UMKC’s new Critical Materials Crossroads will take KC into the future | Opinion

Every so often, a region gets the opportunity to change its future.

We’ve seen it happen before. A university, industry and government come together around a bold idea. Research sparks innovation. Innovation attracts investment. Investment creates opportunity and industry. And over time, an entire region begins to see itself differently.

Silicon Valley didn’t become Silicon Valley overnight. Austin didn’t become a global technology hub by accident. Those communities made deliberate choices to invest in innovation and build unlikely partnerships. Most important, they believed they could become something they had never been before.

This week, Kansas City earned exactly that kind of opportunity.

The National Science Foundation selected Critical Materials Crossroads Engine — a regional initiative led by the University of Missouri-Kansas City — for one of the nation’s most historically significant investments in research, innovation and economic development.

That is extraordinary news for UMKC. More important, it is extraordinary news for everyone who believes in the future of this region.

For months now, people have asked me why I am so excited about Critical Materials Crossroads. The answer has a lot to do with critical materials. It has even more to do with Kansas City.

This summer, the FIFA World Cup has given Kansas City a chance to show the world who we are. Visitors from all over the world have experienced a community that welcomes big challenges, works together and delivers in big moments. That same spirit is what made Critical Materials Crossroads possible, and it’s also what will make it successful.

I believe this region is standing at the beginning of something that future generations may look back on as the moment Kansas City changed its trajectory — not because of a single grant or a single university, but because hundreds of organizations chose to imagine a different future and had the determination to build it together.

Critical Materials Crossroads was born from a challenge the United States can no longer afford to ignore. Critical materials are the minerals that make modern life possible. They are used to make the batteries in electric vehicles, the semiconductors in our computers and phones, the engines for our airplanes, the medical technologies that save lives and the systems that strengthen our national defense.

While many of those materials exist here in the United States, we still depend heavily on other countries to refine and process them. That dependence leaves our economy vulnerable and our national security exposed.

That’s the challenge. But for the first time in a long time, Kansas City well-positioned to help build the solution.

New domestic technology pipeline

Imagine a place where researchers, manufacturers, entrepreneurs, workforce organizations and civic leaders work side by side to solve that challenge together. New discoveries move quickly from university laboratories into factories. Students graduate into careers that didn’t exist just a few years earlier. Companies choose Kansas City because the talent, infrastructure and partnerships they need are already here.

That is what Critical Materials Crossroads is designed to make possible. By connecting research, manufacturing, workforce development and entrepreneurship into a single, coordinated ecosystem, Critical Materials Crossroads creates a complete domestic pipeline — from discovery to production — right here in the heart of the country.

When all of those pieces begin working together, the benefits extend far beyond the supply chain. They ripple across an entire regional economy.

Within the next decade, the initiative is expected to support more than 10,000 jobs, generate billions of dollars in private investment and contribute an estimated $40 billion in economic impact across the Kansas City metropolitan area. Those numbers matter because they represent people and possibility.

They represent graduates who can build meaningful careers here instead of looking elsewhere. Entrepreneurs who can turn new ideas into thriving businesses. Families who find new opportunity because an entire regional economy has grown stronger. A nation more secure and self-reliant. Those are the outcomes that matter most.

None of this would have been possible without an extraordinary coalition of partners. From universities and manufacturers to entrepreneurs, workforce organizations, civic leaders, local governments and economic development organizations, hundreds of partners helped shape this vision. They brought different perspectives, challenged our thinking and strengthened this effort from the very beginning.

To me, that’s the most inspiring part of this story. Critical Materials Crossroads isn’t just the result of a successful proposal. It’s the result of a region choosing to work together in a new way.

That is one of the unique roles universities can play. We bring people together around ideas that are larger than any one institution and help turn shared ambition into shared action.

Years from now, I hope people won’t remember this simply as the summer Kansas City received a major NSF investment. I hope they’ll remember it as the moment our region recognized what was possible and decided to build it together.

The opportunity before us is extraordinary.

Now comes the responsibility — and the privilege — of turning that vision into lasting opportunity for generations to come.

Mauli Agrawal is the chancellor of the University of Missouri-Kansas City.