The National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) is an initiative focused on coordinating public and private investment in emerging advanced manufacturing technologies. NNMI brings together industry, academia, and government partners to leverage existing resources, collaborate, and co-invest to advance manufacturing innovation and accelerate commercialization.

NNMI creates a competitive, effective, and sustainable research-to-manufacturing infrastructure for U.S. industry and academia. The network consists of multiple linked Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation with common goals but unique technological concentrations.

Each institute accelerates U.S. advanced manufacturing by catalyzing the development of new technologies, educational competencies, production processes, and products via shared contributions from the public and private sectors and academia.

The institutes provide shared facilities to local start-ups and small manufacturers to help them scale up new technologies, accelerate technology transfer to the marketplace, and facilitate the adoption of innovation developments across supply chains. Each institute acts as a ‘teaching factory’ to build workforce skills at multiple levels and to strengthen business capabilities in large and small companies.

Individual institutes serve as technology hubs, benefitting both regional and national interests. By bridging the gap between applied research and product development with a focus on key technology areas, the institutes encourage even further investment and production in their region and across the United States.

As nodes in the NNMI, the institutes complement each other’s capabilities and benefit from shared approaches to matters such as intellectual property, contract research, and performance metrics. While the institutes each carry a particular regional focus, the network is truly national, integrated, and dynamic, aiming to foster innovation and deliver new capabilities that can stimulate the U.S. manufacturing sector on a large scale.