students
Encouraging Entrepreneurs & Innovators
in the Environmental Industry:
ETC2’s University Initiatives

In this age of fast-paced technological change and innovation, the Environmental Technology Commercialization Center (ETC2), managed by Battelle, plays an important role in bringing scientific discoveries from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) laboratories to the marketplace. But ETC2 embraces a larger vision – the recognition that to nourish this technological revolution, we have a responsibility to inspire and energize the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators. Accordingly, ETC2 has launched several initiatives designed to engage university students in projects that will provide them with the skills necessary to fully participate in unfolding technological enterprises.

University partnerships are also in place in Europe, where the Battelle Geneva Research Center is host to five students. While pursuing their graduate degrees at the University of Geneva and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Lausanne, these students are contributing to Battelle’s research in phytoremediation; analysis, environmental fate, and removal of DDT and PCBs; and the bioavailability of metals.
Through an innovative partnership between ETC2 and the University of Washington in Seattle, students in an international business class are looking at a new method developed by EPA scientists for regenerating the granulated activated carbon filters used in environmental and chemical processing industries. The students are evaluating the potential market for EPA’s regeneration technique in two international markets: Mexico and Germany. Their work will provide ETC2 and EPA researchers with information that defines market opportunities and barriers and makes market entry suggestions. Working with EPA and Battelle scientists, technology developers, and private sector firms, the work of these students can ultimately help get valuable EPA technology into use faster.

In Ohio, ETC2 has entered into partnerships with three universities. At the University of Cincinnati, multidisciplinary student teams will develop and implement a strategic technology evaluation program that will focus on selected technologies emerging from EPA laboratories. Students will also participate in a national seminar on technology transfer practices.

At Central State University (CSU) in Wilberforce, students and faculty provided support for four ETC2 Tech Dialogues. Recently, an ETC2-funded feasibility study was undertaken to address the potential for an Environmental Technology Incubator to be housed in a laboratory facility at CSU. The first step would be the creation of a nonprofit Environmental Technology Services Center. Should the Services Center – and ultimately the Environmental Technology Incubator – be brought to fruition, CSU students will be fully engaged in outreach services to technology-based businesses as well as in laboratory research activities.

Students at Shawnee State University in Portsmouth will be the beneficiaries of a unique arrangement fostered by ETC2 that transferred over $30,000 worth of excess EPA supplies, training materials, and equipment to the University. The equipment will be utilized to strengthen the laboratory component of the environmental engineering technology curriculum that prepares students in south central Ohio for environmental careers in operations, maintenance, and management positions.

ETC2 is proud of its role in university collaborations that help transform the talents and curiosity of young people into technological skills for the future. The diverse kinds of university partnerships described here embody strategies that will well equip today’s students to become tomorrow’s innovators in business and science. It is hoped that a similar program will be instituted on the East Coast in the future.

For more information about ETC2, please call the program office at (440) 734-0094 or visit its Web site at www.etc2.org.

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