The photonics center that is coming to Rochester is based on a Reagan-era model for innovation that could be one of New York state's best hopes for reversing its long-term hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs.

In 1987, semiconductor manufacturers and the federal government formed a partnership to regain U.S. competitiveness with  Japan. The seed money came from a Defense Department grant provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

That partnership, called SEMATECH, was a success.

The SEMATECH model is now being used in a variety of industries — from 3-D printing to lightweight metals manufacturing and wide bandwidth semiconductors — in hopes of recovering manufacturing jobs that once sustained cities in upstate New York  and Rust Belt states.

Manufacturing has been in decline in New York for several decades. Between 2000 and 2014, average annual manufacturing employment fell by 297,000 jobs, from 749,300 to 452,300 — about a 40 percent drop — according to the state Department of Labor.

Over the summer, the Obama administration announced that Rochester would host an Integrated Photonics Institute for Manufacturing Innovation, one of seven such hubs announced nationwide so far.

“This will be a step toward bringing manufacturing back in the U.S.,” said Kent Hughes, a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. “For advanced countries of any size, it’s a big part of how you pay your way in the world. Right now we are borrowing $40 billion or more every month from the rest of the world to pay our trade and current account deficit.’’

In recent years, SEMATECH has been remade and relocated to Albany from its original headquarters in Texas, becoming part of SUNY Polytechnic, which has absorbed its overhead.

Now, SUNY Polytechnic also is taking a lead role in the integrated photonics advanced manufacturing hub.

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