About the UMass Lowell Research Institute

The UMass Lowell Research Institute (UMLRI), located in Lincoln MA, is the Commonwealth’s newest emerging technology hub providing cradle to grave innovative solutions for our aerospace and defense industry partners and the DoD acquisition life cycle. The UMass Lowell Applied Research Corporation, a newly formed 501(c)3 non-profit, serves as the contracting entity on behalf of UMLRI. 

The Northstar Campus, a division of UMLRI, was created to accelerate early stage technologies in support of local military installations and nationwide across the National Defense Industrial Base. 

Strategically located in a 19,000 square foot facility just outside the gates of Hanscom AFB (Lincoln, MA), the UMLRI and Northstar Campus aim to enhance public-private partnerships between private industry, academia, and government with the charter to eliminate barriers to entry for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and startups. Additionally, Northstar serves to advance dual-use innovative and disruptive technologies by providing a platform to incubate, accelerate and decrease time to market. Rapid innovation and small business development are key components of our ecosystem, accomplished through targeted programming and workforce development training. From its earliest inception through today, the Northstar Campus vision remains to create community, spark innovation, and grow business.

From our earliest days as a source of brainpower for the Industrial Revolution unfolding in Lowell’s textile mills to the founding of the first plastics engineering department in the country, UMass Lowell has spent more than a century at the edge of what is possible.

Today, our new UMass Lowell Research Institute is emerging as a leader in bridging the gap between research and solutions that change people’s lives and provide world-class, cutting-edge technology to our warfighters.