The EXPAND consortium consists of five universities (Andrews University, Milwaukee School of Engineering, University of Detroit Mercy, University of St. Thomas, and Western New England University) spread across the industrialized north of the United States from Minnesota to Massachusetts. The institutions are four-year private universities based nearby or within larger metropolitan areas with well-established industries that typically prioritize partnerships with more prominent major research universities. This EPIIC program will provide the necessary infrastructure, skillset and preparation for the institutions in the EXPAND consortium to increase and institutionalize external partnerships. In turn, this will enhance regional industry competitiveness by accelerating innovation and transferring expertise from underutilized academic institutions, resulting in realistic use-inspired research, technology transfer, and commercialization of the research frontier. The project aims to build strong and sustainable external partnerships in various disciplines of engineering and computer science, focusing on emerging technologies. The project's methods and approaches include sharing best practices and lessons learned to improve policies and processes for external partnerships, building faculty and staff expertise through development and support, and developing industry and community partners while raising the institutions' profiles through targeted activities and events. The potential contribution of this project lies in enhancing the capacity of these institutions to support local innovation and use-inspired research, providing students with experiential learning opportunities, developing faculty expertise in strategic industry collaborations, fostering innovation in emerging technologies by strengthening academia-industry connections, and contributing to workforce development in their respective regions. This project will not only benefit the EXPAND consortium universities but also demonstrate a model for how smaller institutions can collaborate to promote their development and improve efficiencies through the sharing of expertise and resources. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.