08/17/2026
Media contacts: Brooke Coupal, strategic communication manager (email: Brooke_Coupal@uml.edu), and Nancy Cicco, associate director of media relations (email: Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu).
LOWELL, Mass. – UMass Lowell will play a key role in a 10-year Department of War initiative aimed at modernizing textile manufacturing in the United States to support the defense industry. The FutureTEX award – which includes $36 million in its first year and has a ceiling of $480 million over a decade – brings together industry, government, university and nonprofit partners to advance manufacturing technologies of textiles for military and domestic applications. FutureTEX will champion workforce development and modernization of facilities and equipment to increase U.S. competitiveness.
FutureTEX’s goal is to work with American manufacturing to capitalize on digital infrastructure and other emerging technologies, making the domestic supply network more robust for the defense industrial base. North Carolina State University is spearheading the initiative in partnership with UMass Lowell, Drexel University, Gaston College, Georgia Tech and ISAIC.
FutureTEX will empower American textile manufacturing by adopting advanced technologies and techniques to enable manufacturing of new materials and improve capability industry-wide. The initiative is actively recruiting industry partners to be part of the project, and has already received more than 100 letters of support from industry organizations.
“Textile manufacturing is deeply woven into the history of Lowell and UMass Lowell, and today we are building on that legacy by helping shape the future of advanced manufacturing,” said UMass Lowell Chancellor Julie Chen. “FutureTEX adds an exciting new dimension to our strengths in advanced manufacturing and defense, building on the connections among researchers, students and industry partners that we are expanding through the Lowell Innovation Network Corridor.”
NC State is working with Gaston College to establish a nonprofit organization that will assume administrative oversight of FutureTEX. This new institute will be housed at Gaston College’s Kimbrell Campus in Belmont, N.C., with hubs in Lowell, Mass., Raleigh, N.C., Philadelphia, Pa., and Atlanta, Ga.
“FutureTEX is focused on creating a cutting-edge national ecosystem for defense textiles that simply doesn’t exist today," says David Hinks, chief strategic partnerships officer of FutureTEX and the Prakash Chand Kochhar Dean of NC State's Wilson College of Textiles. “This will involve commercializing applied research to help American textile manufacturing meet the needs of both the warfighter and the domestic textile industry.”
As a core FutureTEX partner and the initiative’s Massachusetts regional hub, UMass Lowell will connect the consortium with the region’s advanced materials, manufacturing and defense expertise and its extensive industry and government partnerships. The university will manage and expand access to its Fabric Discovery Center, bring faculty and subject-matter experts to FutureTEX projects, help identify and solve manufacturing challenges with industry and government partners, and contribute to workforce-development initiatives, including opportunities for veterans through its existing Veterans Reskilled in Innovative Solutions for Employment (Vets RISE) program.
Through the UMass Lowell Fabric Discovery Center, the university offers capabilities spanning the full materials-to-product pathway, from polymer development and fiber spinning to fabric formation, functional coatings, printed electronics and advanced manufacturing, helping move new textile technologies from research toward production and commercialization.
“FutureTEX gives us an extraordinary opportunity to build on the UMass Lowell Fabric Discovery Center and strengthen the advanced-textiles innovation ecosystem in Massachusetts and across New England,” said UMass Lowell Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development Anne Maglia. “The future of textiles extends far beyond traditional fabrics and apparel to new materials and manufacturing technologies for aerospace composites, protective systems for our service members, wearable and flexible electronics, medical applications and more. By connecting our researchers, students and facilities with manufacturers and innovators nationwide, FutureTEX will help move ideas into products, strengthen the domestic supply chain and prepare the skilled workforce this industry needs.”