The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is no novice at securing federal research grants. The campus regularly receives among the most federal money between all research universities from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and other federal agencies.
And nearly every dollar is for administrating the project or team to accelerate innovation and discovery — they are almost never for ‘capital’ projects like a new building. But bioengineering, particularly in the state of Illinois, is a growing marketplace, and is thus reflected in federal funding. F&S was crucial to the success of a recent grant awarded to IBRL (Integrated Bioprocessing Research Laboratory), part of the College of ACES.
IBRL has been around a few years, but thanks to the grant and growth, their production capacity will soon double.
Said the EDA of the grant:
The Illinois Fermentation and Agriculture Biomanufacturing Tech Hub (iFAB Tech Hub), led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, seeks to scale precision fermentation to convert underutilized corn feedstocks into high-value, customized alternative proteins, food ingredients, materials, chemicals, and more. By leveraging its regional assets in corn and soy feedstocks, food processing infrastructure, and research leadership, this Tech Hub will provide a domestic biomanufacturing testbed through the development and deployment of multi-use pilot and demonstration capacity and equipment for biomanufacturing innovators, while also training a skilled workforce.
Integrating F&S
F&S was already an essential partner, said Brian Jacobson, IBRL associate director of strategic operations: “Our relationship with F&S is tremendous. At IBRL, we were originally built in 2018 and we’ve worked with trade shops for that entire time. They’re in our building doing something every day. F&S is absolutely critical.”
So, when Jacobson needed assistance, he turned again to F&S.
Along came a request for proposal from Jacobson, who was the pen behind the paperwork done for past IBRL projects and grant proposals. For this one, he sought out an F&S expert to help write and gather the parts of the request regarding a physical building, but also all the permits, requirements, and last details of what the capital process entails.
Tony Battaglia, F&S Capital Programs, collected all the documents to address regulations for the grant. Battaglia compiled, examined, and commissioned nearly 200 pages, essentially a program analysis and preliminary engineering report, but he generously recognizes his expert colleagues at F&S for their help.
“I couldn’t have done it without assistance from other folks at F&S: Dennis Craig, Cheryl Bicknell, David Wilcoxen, Bill Walsh, Kelly Jo Hoffman, Brian Finet, Alaina Davis, Lisa Peacock, Jon Hasselbring, Robbie Bauer,” he said. “Discussing details with all of them and diving into the weeds of the project, without my eyes getting crossed aligning the data with federal forms, was important. I’m the one that put their knowledge into a pretty format to send to the grant writers (IBRL) – merely a shepherd herding the cattle; they’re the ones producing the milk.”
Battaglia summarized some of the federal requirements, including detailed engineering plans: “Balancing energy usage because required air changes per hour are high and you don’t want contamination. What are the electrical needs to operate machines and equipment in the testing areas. Code compliance, making sure emergency egress is addressed and combustibility/fuel loads aren’t being overlooked. Building materials have to be substantial enough to meet temperature gain/loss thresholds and withstand seismic activity. Environmental regulations from soil conditions and stormwater management, to endangered species on the property: feds have practices for that, as well.”
“It was a unique situation applying for capital funding as part of a grant,” Jacobson said. “Getting federal funds for a capital project is rare. We wouldn’t have received that grant without Tony’s help to get that preliminary engineering report done in a short period of time.”