Three consortia led by the universities of Central Florida, Southern California and New York have been selected by the U.S. Department of Defense to submit full proposals for creating a $220 million Integrated Photonics Institute for Manufacturing Innovation. The finalists have until March 31 to submit full, 80-page proposals. Final selection is expected to be announced in June. The University of Central Florida’s Photonics Research Institute for Sustainable Manufacturing (PRISM) is leading a team of more than 55 industry partners and the universities of Alabama and Illinois, Clemson University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. It has proposed housing the Integrated Photonics Institute at the Florida Advanced Manufacturing Research Center, which is under construction near Kissimmee, Fla. The Research Foundation for the State University of New York (SUNY) submitted a proposal on behalf of the SUNY Polytechnic Institute, University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Arizona and MIT, and other academic and industry partners and stakeholders from California, New York and Massachusetts. The University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute has proposed an institute that would be headquartered in Los Angeles with regional hubs at the U.C. Berkeley, U.C. San Diego, Arizona State University, the University of New Mexico and Ohio State University. The headquarters and hubs would each focus on specific market segments and would work closely with regional industry. The White House put out an initial call for proposals in November, singling out the potential of integrated photonics technologies to enhance Internet networks, imaging and radar, noninvasive biosensing and genetic sequencing. The Integrated Photonics Institute would be a “teaching factory” providing foundry access, integrated design tools, automated packaging, assembly, testing and workforce development. The Department of Defense will award $110 million in federal money for the project, to be matched by at least $110 million in investment from institutions and industry. For more information, visit www.manufacturing.gov.