SSTI Digest

Geography: South Carolina

TBED People and Orgs

Chris Coburn, the founding executive director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, is leaving at the end of May to join Boston-based Partners Healthcare, the largest healthcare system in Massachusetts.

TBED People and Orgs

Mark Lytle has been named the University System of Georgia's new vice chancellor for economic development.

Research Park RoundUp

As budgets for economic development tighten across all sectors, measuring and reporting impact becomes even more crucial for sustaining support. The Association of University Research Parks points to three impressive impact reports released this year from Indiana's Purdue Research Park, Nebraska Technology Park and North Dakota State University Research and Technology Park.

TBED People

TBED People
SSTI board members Rob Atkinson and Rebecca Bagley and SSTI member Stephen Tang were appointed to the U.S. Department of Commerce Innovation Advisory Board. The 15-member board will guide a study of U.S. economic competitiveness and innovation to help inform national policies.

TBED People

SSTI Board member Phillip Singerman has been named as the Associate Director for Innovation and Industry Services for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He will assume this position on January 31.

SBA Selects 10 Regional Efforts for Cluster

The Small Business Administration (SBA) announced the selection of 10 regional economic development and job creation efforts through a new pilot program, Innovative Economies, that supports small business participation in regional economic clusters. SBA's funding is designed to expand the opportunities and the role small businesses play in these regional collaborations. The awardees were selected from among 173 applicants. Awards went to organizations in: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio and South Carolina. Read the full release

SC Changes Endowed Chairs Program & Manufacturing Incentives

Touted as a tool to help the state attract and retain jobs, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford last week signed into law H. 4478, the Economic Development Competitiveness Act. The new law directs one-third of the state's endowed chairs money be administered by the Coordinating Council on Economic Development — a reform measure that the governor says will help shift its focus to job creation and allow private sector investment to lead public sector investment. Funding previously was administered by an academic panel. The Act also provides several incentives for manufacturing, including renewable energy tax incentives.

Incubator RoundUp: Specialized Incubators Increasing Their Numbers Nationwide

Silicon Valley, a region often looked to for trends in the technology field, is expected to see a rise in the number of new high-tech incubators and the expansion of existing incubators in the coming months. A recent Wall Street Journal article points to these openings as a sign of revival for technology startup companies amid a relatively slow period last year as startup investment plunged during the recession. Across the nation, specialized incubators spanning clean energy, sustainable architecture and advanced materials have emerged over the past several months to support high-tech ventures.

Listen to SSTI's Interview with Dave McNamara of SCLaunch

SSTI has an effective new learning tool for TBED policymakers and practitioners seeking guidance in approaches to building and sustaining tech-based economies. Through exclusive interviews with Excellence in TBED Award recipients, find out first-hand how these award winning initiatives successfully responded to a critical need by applying innovative approaches to generate substantial economic gains for their region.

South Carolina Committee Develops Plan for Higher Ed

Last week the South Carolina Higher Education Study Committee, formed by the General Assembly in 2007, released its action plan to improve postsecondary education and economic opportunity within the state. Leveraging Higher Education for a Stronger South Carolina outlines more than 100 recommendations distributed among the following four goals: making South Carolina one of the most educated states in the nation; increasing innovation and research; improving workforce training and educational services; and, realizing the state's potential.

TBED People and Organizations

Lonnie Emard has been named interim director of the Consortium for Enterprise Systems Management, a recently formed collaboration of business, academic and economic development organizations intended to build information technology (IT) opportunities in South Carolina.

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.

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