white house

Manufacturers across the nation celebrated National Manufacturing Day on Friday and the topic on many people's minds was reshoring. Earlier this week, General Motors announced it will build a software development center in Michigan, joining a number of companies like Google, Caterpillar, GE and Ford who all have revealed plans to make products in the U.S. previously outsourced or purchased overseas. Although the prospect of a reshoring trend and resurgence in U.S. manufacturing has been a topic of debate, there are still skeptics who say the evidence of this movement is highly anecdotal and the U.S. still faces a future of offshoring.

Unless Congress and the White House take action by the end of the year, across-the-board spending reductions will go into effect for all federal agencies as a result of provisions in the Budget Control Act of 2011. The budget sequestration would reduce defense discretionary funding by 9.4 percent and non-defense funding by 8.2 percent from the 2011 baseline. Though the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) report outlining these reductions does not provide details by program, research and economic development spending could be affected disproportionately, since, in many agencies, these programs are supported through discretionary spending.

The Obama administration announced the winners of the third round of the i6 Challenge, a national competition to support proof of concept centers at universities and research consortiums across the country. Approximately $7 million will be awarded to support seven proof of concept centers — based in California, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin — that will establish regional networks of experts to support innovators and researchers, expand access to capital and connect mentors/advisors to entrepreneurs and small businesses. Read the press release...

This week, White House officials announced the names of the country's first class of Presidential Innovation Fellows. The 18 fellows, drawn from the ranks of private sector innovators and entrepreneurs, will spend six months working on five high-impact projects aimed at supporting U.S. entrepreneurs, small businesses and the economy. Read the announcement

The Obama administration today announced the 12 winners of the multi-agency Rural Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge. Approximately $9 million in federal funding will help support rural public-private partnerships to promote job creation, accelerate innovation and provide assistance to entrepreneurs and businesses in a wide range of industrial sectors in rural regions across the country. Economic development partnerships and initiatives in Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia will receive awards ranging from nearly $200,000 to over $1 million from participating federal agencies. Based on grantee estimates, it is expected that in the short term a total of 2,990 jobs will be created or retained and $35.5 million in private investment will be leveraged. In the long term, grantees estimate that a total of 6,460 jobs will be created or retained and $69.6 million in private investment will be leveraged.Read the release...

A plan introduced last week by the president places the future of the nation's standing in math and science in the hands of highly-specialized teachers who would serve as national ambassadors and mentor fellow educators across the country. In exchange, STEM Master Teachers would receive an extra $20,000 per year on top of their annual salary. Funding for the initiative is part of the FY13 budget plan, which requires congressional approval. School districts can compete for $100 million available now, however, through an existing fund aimed at achieving similar goals of identifying and developing quality STEM teachers.

The White House recently released Capturing Domestic Competitive Advantage in Advanced Manufacturing, a blueprint intended to serve as a national framework for the sustainable resurgence in advanced manufacturing in the United States. The report was written by the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP) steering committee, a national public-private partnership formed by the Obama administration in 2011 to help increase public and private investments in advanced manufacturing and create high-paying manufacturing jobs. The report outlines a set of 16 recommendations around three pillars — enabling innovation, securing the talent pipeline and improving the business climate. For a sustainable resurgence in advanced manufacturing, the report's authors contend that the government and industry must work together with a sustained focus, aligned interests and coordinated actions to adopt the report's proposed recommendations. Recommendations include:

The Obama Administration has released details on this year's $26 million Advanced Manufacturing Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge, a multi-agency initiative to assist in the development and implementation of regionally-driven economic development strategies that support advanced manufacturing and cluster development. The challenge will fund approximately 12 new awards, each with a project period of up to three years. The deadline for applications is July 9, 2012. An informational webinar for the Advanced Manufacturing Jobs Accelerator will be available in approximately two weeks at www.manufacturing.gov/accelerator/index.html

Last week, the White House released a comprehensive national strategy to guide federal investments and collaborations with the private sector in the life sciences. The National Bioeconomy Blueprint identifies five strategic objectives that will inform administration efforts to boost the bioeconomy. Key among these objectives is the expansion of foundational, cross-disciplinary research, which will require improved funding mechanisms that are flexible enough to support many kinds of collaborations and that encourage high-risk/high-reward research. The publication also includes a list of current federal life science initiatives and how they relate to the strategic goals.

PCAST provides several recommendations that will continue the success of NNI and translate the benefits of investments in nanotechnology to the public. Individual recommendations are given in four categories of key importance: strategic planning, program management, metrics and EHS research. Specific recommendations for 2012 and beyond include, but are not limited to: