The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) announced awards totaling approximately $210 million in implementation grants, ranging between approximately $22 million and $48 million, to six Tech Hub designees from recently passed appropriations from Congress.

President Biden signed legislation that reauthorized the Economic Development Administration (EDA) on Jan. 4. With the Heritage Foundation, among others, consistently calling for EDA’s elimination, EDA’s reauthorization is no small feat on its own. The strong bipartisan support for the bill, which included provisions related to water resources development, is perhaps even more remarkable. The House approved it 339-18 on December 10, and the Senate passed it 97-1 on December 18. As authorizing legislation, it does not include funding, but it does contain provisions that are of importance to the technology-based economic development field. Among the provisions are modifications to cost share, new responsibilities and offices for EDA, and investment priorities that for the first time are approved by Congress.

January 22, 2025, at 2:00 PM ET | Zoom

The new Tech Hub awards from EDA and the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines (Engines) program support regions advancing a critical technology area with existing traction in their region but for proposers, identifying such areas is often challenging. Recognizing this, SSTI has recently updated a data tool comprised of two interactive visuals and a downloadable data file that can aid in identifying the critical technologies in an applicant’s geographic location to assist applicants with the upcoming full proposal deadline for Engines on February 11, 2025.

The United States’ global competitiveness rank, as calculated by the International Institute of for Management Development, fell three points from 9th in 2023 to 12th in 2024. The nation’s ranking for government efficiency had an even sharper drop of nine points, from 25th in 2023 to 34th in 2024. In timely response to these trends, two federal advisory committees recently submitted reports outlining ways for the U.S. Small Business Administration to sharpen its ability to assist companies in becoming more globally competitive while also improving the productivity of the agency’s work.

Higher education R&D expenditures, while continuing to steadily increase, have not grown evenly across state lines. This matters to successful TBED policymakers because a strong R&D enterprise within a state’s public and private institutions of higher education can and should provide a consistent source of skilled workers, new technology, and sources for innovation-driven business growth. So where is R&D growing?

A recent working paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Self-reinforcing Glass Ceilings by Carlos F. Avenancio-León, Alessio Piccolo, and Leslie Sheng Shen delves into the complexities of the gender pay gap, even after it has narrowed. The authors challenge the conventional understanding that a shrinking gender pay gap automatically leads to greater gender equality. Instead, they argue that the labor market's response to a narrowing gap can paradoxically contribute to the persistence of gender inequities.