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UMKC Team Enters Next Step Into Building Energy Materials Campus

The UMKC Critical Materials Crossroads has advanced as a finalist for National Science Foundation award of up to $160 million. Photo credit: UMKC.

Posted January 20, 2025

A University of Missouri-Kansas City partnership that wants to develop an energy materials campus in Kansas City is now a finalist in a national competition, competing for an award worth $160 million over 10 years.

In October 2024, UMKC Critical Materials Crossroads officially advanced as a finalist for the National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines Type 2 award. The team must submit a proposal by February detailing their plan to bring technology-driven economic and workforce development in their areas.

The team is looking to build an energy materials campus to produce midstream materials for energy generation, storage and distribution in the Kansas City area. Critical Materials Crossroads will create a highly trained workforce skilled in advanced manufacturing and automation, according to a release.

The UMKC Critical Materials Crossroads previously won a nearly $1 million award from the National Science Foundation Regional Innovation Engines Program in May 2023. The award was received throughout 24 months and aided in the development of semiconductor chips and computer batteries. It was funded through the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.

If the team’s proposal is granted the award will go towards leveraging partnerships with universities and businesses to foster growth in the manufacturing sector and bring more jobs to Kansas and Missouri.

Goals include:

  • Coordinate, facilitate and mentor the creation of 70 small businesses in Missouri and Kansas.
  • Increase Gross Domestic Product to the Kansas City Metropolitan Statistical Area by more than 5.5% ($17 Billion) by 2035, creating an average of 1,000 new jobs per year from 2026-2035 (10,000 jobs total).
  • Become a national thought leader in the Kansas City region on energy materials.
  • Secure a sustainable, competitive and complete U.S.-based supply chain for energy materials processing and manufacturing.
  • Create and maintain a pipeline of targeted degree/certificate holders to meet workforce needs.
  • Be the catalyst and trusted partner for U.S. energy material processing and manufacturing that drives innovation.
  • Develop a technology maturation network that rapidly scales new technologies from lab-scale to full-scale by providing centralized business support services and funding for startups and new innovations

“UMKC is proud to take the lead on behalf of the University of Missouri System and its four universities on this exciting effort to create a new industrial base in our region focused on computer chips and other microelectronics,” UMKC Chancellor Mauli Agrawal said in the release. “The potential for business formation and job creation is extraordinary, and we’ll be working with partners throughout Missouri and Kansas to make it happen.”