As Western Illinois University prepares to better serve the needs of today’s students and the community, working to help drive that success is the new and evolving Western Illinois University Quad Cities Innovation Center. WIU President Kristi Mindrup told the QCBJ editorial board “Our strategy with the innovation center or innovation hub, first and foremost, […]
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As Western Illinois University prepares to better serve the needs of today’s students and the community, working to help drive that success is the new and evolving Western Illinois University Quad Cities Innovation Center.
WIU President Kristi Mindrup told the QCBJ editorial board “Our strategy with the innovation center or innovation hub, first and foremost, is ensuring that we are contributing to workforce development, economic development and ensuring that we’re offering programs and partnerships that are beneficial to the region.”
In fact, Ms. Mindrup said, “Everything we do in the Quad Cities will be part of the innovation center.”
The university president envisions, for example, a partnership “where you’re inspiring high schools students, connecting them to what has traditionally been a more trade-focused program, but also connecting that then to the four-year experience where they will have additional opportunities to understand perhaps the management of a welding operation, and those sorts of things are conversations we’re having with our community college partners and schools.”
The center under development has already launched the Quad Cities Manufacturing Institute. It’s a partnership between the University of Illinois, Iowa State University and WIU-QC to support innovation, research and workforce development for the Rock Island Arsenal.
At the QCMI’s launch in August 2024, Ms. Mindrup said the collaboration between educational institutions and industry is designed to “drive technological advancements and nurture a highly skilled workforce for the Quad Cities region and beyond.”
The new space on the WIU-QC campus will focus on cutting-edge research and development in advanced and additive manufacturing and materials, as well as work with defense and industry partners while nurturing a skilled workforce.
Quad Cities Chamber President Peter Tokar III has called it “a giant leap forward in positioning the Quad Cities as a leader in manufacturing innovation. The combination of Tier 1 research institutions, community collaborators and local industry leaders will cement the Quad Cities as an economic powerhouse and innovation hub of the Midwest.”
The WIU-QC innovation center’s overall development would be accelerated dramatically if Illinois state Sen. Mike Halpin is successful in capturing $7.2 million in state funding for it. Mr. Halpin was approached by WIU last fall with a strategic plan for an innovation network that would emphasize the education, health care sector and engineering manufacturing sectors.
“You could tell that they put some thought into it because they wanted to emphasize the things that they are already good at and not trying to be all things to all students in the Quad Cities,” he told the QCBJ.
To aid that effort, Mr. Halpin, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Education Appropriations, introduced Senate Bill 1308 to fund it in 2024. He reintroduced it this year, he said, to put it on Senate leadership’s radar as they craft the state’s 2026 spending plan.
Even without those dollars, however the center will continue to move forward.
“The idea with the funding isn’t that the funding makes the idea happen,” said Zach Messersith, WIU’s director of government affairs and communications. “The funding makes the idea happen in a more robust, quicker manner. But it’s not solely dependent on it.”
Ms. Mindrup compared the developing center to a college park model, “which means we invite other collaborators to come to campus and look at opportunities for perhaps shared curriculum or interdisciplinary research collaboration.”
Potential partners are already meeting about the center, and center planners are researching innovation hubs in Illinois, according to Audrey Adamson, WIU’s executive director of outreach and Quad Cities Campus operations.
Examples include the SIU Research Park, a nonprofit corporation affiliated with Southern Illinois University-Carbondale; and the University of Illinois Springfield’s Innovation Center. Later, Ms. Adamson said, “We are hoping to bring partner schools and organizations onto campus, along with incubator space for new ideas.”
In the future, the center also could help WIU compete for students with private-sector job recruiters who are offering incentive packages that include hourly pay ranging from $20 to $25. “We’re a victim of our own economic success in Illinois in that people are choosing to go straight into the workforce and earn money even though it might be a wiser, long-term strategy to get that degree,” Mr. Halpin said.
Overall workforce retention also is a “huge piece” of the new center’s efforts. In fact, among WIU’s goals is to “have that true workforce development piece,” Ms. Mindrup said. “We are rich with high schools in this area, wonderful high schools with outstanding programs that we are already partnering with that we want to build upon in the innovation center.”
Ms. Mindrup added that WIU’s Small Business Development Center and its Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs will also be part of the innovation center.
“Both of these are great examples of the good work that WIU is already doing in the area. But to establish a college park model where all of this is under one roof with a shared focus on those three key areas of education, manufacturing and health care that’s where we see creating that hub is going to create some very positive synergy.”
