The Ohio Third Frontier Commission’s proposed $236 million budget for 2013 includes two new technology investment programs that could target several Dayton-Springfield area industries and benefit the region, state and local officials said.

The commission’s next annual budget includes $50 million for a new program to create technology commercialization centers that focus on specific industries, such as sensors, advanced materials or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

If approved, the commercialization centers would focus on developing technologies that could be turned into new products or startup companies. The centers would be public-private partnerships and awards would be made following a competitive bidding process.

The budget also includes a new $15 million program for technology asset grants, which was inspired in part by the Dayton-Springfield region’s pursuit of a UAV testing site, said Norm Chagnon, deputy chief of the Ohio Office of Technology Investments.

The commission has not yet formally approved the 2013 program plan and budget. Program details including a schedule for proposal requests and award dates will be presented in December to the Third Frontier Commission and advisory board.

“We have every intent of seeing these new programs go forward,” Chagnon said.

The Third Frontier is a $2.3 billion initiative designed to boost Ohio’s economy through investments in targeted innovation and technology. Ohio voters passed a four-year, $700 million extension of the Third Frontier in May 2010.

The commission is looking to make “more large, game-changing investments with a little more scale than we’ve had in recent years,” Chagnon said.

The new commercialization program’s goal is to replicate the successful model of the Cleveland-based Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center (GCIC), Chagnon said.

GCIC is a cardiovascular product development consortium founded in 2007 through a $60 million grant from the Third Frontier. It has helped form or fund 30 new companies, and attracted 14 new businesses to Ohio, officials said.

Focusing state funding on a specific industry can bring public and private partners together to create economic growth more quickly, effectively and with more lasting results, said John Leland, director of the University of Dayton Research Institute.

“It allows you to raise an entire industry up,” Leland said.

Local leaders said the new programs could be good news for the Dayton region, which counts advanced materials and aerospace systems among its key industries.

“It shows that the state has a really strong commitment to commercialization,” said Ray Hagerman, the Dayton Development Coalition’s vice president of investments.

However, local officials said they will have to wait for specifics on the new programs from the Third Frontier before they can determine their course and craft proposals.

“UDRI is ready if we see an opportunity to step up and lead the region in a competitive effort to secure funds to support regional or state businesses working in the polymers area or the unmanned aerial systems area, by example,” Leland said.

Chagnon said the smallest grant the commission would likely make under the program is $10 million. “We also could leave the opportunity that if we had one major opportunity that was worth the whole $50 million that the commission might make the decision to place that kind of bet,” he said.

The centers will leverage regional strengths that align with the Third Frontier’s technology focus areas.

The Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and its related research and industry base makes the Dayton region “a strong contender for something in the UAV space,” Chagnon said.

Ohio is competing with at least two dozen other states to be selected for one of six test-flying sites that will help the Federal Aviation Administration determine how to ensure safe operation of UAVs in the nation’s airspace. The designation, expected in December, would kick off a five-year testing period.

Ohio likely will propose multiple take-off sites to the FAA, possibly including Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport and Wilmington Air Park, in order to allow more test flights in the same time period, officials said.

Dayton also has a strong concentration of companies and organizations working in advanced materials and sensor technologies, “which I think are going to be two critical technology components that are going to make UAVs work,” Chagnon said.

The $15 million technology asset grant program would provide funds to build a critical piece of infrastructure that would benefit multiple companies, universities or research centers within a targeted industry sector.

“It is a shared piece of infrastructure that helps commercialization and to advance an industry,” Chagnon said.

For example, the commission last month awarded $3 million to Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. for the restoration and resurfacing of a 7.5 mile high-speed test track located at the Transportation Research Center in Logan County. The track is used by Honda, as well as other automakers and the federal government, to test vehicle safety, durability and fuel efficiency.

A similar grant could be used to help the Dayton-Springfield region build a UAV test site if Ohio is allowed to use airspace for testing unmanned vehicles, Chagnon said.

The Third Frontier in January will shift from a fiscal-year to a calendar-year budget to better align with its annual planning process, Chagnon said. Next year’s budget includes $61 million in unspent funds carried over from fiscal 2012.