Welcome to the ERC Program

The National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Centers are interdisciplinary, multi-institutional centers that join academia, industry, and government in partnership to produce transformational engineered systems along with engineering graduates who are adept at innovation and primed for leadership in the global economy. At the ERCs, academe and industry collaborate in the pursuit of advances in complex engineered systems and systems-level technologies that could spawn whole new industries or radically transform the product lines, practices, and processes of current industries. ERCs operate at the interface between the discovery-driven culture of science and the innovation-driven culture of engineering. They provide a venue where industry can work with faculty and students on resolving long-range challenges, producing the knowledge needed for steady advances in technology and their speedy transition to the marketplace.