through business incubation facilities and will be providing product testing, prototyping, and sourcing; and capital access and venture capital development with NC IDEA. Leading the workforce development efforts, together with other community colleges and manufacturers, is Gaston Colleges Textile Technology Center and the new state-of-the-art Fiber Innovation Center, which will provide testing, rapid prototyping, and metrics for overall fiber life cycle testing. The NSF Textile Engine is further supported by North Carolinas Department of Commerce and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. Chamberlin Dunn leads the NSF Engines evaluation efforts, leveraging its expertise in regional economic development. The NSF Textile Engine is deeply committed to ensuring accessibility to well-paying, quality jobs for all communities in the region of service and to preparing the regions existing and future workforce for the innovations to come in the modern textile industry. The NSF Engines workforce development efforts involve creating new curricula and certificates at the partnering community colleges focused on the NSF Textile Engines topic, growing apprenticeship and internship opportunities for high school and community college students within the range of textile manufacturing companies in the region and increasing worker agency. For example, partnering with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the NSF Textile Engine has rewritten the high school textile curriculum and has published a Career Roadmap that is an interactive tool for students and incumbent workers to chart textile career pathways. The NSF Textile Engine will also continue to expand partnerships with workforce development entities, including state and government institutions and job pipeline programs. It will additionally build partnerships with organizations that provide wrap-around services that address barriers to employment to create resources for manufacturers to navigate these processes, update internal policies, and more quickly hire veterans. This region has deep roots in the textile industry, with over one hundred years of experience, together with a density of companies, textile workers, and R&D expertise that can drive forward innovation, making this NSF Engine the prime location in the US to revitalize this industry and build a textile-focused, resilient, and nationally competitive innovation ecosystem. The assembled coalition includes a well-established group of leaders, connectors, innovators, and doers in the textile sector, all driven by the goal of regional economic development that will bring with it new jobs, opportunities, and economic prosperity for the region. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Chun Zhang