The Ohio Federal Research Network Round 2 Centers of Excellence solicitation closed on June 30, 2016. 


The OFRN Round 2 awardees and their research and development projects are:

  1. Wright State University, Ohio University, University of Toledo, The Air Force Institute of Technology, Comsat Architects, and GIRD's "Intelligence Channel Sensing"
  2. Wright State University, Ohio University, The Air Force Institute of Technology, and Galois' "Test & Evaluation of Autonomous Systems (TEAS)"
  3. Wright State University, The Ohio State University, Case Western Reserve University, DataScience.com, Kairos Research, NCR Labs, Tenet3, Design Knowledge, Illumination Works, Columbus Collaboratory, Amperand, MatchTx, Perduco, HP, Lexis Nexis, Ipsos, Nuance, Heureka Software, and IBM TJ Watson Research Center's "Human-Centered Big Data (HCBD)"
  4. University of Cinncinati, The Ohio State University, University of Toledo, Wright State University, and Eccrine Systems' "Advanced Cognitive and Physical Sweat Biosensing"
  5. The Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, Wright State Research Institute, Bertec Corp, and SpineDynX's "Motion Sickness Interactions with Spine Disorders (MOSSD)"
  6. Univeristy of Dayton Research Institue, Case Western Reserve University, University of Cinncinati, Ohio University, Wright State University, Youngtown State University, NONA Composites, Orbital-ATK, GE Aerospace, and Lockheed Martin's "Low Cost Manufacturing for Limited Production Aircraft Composite Structures"
  7. The Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, Air Force Research Laboratory, Miami, Innovative Scientific Solutions, and Honeywell's "Advanced Turbine Cooling"
  8. The Ohio State University, University of Dayton Research Institute, Case Western Reserve University, and Battelle Memorial Institute's "UAV Icing Protection"​​​​​​​


Read the full announcement here. 

About Round 2

The Ohio Federal Research Network (OFRN) received funding from the Ohio General Assembly in the fiscal year 2016-2017 state biennial operating budget that was signed into law by the Governor on July 1, 2015 as a strategic priority initiative of the Ohio Federal and Military Jobs Commission (OFMJC).

The projects proposed in the approved COE White Papers were intended to advance priority research thrust areas of the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL), National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC), Naval Medical Research Unit – Dayton (NAMRU-D), and National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationGlenn Research Center (NASA-GRC), while also increasing research funding, talent and capabilities in Ohio with an emphasis on creating and filling new jobs.

The OFRN establishes a distinctly different approach to technology based economic development with a focus on aggregating and leveraging federal, academic and private sector capabilities and resources in Ohio to develop proactive and innovative solutions to address emerging federal research requirements. The aim of the OFRN is to provide a solid return on investment to both the federal customer and the State of Ohio. The former would benefit with translational research advances to improve operator performance and mission success and the latter would benefit with the transition of the research to Ohio defense and commercial enterprises that would create new products and fill new jobs. 

The OFRN through its collaboration with the AFRL, NASIC, NAMRU-D, and NASA-GRC has identified research priorities and organized the universities and colleges in Ohio around primary research thrust areas of importance to the federal missions, technology roadmaps and strategic priorities of AFRL, NASIC, NAMRU-D, and NASA-GRC.1 The OFRN research COEs were developed after thorough review of the strategic plans and priority planning documents of the Air Force, DOD, NASA-GRC and State of Ohio as well as through an iterative review and briefings on federal requirements provide by AFRL, NASIC, NAMRU-D, and NASA-GRC over the past few months. COE leads were selected based on their technical expertise and existing customer relationships.

The Wright State Applied Research Corporation (WSARC), now Parallax Advanced Research, has been designated by the OFMJC as the Program Administrator for the OFRN.


Key Events & Dates