The Roux Institute at Northeastern University, a high-tech graduate education and research institute in Portland, announced last week that it is launching a startup incubator for a small number of companies that would benefit from access to the institute’s resources and research surrounding artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The institute, which last month received a second $100 million gift, will accept “at least three” startups, according to Chris Wolfel, the Roux Institute’s director of entrepreneurship. He expects it’ll have space for more than three, but there are still logistics to work out and uncertainty around the impact of COVID.

“It’s hard enough to predict the next six weeks let alone the next six months,” Wolfel told Maine Startups Insider.

Wolfel, who is an entrepreneur himself with a few Boston-based software startups under his belt, joined the Roux Institute in September. Launching this Startup Residency program is one of his first tasks and sprung from discussions of how the Roux Institute could serve the local ecosystem by connecting industry, research, startups and education. Though he previously served a two-year stint as CEO of IDEA, Northeastern University’s student-run venture accelerator, he said he’s not modeling the Roux Institute program off any existing startup accelerator or incubator program.

“I’m looking at this first set of companies to be partners with us to determine how we can make the biggest impact. A model that worked in Boston is not necessarily a model that would work here,” he said. “What works we’ll continue and what doesn’t work, we’ll discontinue and go from there… We’ll be building the plane as we’re flying.”

The selected startups would co-locate at the Roux Institute, which is currently being housed in an office building owned by WEX on Portland’s eastern waterfront. They’d not only get access to the researchers the Roux Institute have assembled in Portland, but would benefit from working alongside other selected companies and the institute’s students (each selected company would be allocated a full-time co-op student in July-December 2021) and corporate partners.

While ideal companies would be those leveraging applied AI in life sciences, materials and manufacturing, modernization of natural resources, and cyber security, Wolfel said he encourages any company to apply. The only other requirement for acceptance is that selected companies must be willing to remain based in Maine or, if currently not located here, relocate a significant portion of their team here.

“We want to make sure these companies come here and we give them a reason to stay—we show them that you can build a great company in Portland,” he said. “If we help a company triple its revenue and then they leave, it’s not a win—it’s not building the density of the ecosystem here in Maine, which is part of the real mission.”

The institute is accepting applications through November 20 and will then conduct interviews on a rolling basis and expect to make selections by early December. Interested startups can apply here.

The program will formally begin in January 2021.