WASHINGTON, DC (TIP): President Obama launched, September 26, the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee “2.0,” part of a continuing effort to maintain U.S. leadership in the emerging technologies that will create highquality manufacturing jobs and enhance America’s global competitiveness. The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) was created by the President in 2011 with the recognition that industry, academia, and government must work in partnership to revitalize our manufacturing sector. The new Steering Committee comprises leaders in industry, academia, and labor, will build on progress made by the inaugural Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee, created by the President. As outlined in its report released last year, Capturing Domestic Competitive Advantage in Advanced Manufacturing, that group called for a national effort to strengthen the U.S. advanced manufacturing sector.

Most importantly, the inaugural Steering Committee called for sustaining U.S. investments in science, technology, and innovation; establishing a National Network of Manufacturing Innovation Institutes-a set of public-private partnerships to build shared high-tech facilities and advance U.S. leadership in emerging technologies; upgrading communitycollege workforce training programs and deploying the talent of returning veterans to meet critical manufacturing skills needs; and improving the business climate for manufacturing investment through tax, regulatory, energy, and trade reform. The new Steering Committee will build on the progress made over the last several years and continue to make America a magnet for jobs and manufacturing so we continue to manufacture things the rest of the world buys. Through Administrative action, bipartisan legislative proposals, and private-sector initiatives, several of the Steering Committee’s original recommendations are now well underway. For example, this fall, three new manufacturing-innovation institutes will join the pilot institute created last year in Youngstown, Ohio, as a down payment on the formation of a National Network for Manufacturing Innovation.

Also in response to the initial Steering Committee, the Administration has made investing in community colleges an important focus, proposing an $8 billion fund to help community colleges work with industry on new workforce development and training collaborations. The Administration continues to make investment in advanced manufacturing research and development a sustained priority, with a focus on accelerating the launch of technologies from lab to market. The Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Steering Committee 2.0 will function as a working group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). In addition, it will work closely with the White House’s National Economic Council and Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Department of Commerce, to fully implement the initial Steering Committee’s previous recommendations, scale promising manufacturing workforce innovations and partnerships, and identify new, concrete strategies for securing the Nation’s competitive advantage in transformative early-stage technologies. In addition, the Advanced Manufacturing Steering Committee 2.0 will engage the broader manufacturing community through regional working sessions and forums designed to surface examples of innovative strategies to build US manufacturing competitiveness. Recognizing that the U.S. manufacturing sector draws its strength from a multitude of tightly linked capabilities contributed by the private sector, academia, and labor, the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership and its second-generation Steering Committee will draw upon leadership from across manufacturers of all sizes, leading universities, and labor.