For the third time in as many months, Georgia Piedmont Technical College has been awarded a substantial grant through the National Science Foundation. The NSF’s Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity -or EPIIC- grant for $399,696 brings the total amount awarded to Georgia Piedmont through to nearly $1.75M. The “grant capacity building grant” funds are earmarked to allow GPTC to lay the groundwork for other small schools who wish to invest in grant writing and strategic workforce development outreach efforts.

Part of the requirements of the capacity building grant for smaller institutions is partnering with larger colleges – preferably research-based Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Georgia Piedmont Technical College partnered with Hampton University, a private HBCU based in Hampton, Virginia.

The collaboration project between Hampton and Georgia Piedmont is called Workforce and Innovation Collaborative for Regional Partnerships (WICRP). WICRP means both institutions will work together throughout the life of the three-year grant to create a toolkit to build academic and innovative growth through the development of strategic initiatives aimed at strengthening industry partnerships. Once it’s in place, GPTC will take the newly-created template and use it as a training tool for fellow technical and community colleges who wish to build up their grant-writing acumen and partnership outreach.

“To a small technical college in Georgia to be named an awardee by the NSF for a highly-competitive grant, not once, not twice, but three times- speaks volumes to what we do here,” said GPTC President Dr. Tavarez Holston. “The nearly $400K is an investment in the future of our workforce and will go a long way in overcoming some of the inequity challenges faced by HBCUs and Minority-Serving Institutions like ours. Over the next three years, we will be able to lay the groundwork for industry-specific training and programs, based on strategic, data-driven research.”