By Macy Byars
More companies that turn biological materials into consumer products could be coming to Nebraska. With the help of a $15 million, two-year grant from the National Science Foundation announced Tuesday, RuralSTAMINA will support students and startups building businesses that turn ag products into goods like fuels, pharmaceuticals and plastics.
RuralSTAMINA is based at Iowa State University and encompasses about 70 partner organizations across Nebraska and Iowa, including businesses, research institutions and investment groups.
Nicole Buan is a biochemist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, which partners with RuralSTAMINA.
“We have people who have more expertise on the business side of things, but they're going to need to work with researchers to know how to support a science business, so that's the kind of thing that RuralSTAMINA will do,” Buan said. “It'll broadly benefit Nebraska's bioeconomy.”
The bioeconomy – which includes all economic partners turning biological materials into secondary consumer goods – is a $4 trillion industry. That could grow to up to $10 trillion in the next 10 years.
RuralSTAMINA’s federal funding has the chance to grow with the industry if it’s successful. Up to $160 million could be available over a 10-year period.
Funding comes from the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines program. RuralSTAMINA joins 12 other projects in the program’s second cohort. It competed with 71 other proposals.
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