Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that Binghamton University will receive a $20 million grant from New York state. This funding will help maintain BU’s leading role as home to the NextFlex Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovations Institute.

The grant matches another $20 million National Manufacturing Innovation Institute award received last fall. According to Cuomo, the grant will help fund the institute and develop the center, which is located in the former IBM facility in Endicott.

The institute is a part of an initiative started by President Barack Obama that supports advanced manufacturing, with more than $500 million in investments toward developing technologies to strengthen American manufacturing. The facility will provide a place for graduate and undergraduate BU students working in collaboration with other companies — such as Corning, GE, Lockheed Martin and i3 — and universities to research flexible manufacturing and electronics.

This initiative focuses on medical applications, because BU researchers are specifically looking into how flexible technologies can be incorporated into health-related services. Some of these applications include health-monitoring patches, medical devices, sensors and prosthetic devices. This funding will go toward purchasing materials and hiring more researchers, which will further the current research and expand the facility.

According to BU President Harvey Stenger, this research initiative will greatly benefit the Southern Tier.

“The concepts and ideas are limitless and we have opportunities … to develop projects and manufacturing processes for products that will be made here,” Stenger said in a statement. “We can encourage and provide opportunities for manufacturing here in a cost-effective way that makes sense for our community and our environment.”

The initiative at BU has received a total of $75 million in federal awards and $100 million in non-federal awards, from both New York state and various companies. According to Mark Poliks, the technical director of the Center for Advanced Microelectronics Manufacturing and a professor in the systems science and industrial engineering department, this funding will aid the growth and development of the center and research as well as BU overall.

“We will be bringing in more research funds and with more research funds we can bring in more undergraduate and graduate students to research,” Poliks said. “In addition, it strengthens our relationships not only with federal agencies but also with our corporate partners. Binghamton is very strong in collaborating research with companies and this is a demonstration of that.”

The first year of the initiative program is expected to create up to 200 academic and private sector research jobs and up to 1,000 over the next five years.

According to Cuomo, this initiative is aiding in the redevelopment and growth of manufacturing in the Southern Tier.

“There are numerous applications of this technology,” Cuomo said in a statement. “The approach of birthing it here, growing it here and manufacturing and making it here is exciting. It is the technology of tomorrow and the approach of tomorrow. We believe in it and are investing in it and we’re 100 percent behind what you’re doing here.”