Soon the U.S. EDA University Center for Regional Economic Innovation will be hosting its call for 2022 projects – and we want to hear from you! All projects must fit one or more of these four categories, including 1) resiliency planning, 2) financial resiliency, 3) 21st-century communications, and 4) circular economies. Projects must focus on asset-limited, income-constrained populations within opportunity zones and/or those Michigan Economic Development Corporation identified “Redevelopment Ready Communities." Within those parameters, the following topical areas have been crowdsourced from REI stakeholders throughout 2021 and, with the help of our Consultative Panel, ranked by priority of likelihood to help create jobs and/or new businesses within Michigan. The topical areas for proposal consideration are: housing, childcare, broadband, energy production, extended producer responsibility, incentivizing transformative regional change, worker cooperative models, regional tax-base sharing, employee ownership models, communities built for the labor force, and public company quality reports.
REI research assistants are working hard to put together the new applications and we will soon have these available online. Stay tuned for further updates and put on your thinking caps! We will be looking for strong applications that fit these guidelines and continue to offer student-led/faculty-guided practicum experience, co-learning plans, and innovation fellowships.