IEP Award Finalist Spotlight: Wichita State University

As part of its ongoing effort to help member institutions magnify their economic impact, APLU recently announced finalists for its 2023 Innovation & Economic Prosperity University Awards. The awards honor institutions performing exemplary work to advance the economic wellbeing of their states, regions, and the nation in the areas of talent, place, innovation and connections. In this post, APLU spotlights Wichita State University. The IEP Award winners will be announced at the 2023 APLU Annual Meeting, November 12-14, in Seattle, WA.

Wichita State University’s (WSU) Innovation Campus provides a host of resources supporting talent development, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The Innovation Campus provides access to research facilities, makerspaces and labs, and top-flight centers and institutes at Wichita State for students and non-students alike, providing technology and services that help facilitate product development and mixed-use. 

There has been a steady stream of industry partner facilities opening locations on the Innovation Campus since 2014. Currently, there are approximately 50 businesses with locations on the Innovation Campus, including Airbus, Boston Consulting Group, Hexagon, and Textron Aviation.  Thanks to a grant the federal Economic Development Administration awarded WSU in 2022, the university will construct the Hub for Advanced Manufacturing and Research on the Innovation Campus to aid in the rapid development and adoption of emerging smart manufacturing technologies for South Kansas and apply those new technologies to industry partners in our region. 

Beyond engineering, Wichita State’s Innovation Campus is the home of the Midwest Criminal Justice Institute (MCJI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Gun Crime Intelligence Center of Excellence (GCIC COE) and the National Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) Correlation and Training Center II (NNCTC II).