Arrowhead Center receives $1.2 million award for entrepreneurial hub

In 2022, Arrowhead Center at NMSU received a five-year, $1.22 million award from a $15 million National Science Foundation investment through the NSF’s Innovation Corps, or I-Corps, Southwest Region Hub.

The I-Corps Southwest Region Hub is one of five hubs across the country and is led by the University of Texas at Austin. Other universities in the hub include NMSU, the University of Texas at El Paso, Rice University, Louisiana State University, Oklahoma State University, Texas A&M and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

“Establishing strong partnerships with like-minded institutions will bolster access for our I-Corps teams and lead to stronger outcomes, both for New Mexico and the Southwest region,” says Kathryn Hansen, Arrowhead Center director.

Arrowhead will lead the hub’s diversity, equity and inclusion and accessibility efforts. NMSU, which is a Hispanic-serving institution, and Arrowhead Center have a strong record prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and developing best practices, especially in the innovation and entrepreneurial space.

Arrowhead Center became an NSF I-Corps site in 2016 and started the Aggie I-Corps program, which has supported more than 140 teams of student and faculty inventors in advancing and commercializing their research. Aggie I-Corps participants have raised more than $5 million in investment and grants and have created more than 150 jobs.

A core mission of the new Southwest Region Hub is to develop a systematic and comprehensive regional network of programming that accelerates the translation of federally funded research to innovations that support the long-term success of academic startups, deep-tech workforce development and economic growth.