The Applied Sciences NYC Competition

New York City already had a few tech clusters. Some were quite established, while others were just emerging. As one report put it, the city had “a better than average foundation of IT and biotech companies that could easily be built upon,” as well as a large and growing digital media sector. But the city ranked only thirty-third in terms of a metro-area science and engineering workforce, behind not only tech hubs like San Jose, California; Austin, Texas; Boston; and San Francisco, but also Hartford, Connecticut; Sacramento, California; and Richmond, Virginia.

It wasn’t only tech companies that were scrambling to fill jobs. Many of the city’s other clusters, such as fashion, media, and health care, needed engineering and technical talent.

Science Shortage: Science and engineering jobs are a critical factor for innovation and economic growth. The New York metropolitan area lags many other metros.

NYCEDC concluded that the game changer it was looking for would be a new, world-class science and engineering graduate school campus.

Building a brand-new institution from scratch was too risky; instead, the NYCEDC reasoned, the city’s best bet was to find a capable and highly ranked institution or group of institutions that wanted to come to or expand in New York City.

Seth Pinsky: “To be a leader in the twenty-first century you have to be a leader in innovation.”

On December 16, 2010, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel unveiled an international competition in search of a university to build a world-class applied science and engineering campus within the city.

To help attract universities, the city offered the choice of four sites, including one on Roosevelt Island—the winning institution could take its pick, or propose another location—and $100 million in city funds for infrastructure improvements to make the site ready for development.