For three decades, the SSTI Digest has been the source for news, insights, and analysis about technology-based economic development. We bring together stories on federal and state policy, funding opportunities, program models, and research that matter to people working to strengthen regional innovation economies.
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A recent State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) FY 2025 report suggests that public higher education funding is at a potential crossroads. Education appropriations per full-time equivalent (FTE) student peaked in FY24, then declined by 1.0% in FY25. It is unknown whether this recent downturn marks the beginning of a downward trend or is just a glitch in the previous 12-year run of increases.
The federal government invests billions of dollars each year in R&D, expecting these investments to lead to new technologies, firms, and broader economic growth. Under the framework established by the Bayh‑Dole Act, universities, small businesses, and nonprofit institutions may retain ownership of inventions developed with federal support and pursue their commercialization. A recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, Technology Transfer: Funding Recipients Keep Most Federally Funded Inventions, but Some Cited Reporting Challenges, examines whether the policies governing federally funded inventions are helping or hindering the transfer of those inventions. The analysis is timely given the current policy focus on strengthening domestic innovation capacity and supply chain resilience.
What are current trends in the financial health and well-being of the business, industry, and trade associations, including tech councils and chambers of commerce, that can play various roles related to a state or regional innovation strategy? Association involvement can cover the full spectrum of helpfulness and harm as these communities may serve as allies, antagonists, assistants, advocates, or adversaries—sometimes simultaneously.
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System recently published a new FEDS Notes article titled Monitoring AI Adoption in the US Economy. The article examines trends in AI adoption in the U.S. using three publicly available surveys: the Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS), Real-Time Population Survey (RPS), and Survey of Business Uncertainty. These surveys respectively capture data at the firm-level, individual-level, and from business executives.
On April 13, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun announced that the Indiana Economic Development Corp. (IEDC) is committing $15 million to a new venture capital initiative designed to attract high-tech Israeli startups to Indiana. The investment is part of the "Iron Nation–Indiana" partnership, a $60+ million initiative aimed at creating a "strategic bridge" to connect Israeli technology firms with Indiana's industrial and research ecosystem. The funding will come from the IEDC’s 21st Century Research and Technology Fund.
SC Launch Inc., the investment affiliate of the South Carolina Research Authority, was named in PitchBook’s 2025 Global League Table for the Southeast region. The ranking award is attributed to SC Launch Inc.’s acceleration in investment activity during recent months. Since July of 2025, with a significant increase in the last quarter of the year, SC Launch Inc. has invested almost $4 million in 12 high-growth startups from across the state.
For more than 30 years, Prof. Don Siegel and Prof. Al Link have made valuable contributions to our understanding of effective technology transfer, academic entrepreneurship, and public policy. In June 2026 they will be recognized for their research as they receive the 2026 Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. In a special SSTI webinar on April 8, they reflected on what decades of research tell us about how universities drive innovation and regional technology-based economic development. In his remarks, Siegel emphasized that modern universities have evolved beyond ivory towers into entrepreneurial ecosystems: technology transfer offices (TTOs), industry partners, incubators, and entrepreneurship programs all working together. His research shows these systems can help make firms more productive, but their effectiveness depends on commitment from both the firm and the university, not just agreements on paper. He stressed that culture and incentives matter as much as research funding.
The Trump Administration’s FY 2027 budget request, submitted to Congress on April 3, bears considerable resemblance to its FY 2026 request with proposals to cut funding for many of the agencies and line items of most interest to the state and regional innovation community. Congress approved a FY 2026 budget that in most ways mirrored previous years’ allocations for TBED-related programs and priorities, such as R&D.
The 2026 SBIR/STTR reauthorization bill (S. 3971, the Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act) has cleared Congress and is now awaiting final action by the President. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent on March 3, 2026. The House subsequently approved the Senate-passed measure on March 17, 2026, by a vote of 345–41. Because the House adopted the Senate version without amendment, the bill moved straight to enrollment, where the final official copy is prepared for signature before being sent to the White House.
As states look for ways to expand access to bachelor’s-level education while controlling costs and strengthening workforce pipelines, community college baccalaureate (CCB) programs have emerged as a promising policy tool. A recent NBER working paper by Riley Acton, Camila Morales, Kalena Cortes, Julia A. Turner and Lois Miller examines whether CCB programs deliver meaningful economic returns for graduates and how they compare to traditional degree pathways from four-year institutions.
Discussions concerning the value of earning a bachelor's degree often center on the return on investment for the degree-holder. However, a recent article from Chicago Fed Insights illustrates that degree-holders, specifically their density in a community, also impacts whether or not their region will thrive in the coming decades.
The authors, Ila Gupta and Thomas Walstrum, show that places with a higher share of bachelor-degree holders have greater employment growth fifty years later. They plotted the share of population that had a bachelor’s degree in 1970 against average annual employment growth rates from 1970 through 2023 in selected metro and micro areas and in U.S. states. They found that places with more of their population possessing bachelor’s degree in 1970 tended to grow faster over the subsequent 53 years.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont issued an executive order (No. 26-2) on April 2, establishing the Connecticut Career Pathways Commission, which is tasked with helping create a system that will connect students to jobs in high-demand fields. The commission will be made up of unpaid volunteers, with members from the education and business communities, as well as municipal and governmental leaders, legislators, community representatives, labor unions, and students. The commission will be led by former U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
