TechConnectWV has released its Chemicals and Advanced Materials Blueprint, a detailed strategy for growth in one of West Virginia's most important industry clusters. The Blueprint was produced in collaboration with the Battelle Institute, a non-profit research organization, and the Chemical Alliance Zone.

"The strategies laid out in this Blueprint will help guide efforts to further develop the chemicals and advanced materials cluster in the state," West Virginia Secretary of Commerce Keith Burdette said in a press release. "They represent the type of public-private partnership that is required to succeed in the innovation economy."

TechConnectWV is a nonprofit coalition working to diversify and grow West Virginia's economy through innovation-based development. It identified chemicals and advanced materials as one of West Virginia's four key technology platforms, or areas where West Virginia has the best chance of developing a robust innovation economy. Blueprints for advanced energy, biometrics and biotechnology were previously released by TechConnectWV.

The Chemicals and Advanced Materials Blueprint outlines West Virginia's assets in the cluster, which include a large base of specialty chemicals and advanced materials companies, significant research programs at West Virginia University, Marshall University, and the National Energy Technology Laboratory, private sector R&D firms such as MATRIC Research and Touchstone Research Laboratory, unique pilot plant facilities at the WV Regional Technology Park, new technical training institutions, the Chemical Alliance Zone's technology incubator, and a number of economic development groups supporting growth in the cluster.