UAB and BBA partner to win prestigious $600,000 NSF Partnership for Innovation grant
The National Science Foundation (NSF) will support a University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB)/Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA) collaboration through a $600,000 Partnership for Innovation (PFI) grant, which has the potential to enhance and create more knowledge-based jobs in the Birmingham region through UAB startups and spin-off companies.
This is one of only 17 PFI grants awarded this year, and the first ever given in the state of Alabama. PFI grants encourage academic and industry partners to work together on research discoveries to bolster U.S. competitiveness or provide a solution to a national and/or global problem.
The grant will support a synthetic diamond research project — “Innovations in Chemical Vapor Deposited Diamond Crystals and Nanostructured Diamond Coatings” — and it represents a significant milestone in a growing strategic trend of collaborative efforts between the BBA and UAB.