The University of Tennessee’s (UT) SPARK Innovation Center, part of the Heartland Climate Tech Partnership, supports more than 15 cleantech startups per year. SPARK Innovation Center was first awarded a $50K award from the Office of Technology Transitions’ Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) in 2020 to launch operations (check out our conversation with their team in 2021). They received an additional $300K EPIC award in 2021 as part of the Heartland Climate Tech Partnership, which allowed them to launch a new cleantech accelerator for the region.