LIFT, the Detroit-based Department of Defense manufacturing innovation institute, has signed a new cooperative agreement with the Department of Defense Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Program to continue to operate the public-private partnership and national manufacturing innovation institute (MII) for the next five years.

ManTech is overseen by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and the contract will be managed through the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The new agreement’s total value is $49.4 million, including industry cost-share, funded annually through 2028.

Operated by the American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute, LIFT is a nonprofit public-private partnership whose mission is to “Drive American Advanced Manufacturing into the Future Through Technology and Talent Development.”

The new agreement enables LIFT to continue its work as a DoD Manufacturing Innovation Institute and participate in the Manufacturing USA network, focused on “materials and manufacturing technologies to advance the systems engineering approach needed for the design, build, test, and manufacture of components.” It also requires that LIFT continue its focus on advanced materials, manufacturing process, systems engineering and the integration of materials characterization, captured through computational tools, such as Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) across different materials applications to benefit the DoD and the national industrial manufacturing base.

“Our continued partnership with the Department of Defense solidifies LIFT as a national asset and the national hub for the design, development, verification and validation of advanced materials and manufacturing processes,” said Nigel Francis, CEO and executive director, LIFT. “The challenges we are addressing from manufacturing technology and talent perspectives can only truly be addressed through public-private partnerships like we operate here at LIFT, and I am looking forward to what we can achieve together over the next five years.”

“LIFT has continued to show the value it promised the Department of Defense in 2014 when we committed to establishing the institute in Detroit,” said Director of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Manufacturing Technology Program Tracy Frost.”