SSTI Digest

The state budget process is winding down across the country and SSTI continues to review the final budgets for funding for innovation-based programs. This week, we found level funding for South Carolina programs including MEP and regional-based economic development efforts, while university programs in Texas are taking a hit, and in West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice refused to sign the state budget although he will allow the legislatively approved measure to become law. Unless otherwise noted, the figures below represent level funding from the previous budgets.

Earlier this month, the White House released an executive order to expand apprenticeship programs and to study other federal workforce initiatives. The administration will attempt to reduce regulations for “effective” efforts while reducing funding for other programs.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker announced a legislative proposal that would provide $500 million over five years for the life sciences sector, extending the state’s commitment to the biotech and medical technology industry. The money would be used for strategic investments in public infrastructure, research and development, workforce training and education.

On June 14, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) announced $15.7 million in funding to support 18 projects (including those of two SSTI members – LaunchTN and Ohio University) that will help grow the economies in coal-impacted communities in seven states. With this latest announcement, ARC has invested over $92 million (leveraging an additional $206 million in investments) to diversify the economies in 250 coal-impacted counties across 11 Appalachian states through its POWER (Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce and Economic Revitalization) Initiative. The new round of investments are intended to create and retain hundreds of jobs in advanced manufacturing and tech industries; support entrepreneurial development efforts, and, build workforce pipelines through institutions of higher education.

The Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced approximately $30 million in funding for the Assistance to Coal Communities (ACC). As part of the FY 2017 appropriation for the Public Works and Economic Adjustment Assistance (EAA) programs, the ACC will assist communities severely impacted by the declining use of coal through activities and programs that support economic diversification, job creation, capital investment, workforce development, and re-employment opportunities.

Building Bridges for a Better Future serves as the theme of this year’s conference, taking place Sept. 13-15 in Washington, D.C. “We chose the theme after hearing from our members and others in the field about the importance of reaching outside of our traditional networks and imagining what the future may hold for those in the innovation economy,” said Dan Berglund, SSTI president and CEO. “We’re excited to hold the conference in the nation’s capital, and share the stories of successes, along with the challenges, that stakeholders in science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship are facing.”

As more state legislatures are coming to the close of their sessions, more state budgets are being finalized. This week SSTI takes a look at the final appropriations for Alabama, which is decreasing its innovation funding in higher ed; Florida, whose governor signed a budget after vetoing more than $20 million in STEM, higher ed, R&D and other innovation funding; Nevada, with positive news in technology-based economic development funding; and Tennessee, where the Department of Economic and Community Development’s state funding is down by more than 27 percent compared to FY 2017.

The angel investor market in 2016 experienced a decrease in investment dollars and deal size, according to a new report from the Center for Venture Research (CVR) at the University of New Hampshire. CVR researchers found that total investments were $21.3 billion in 2016, a decrease of 13.5 percent from 2015.

Over the past four years, 1,668 deals involving university spinout companies from across the globe attracted approximately $35.6 billion from 2013 to 2016, according to a new report from Global University Venturing. The report, however, highlights that global deals peaked in 2014 with 529 deals and total investments dollars peaked in 2015 with nearly $14 billion invested. As the authors highlighted, these global numbers were unsustainable and 2016 saw significant declines in both deals and dollars. In 2016, the total deals reported were 407 (21.6 percent decrease from 2015) and dollars invested was $6.4 billion (a 54.3 percent decrease from 2015).

After much criticism, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it will abandon the Grant Support Index (GSI) plan – a strategy to bolster NIH funding support for the next generation of researchers by placing limits on individual research funding which SSTI previously covered.. Instead, NIH will launch the Next Generation Researchers Initiative (NGRI) that will allocate $1.1 billion over the next five years to support nearly 2,400 new grants for early and mid-career researchers whose grant proposals receive high scores, but fall short of receiving funds. At this time, however, there was no immediate promise of where that money would be found, according to an article in the The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Although it has been slated for elimination under the president’s proposed budget, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program is making progress toward achieving its statutory mission and goals, and it “cannot reasonably be expected to have completely fulfilled those goals given so few years of operation and the size of its budget.” That is among the findings released this week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) in its assessment of ARPA-E. The project was overseen by the Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) and was tasked with assessing ARPA-E’s progress toward achieving its statutory mission and goals, and determining whether it is on a trajectory to achieve them. In short, the answer is that it is.

Michigan’s University Research Corridor, an alliance of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University, conducted $1.2 billion in academic R&D in the life, medical and health sciences, and served as a stabilizing force to the state’s economy as one of the only sectors that grew during the 2000s. Those are among the findings of the 2017 URC sector report, which was prepared by Public Sector Consultants. The report, Leading Discovery: URC Contributions to the Life, Medical and Health Sciences, notes that employment in the life, medical and health sciences sector, which accounts for one in eight jobs in Michigan, is up 18.9 percent since 2000, compared to overall Michigan employment, which is down 9.3 percent.