ICAP Cohort 2 RFP is now live.

The Washington State Department of Commerce, hereafter called “COMMERCE,” is initiating a Request for Proposals (RFP) from industry-led consortia interested in participating in the second cohort of the Innovation Cluster Accelerator Program (ICAP). ICAP is an economic development strategy to strengthen industry ecosystems and accelerate economic development.

There are approximately 7,000 innovation clusters worldwide. From Washington state’s first cohort of innovation clusters to Canada’s Digital Supercluster (www.digitalsupercluster.ca) and the Queensland Robotics Cluster in Australia (www.qldrobo.org), clusters are increasingly used to grow existing industries, transform legacy industries and build entirely new industries. Around the world, government leaders and private industry executives look to innovation clusters to create trust-based collaboration platforms, speed up the pace of innovation, solve industry-level challenges and compete in new markets.

Our goal is to expand the program over the coming decade to:

• -Establish Washington as a global leader in key industry sectors
• -Support tech transfer and commercialization
• -Accelerate new start-ups and scale-ups
• -Grow businesses
• -Create high-value jobs throughout Washington
• -Increase export opportunities
• -Increase and support diversity, equity, and inclusion in business ownership and workforce

COMMERCE intends to award up to 5 contracts to fund the activities described in this RFP. Selected organizations will receive up to $300,000 each through a performance-based contract and will participate in COMMERCE’s cluster development program.

Applications due: November 28, 2023 at 5:00 pm PST

Submission link: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/c0be2d38b98e4699904051c536ea744f

Pre-Proposal Conference: https://vimeo.com/885754840/8e227d711c