SC Centers Program Sees Job Creation, Leverage in 5-Year Results

The South Carolina Centers of Economic Excellence (CoEE) Program, an initiative to recruit star scientists into distinct research clusters at the state's three research universities, has gained $205 million in competitive research awards and non-state matching funds over the program's lifetime - three times the state's distributed investment to date of $66 million. This finding and others regarding the fiscal and employment impact of the initiative was included in a recent outside evaluation of the first five years of the CoEE Program.

A handful of states have star researcher or eminent scholar recruitment programs as a component of their state's TBED strategy. Looking at the scale of the CoEE Program, the review finds $180 million in South Carolina Education Lottery proceeds have been directed to the initiative from 2003 to 2008. However, only a third of these funds have been drawn down to date from the state accounts, as the program requires non-state matching funds and funds from the participating universities to be in place before the allocated state money can be transferred.

The funding translates into 42 centers of excellence and 74 endowed chairs being chosen for development, each at varying levels of maturity and funding levels. At the end of FY08, 21 of these chairs have been successfully recruited.

Companies working with the existing centers of excellence resulted in 895 jobs attracted to the state, according to the report. Eleven spin-off companies from the CoEEs produced 40 employees.

A number of recommendations are outlined for consideration, including:

• Restore funding for the CoEE Program to $30 million annually, so the zero funding in the 08-09 fiscal year is one time occurrence. (see the July 2, 2008 issue of the Digest for a recap of last year's budget issues for the program);
• Take a portfolio approach to CoEE investments, investing most of the funds into pre-selected key drivers of state economic growth, and fewer funds towards emerging technologies or special opportunities outside of these key areas;
• To speed along the development of a selected center of excellence, provide funds immediately upon selection to the universities for assistance with administrative, infrastructure, and recruiting costs;
• Develop a statewide tech transfer program to assist in the commercialization of CoEE output;
• Have an annual CoEE conference to connect researchers to each other, business leaders, and political leaders;
• Establish improved metrics and reporting requirements associated with the CoEEs such as tracking tech-based employment, patents, venture capital investment, a degrees awarded.

The South Carolina Centers of Economic Excellence (CoEE) Comprehensive Program Evaluation 2003-2008 can be accessed at:http://www.sccoee.org/documents/WAGReportFINALDRAFT_000.pdf

A similar state recruitment initiative, the Eminent Scholars Program of the Georgia Research Alliance, was selected as the 2007 winner in the Expanding the Research Infrastructure category for SSTI's Excellence in TBED Awards. A longer 26 minute interview and a shorter six-minute interview with GRA CEO Mike Cassidy about the program is available at SSTI's website.