SSTI Digest

On the heels of President Biden’s recent announcement of a Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative to boost the United States bioeconomy, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has released The Bioeconomy: A Primer, which examines the future of the bioeconomy, explores the United States’ competitiveness in global bioeconomy efforts, and notes the current lack of federal coordination on building the bioeconomy. To address this lack of coordination, the report urges Congress to develop a more comprehensive national strategy for establishing the bioeconomy.   

On Tuesday, the Senate passed a bill to extend the SBIR, STTR and related pilot programs through Sept. 30, 2025. The House is expected to act on the legislation next week, just ahead of the current expiration at the end of this month. In addition to reauthorizing the programs, the legislation makes changes to performance standards for companies with numerous awards, foreign risk management, topic solicitations, and requires several new reports by SBA and the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Program extension

The bill extends all existing authorities and sets a new expiration date of Sept. 30, 2025. In addition to the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, the pilots extended are:

A recent report by DocSend Inc., a subsidiary of DropBox, surveyed over 300 pre-seed startups, finding that on average, in terms of gender alone, mixed teams raise the most funds, while all-male teams raise the least. In terms of both gender and race, on average, mixed gendered teams with minority members raise the most funds while all-male teams with no minority members raise the least. These findings are consistent with prior studies in terms of reflecting the levels of access to funding opportunities, relative lack of investment in diverse teams, and systemic gender bias.

Gov. Gavin Newson of California announced that the state is approved for $1.1 billion of funding from the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI), which represents the largest funding amount that has been approved in the SSBCI program. The funding will support the launch of a new $200 million venture capital program and and will help fund small business credit support programs. The allocated amount will be equally split between the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (IBank) and the California Pollution Control Financing Authority.

The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program at NIST recently released the Job Quality Toolkit which outlines eight “drivers of job quality.” The toolkit aims to enhance the discussion around job quality, becoming an “actionable tool… to improve the quality of every job,” which will improve employee recruitment and retention.

The authors note that by identifying the core drivers of job quality, employers can increase levels of satisfaction and engagement, leading to improved performance, productivity, and revenues. However, they caution these drivers should not be treated as a checklist, as some strategies and/or actions will not be applicable to all organizations. Even organizations with high levels of perceived job quality can benefit from the toolkit, as the drivers are intended to be routinely reviewed to ensure workplaces are keeping up with the dynamic needs of their employees.

The White House announced a new Office on Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation to coordinate the policymaking process for the energy and infrastructure provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, legislation that has been called the single biggest climate investment in U.S. history. The executive order also established a National Climate Task Force that will be chaired by the head of the new office and consist of the heads of a number of agencies, offices and departments.

Among the goals of the act are revitalizing American manufacturing by investing in domestic clean energy supply chains. It is also expected to promote the construction of clean energy generation, storage, and transmission, achieve breakthroughs in clean energy and climate technologies, expand research, and accelerate clean energy innovation and deployment.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $540 million in awards for research into clean energy technologies and low-carbon manufacturing at 54 universities and 11 national laboratories. More than $400 million will go to the latest round of Energy Frontier Research Centers, which includes 43 new and continuing centers. Managed by the Office of Science’s Basic Energy Science program, the four-year awards will support research at over 100 institutions and addresses a broad spectrum of scientific challenges. The projects will study everything from energy storage to quantum information science. Since the program launched in 2009, it has funded 88 centers.

Gov. Tom Wolf awarded $246.8 million to Pennsylvania local economic development partners through the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI) this week. The money is expected to help small, socially and economically disadvantaged businesses grow. The Pennsylvania Department of community and Economic Development (DCED) will distribute the funds to partners who will administer the funding to qualifying businesses. The funding is divided between the Direct Venture Investment program ($123 million), which provides funding to economic development organizations that disburse it as seed and later-stage capital for companies, and the Revolving Loan fund program ($123.8 million), which provides funding to economic development organizations to create or capitalize loan funds to support small businesses.

Recent findings from a study titled The Death of Downtown? Pandemic Recovery Trajectories across 62 North American Cities, conducted by a group of six researchers at the University of California’s Berkeley campus's Institute of Governmental Studies found that U.S. and Canadian downtowns are recovering from COVID-19 related setbacks at much slower rates than the “rest of the city,” and many downtown areas are still seeing less visits than pre-pandemic levels.

Taking what Gov. Mike Parson called a “bold step to support high-tech entrepreneurship, innovation and growth,” the Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC) released an Implementation Plan built off an earlier strategic plan (Catalyzing Innovation Report) designed to build the state’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems.

On the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy's Moonshot Address, President Biden traveled to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum to highlight progress toward his administration's Moonshot Program to combat cancer and expand the U.S. bioeconomy. This announcement included Biden's pick for the inaugural director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) and the signing of an executive order to institute a National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative.

States with top-ranking university AI research programs garner a greater number of Phase II AI-related SBIR awards, according to a working paper from the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Researchers there investigated state variations in the distribution of Phase II SBIR research projects focused on artificial intelligence (AI). The authors of the paper hypothesized that the state-by-state variations are related to the presence of a research university with a “Top 10” AI program in each state. Analysis showed that three out of the five states receiving the most funding for AI-related Phase II SBIR projects had a top-ranked AI research university. Although proximity to a top research university may be beneficial to Phase II SBIR applicants with AI-focused projects, it is not the only path to success in capturing SBIR funds.