Program Guidelines

To read the Program Guidelines, please click here.

Definition of a Center of Economic Excellence

At the heart of each Center are one or more world-class scientists who lead the Center’s research endeavors. These endowed professors are in turn supported by a group of senior faculty members, as well as a research team consisting of junior faculty members, research faculty and graduate students.

Typically, a Center includes appropriate research infrastructure, technical staff and sustainable funding sources. Also, each Center must be supported by affiliated graduate programs. Finally, a Center should be relevant to ongoing university research programs and existing objectives at the home institution and participating universities.

The non-state partnerships increase each institution's research capabilities far beyond what would have been possible had a constituent group of faculty, graduate students, and technical staff worked independently. Each Center is designed to generate a critical mass of additional researchers, businesses, and service providers in an identified research field.

Eligible Disciplines

South Carolina’s research universities must establish Centers of Economic Excellence in specific scientific and knowledge-based industries, such as engineering, biomedicine, technology, and energy science. For details about all program and application requirements, please visit the Program Guidelines.

Oversight

The SmartState program is overseen by the SmartState Review Board.

Authorizing Legislation

To view the legislation that authorized the SmartState Program, click here.

Related Legislation

To see information about related legislation, click here.

Importance of the SmartState Program to the Future of South Carolina

The SmartState Program improves South Carolina’s standard of living by creating well-paying jobs. The program funds research in specific areas that show the greatest promise for higher-paying job creation. These areas include advanced materials, health and life sciences, automotive engineering, fuel cells, and nanotechnology.

The SmartState Program enhances quality of life in South Carolina and around the globe. The program funds research to find next-generation therapeutics for cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, alternative energy sources, and many other solutions to crucial global problems. Once transferred to the marketplace, these breakthroughs will improve lives in South Carolina and throughout the world.

The SmartState Program attracts new federal and private funding for research in South Carolina. The program is a magnet for outside investment. State money for each Center is matched dollar-for-dollar by non-state investors. To date, the program has resulted in more than $400 million dollars in non-state investment into the South Carolina economy.

The SmartState Program recruits scientists and engineers to lead high-impact, economy-building research programs. These top-flight scientists help South Carolina stimulate patenting, venture capital investment and startup company creation.

The SmartState Program creates a talent pipeline for South Carolina. The presence of top researchers and facilities via the SmartState Program helps South Carolina’s research universities attract the best and brightest students—our next generation of researchers. New SmartState-inspired graduate programs include automotive engineering, electrochemistry, fuel cell engineering, and mathematical modeling.

The SmartState Program helps South Carolina companies succeed. The research funded by the program directly supports the strategic business goals of South Carolina companies. SmartState researchers are working to generate technology that South Carolina companies can use to create new products, improve processes, increase sales, and ultimately create jobs. The SmartState Program fosters an innovative environment in which technology transfer can lead to new start-up companies from university research.

The SmartState Program brings together the brightest minds and most cutting-edge technology within specific, knowledge-based fields. This innovative environment promotes the kinds of research breakthroughs that can become marketable applications through the development of start-up companies to produce and sell these new products and through technology transfer and licensing.

The SmartState Program builds South Carolina’s competitive advantages. In the new technology-driven economy, states that don’t focus on research, innovation, and commercialization will lose jobs. Legislative action such as the SmartState Program enables South Carolina to attract higher-paying jobs on the merit of the state’s knowledge base and technology transfer capabilities.

The SmartState Program advances South Carolina's efforts to create a vibrant knowledge economy. The SmartState Program actively supports job-creating research in high-growth, high-wage industries that have the power to transform the state’s economy.