Are you an innovative thinker?

The REI University Center is calling for Co-Learning Plan author(s)!

Co-Learning is a process in which multiple parties collaborate to generate new knowledge. In a Co-Learning Project, innovative economic development tools, models, strategies, policies, and practices are researched, and the findings and recommendations serve as a key resource for economic development practitioners and policymakers in Michigan.

Co-Learning Plans can be written by practitioners, decision makers, community leaders, entrepreneurs, scholars, or other stakeholders. Co-Learning Plan selection is a competitive process, and REI typically funds up to four Co-Learning Projects each year.

This year's topics include:

• Blockchain Technology Impact
• Can Local Produce Stop Climate Change?
• Community Benefit Agreements
• Energy Co-ops Across America
• MILE Act, Part II
• Online Market Place and Main Street
• Repair Cafes
• The Reuse Industry
• Other

Applications are due December 14, 2018.

Visit the Submit an Application page to view this year's topics and apply!

This Thanksgiving, REI is thankful for our members.

The Regional Economic Innovation (REI) Network is a diverse collaboration of individuals and organizations that exists to promote innovation within Michigan's regional economic ecosystems.

The REI Network consists of public and private sector individuals who participate in a facilitation and solicitation process to identify, create, and promote innovations in research, science, technology, and skill training to catalyze growth in their regional economies.

The Network's objectives include:

• Regional Talent: To identify innovations that have the potential to accelerate growth in existing regional economies, particularly with respect to innovations in skill training and workforce development.
• Discover to Market: To assist researchers, inventors, and scientists in transitioning their discoveries into marketable goods and services.
• Innovation Infrastructure: To support economic innovation by connecting enterprises with the necessary physical and digital infrastructure needed to sustain and expand a highly advanced economy.
• Growth and Equity: To ensure that during the development process, particular attention is paid to the needs and perspectives of Michigan's most distressed regional economic ecosystems in order to promote equitable statewide economic development.
• MSU Coordination and Higher Education Research: To connect and coordinate the resources and assets of Michigan's universities and colleges to best assist Michigan's high-growth entrepreneurial regional and local economic ecosystems, and the work of the MSU EDA REI University Center specifically.

Thanks to your support, the REI Network has nearly 2,000 members!

REI Network members from across the country are interested in how Michigan does economic development.