The Maryland Department of Commerce joined eight local colleges and universities in endowing a total of $21.2 million to fund a dozen new research professorships. The endowments were made through the Maryland E-Nnovation Initiative, a state program created to spur basic and applied research in scientific and technical fields at the colleges and universities.

The schools raised a total of more than $10.6 million in private funding for each chair and Maryland Commerce approved matching grants of $10.6 million to support the endowments.

The schools receiving the matching funds are The Johns Hopkins University; the University of Maryland, College Park; UMBC; Goucher College; Hood College; Morgan State University; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Washington College.