Clone of 2025 Blue Sky Competition

The aim of the Blue Sky Competition at NAMRC/MSEC is to identify long-term challenges and new visionary ideas for manufacturing so to influence the future of manufacturing research and education in the U.S. Authors will present their ideas during the conference and presentation winners, as determined by the committee, will receive the NAMRI | SME Dornfeld Manufacturing Vision Award at the SME Fall Gala.

This award is named after the late University of California at Berkeley professor, fellow and past director of SME, who was considered a global leader in sustainable and smart manufacturing. The award recognizes outstanding vision and leadership within the manufacturing community.

The competition will be judged by a panel of industry, academia and government experts including federal program officers interested in new concepts for large multi-project manufacturing research programs with relevance to their missions. Such ideas are often described as “radical,” “outrageous,” “transformational,” “unconventional” and “breakthrough.”

Presentations should pose grand challenges to be addressed by pursuing the manufacturing research vision, describing the intersections between disparate disciplines necessary to advance that vision. Topical areas should extend beyond the scope of a single investigator and show potential for transformative impact in areas of interest to federal agencies.

To enter the Blue Sky Competition:

Complete the form below and submit a one-page abstract. Each abstract should be no more than one page in length, including the title. The abstract should not include names of submitters and their affiliations. Only those abstracts without information about the author(s) will be sent to the selection committee for review.

Submissions will be judged by the following criteria:

Scope
Is the proposed idea a “grand challenge” of large scale or a singular research problem?

Interdisciplinary Nature of Idea
To what extent does the proposed idea require the intersection of disparate disciplines to achieve the described vision?

Quality of Presentation
How well is the proposed idea articulated and motivated?

Potential Impact
What is the potential of the proposed idea to influence and transform the future of manufacturing research and education?

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Please submit your one-page abstract below:*

Only anonymized abstracts (without author information) will be sent to the selection committee for review.

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2026 Blue Sky Competition