The New Research Powerhouse
How 37 Research Universities are Fueling America’s Next Deeptech Boom
When most people think about American innovation, they picture a familiar landscape: Silicon Valley startups, Boston biotech clusters, New York fintech hubs. But the real story of the next decade of scientific and technological advancement is unfolding far from the coasts. It’s happening across the Interior Innovation Corridor (IIC) — a vast, interconnected region running through the Southeast, Midwest, and Mountain West.
This corridor is home to a quiet but extraordinary concentration of scientific capability:
37 R1 and R2 research universities that collectively form one of the most powerful and under-recognized innovation engines in the country.
These universities are not just teaching institutions; they are global research powerhouses that anchor America’s hardtech, deeptech, and applied innovation landscape. And they are poised to redefine which regions will lead the next industrial and technological revolution.
A Critical Mass of Research Excellence
The IIC’s 37 research universities rival — and in many areas surpass — the scientific density of coastal innovation hubs. These include world-class institutions such as:
University of Michigan
Georgia Tech
Purdue University
University of Tennessee
Vanderbilt University
University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
NC State University
University of Colorado Boulder
Texas A&M University
What ties these universities together is not just scale or prestige, but specificity: they specialize in the deep, complex, industrial technologies that drive America’s real economy.
These institutions collectively anchor 36 centers of excellence spanning:
advanced materials
next-generation composites
nanotechnology
aerospace and defense systems
quantum and supercomputing
cancer and precision medicine
brain and behavioral sciences
circular bioeconomy and sustainability
automotive and mobility systems
agtech and food innovation
energy storage and grid technologies
This concentration of expertise is not accidental — it reflects regional strengths shaped by decades of manufacturing, engineering, energy, agriculture, and national lab partnerships.
The Engine Behind America’s Applied Innovation
Unlike coastal regions where software dominates patent filings and venture funding, the Interior Innovation Corridor is built around applied innovation — research that becomes products, infrastructure, industrial processes, and long-term economic value.
Engineering schools in the IIC outperform many coastal peers in:
materials science
computational engineering
advanced manufacturing
energy systems
biomedical devices
robotics and automation
These are precisely the disciplines required for the next wave of American competitiveness.
As one of our team members summarized perfectly:
“With 37 research universities driving breakthroughs in advanced manufacturing, deeptech, energy, materials, medtech, and AI, the Interior Innovation Corridor forms one of the most concentrated and under-recognized engines of applied innovation in the United States.”
This isn’t the future — it’s already happening.
Why This Matters Now
The U.S. faces global challenges that will not be solved by consumer apps or cloud-based software tools. The hard problems are material, physical, and systems-level:
grid modernization
semiconductor reshoring
aerospace modernization
climate resilience
medical device innovation
energy storage and hydrogen systems
food and agriculture transformation
The IIC is uniquely positioned to lead in all of them.
These 37 universities represent not just academic hubs, but on-ramps for commercialization, pipeline talent sources, and anchors for regional venture ecosystems. They form the backbone of a rising innovation economy that is less crowded, less correlated, and more deeply tied to America’s industrial strength.
The Takeaway
The Interior Innovation Corridor is no longer a hidden asset. It is an emerging national powerhouse whose scientific and engineering depth rivals any region in the country. With 37 research-intensive universities at its core, the IIC is building the technologies that will define the next 50 years of American competitiveness.
This is where the next generation of breakthroughs will come from — and where the smart capital is starting to flow.