SSTI Digest

This year’s national defense authorization act (NDAA) includes extensions of the Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program and Manufacturing USA. The House and Senate have passed the FY 2020 legislation, which authorizes up to $738 billion in appropriations and sets policy for a wide range of defense-related activities. The NDAA is one of the few bills that passes Congress each year. For this reason, the bill is often viewed as a vehicle for defense-related policies that may not garner sufficient attention separately. In 2018, for example, the NDAA extended SBIR/STTR pilot programs. The following policy areas addressed in the FY 2020 NDAA are the most relevant to regional innovation economies: Regional Innovation Strategies Once the NDAA is signed into law, RIS will be authorized through FY 2024 and increases the authorization level to $50 million (subject to appropriations). Additional changes remove “clusters” from the language to clarify the program’s unique focus and require feedback to unsuccessful applicants. These changes largely help to secure the program’s support for another four years. SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council has made RIS…

Advancing programs to increase students’ tech skills, raising awareness of the skilled trades, attracting out of state workers by paying moving expenses, and creating a Governor’s Workforce Council, were just a few of the new programs across the states dealing with current and looming shortages in the workforce. This week SSTI takes a look at some of the different workforce development initiatives that surfaced in 2019 as part of our ongoing coverage of innovation programs that were implemented this past year. Other stories in the year-end series include information on  stories on entrepreneurial support and capital access; new university incubators, accelerators and funds launched in 2019; research universities and their partnerships with industry; higher education and commercialization programs; free tuition offerings; climate change; clean energy; and broadband. Alabama A public-private partnership in Alabama will give access to a STEM career awareness system through a joint venture of the Alabama Department of Commerce, the governor’s office and the Boeing Company. As part of its 2019 global engagement grants, Boeing…

In a new working paper, Sabrina T. Howell of New York University and Filippo Mezzanotti of Northwestern University provide a systematic review of state angel tax credits. One of the most notable aspects of their research is a seemingly-comprehensive index of all of the relevant programs authorized by states over the past 30 years. The results indicate that angel tax credits have some impact on investment activity but not on economic outcomes. The authors provide evidence that the reason for this seeming discrepancy could be due to program design allowing existing activity to benefit from the new credits. The summary of state angel tax credit programs should be useful for any policymakers still considering these programs. The authors provide two dozen points of comparison, including starting and end years, eligibility for both investors and companies, and the credit’s share of all angel investment in the state (there are difficulties with this data, which is largely based on self-reports from AngelList, but is still interesting as a rough guide). These comparisons are just factual, of course, and do not necessarily indicate which states have designed better incentives.…

Brookings and the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) are proposing a new concentration of federal investment into 10 metros with a goal of creating new innovation hubs. The Case for Growth Centers is likely an early entry of what will be many suggestions between now and next November for “massive federal” policies, but may be one of the most directly relevant to regional innovation economies. More details on their proposal and its potential impacts follow. In brief, Brookings and ITIF suggest investing $100 billion over 10 years into 10 cities. The majority of the funding, about $69 billion, would be for R&D provided through NSF. Few dollar values are clarified elsewhere, but include expanding graduate research fellowships, targeting SBIR, Regional Innovation Strategies, and other NSF research awards, and providing $5 million for workforce awards per city per year. The plan would provide a wealth of other incentives for these cities, including lower capital gains taxes, relaxed regulations, new R&D tax credits, and targeted business finance initiatives. Finally, cities would benefit from preferential treatment for additional economic…

This week’s edition of Useful Stats covers Higher Education Research & Development (HERD) expenditures at the metropolitan level, pulling from the recent NSF updates to its HERD performance data. High levels of college and university R&D activity is not surprisingly clustered heavily in the East Coast — ranging from the District of Columbia up to Boston — and on the West Coast in California. The 10-year average HERD expenditures were the greatest in the New York-Northern New Jersey metro area ($3.7 billion), Boston ($2.8 billion), Baltimore ($2.8 billion), Los Angeles ($2.6 billion), and Houston ($2.0 billion). These five metro areas account for nearly 21 percent of the nation’s total 10-year average R&D spending by universities and colleges. Of the 209 metro areas included in this analysis — and excluding nonmetropolitan areas — the top 15 metros account for approximately 45 percent of the 10-year average of total HERD expenditures.

The number of students enrolled in all levels of school in 2018 was 76.8 million, a drop of 2.8 percent from the 79 million enrolled in 2011, according to a new study by the U.S. Census Bureau. The biggest decrease in enrollment was at two- and four-year colleges. Enrollment in two-year colleges was down from 5.7 million to 4.3 million, a 25-percent drop, while enrollment in four-year colleges was down from 20.4 million to 18.9 million, a 7.6 percent dip over the 2011-2018 period.  The number of graduate-school students is up to 4.3 million, a 300,000 jump from the 2011 total. The number of minority students has increased as well.

Entrepreneurial support and capital access remain key concerns for regional innovation economies, as evidenced by the abundance of new activity in 2019. From accelerators, many of which are sector-specific, to seed funds, we highlight 26 of the most interesting developments from the past year. This is the latest in our series of articles highlighting innovation system activities in states across the country in 2019. Our previous coverage included stories on new university incubators, accelerators and funds launched in 2019; research universities and their partnerships with industry; higher education and commercialization programs; free tuition offerings; climate change; clean energy; and broadband. Alabama The commercial Techstars accelerator opened several new sites this year, the most notable of which may be the Alabama EnergyTech Accelerator. A utility, the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, and the state’s Department of Commerce joined to recruit Techstars. The new accelerator, which will accept its first cohort next summer, will focus on startups innovating around smart cities, electric transportation and connectivity.…

SSTI notes the recent passing of two officials who helped shaped the impact science and technology had on the American economy. Dr. Mary Good served as Under Secretary of Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce during the Clinton Administration led the Administration’s Clean Car Initiative and oversaw NIST at the time the Manufacturing Extension Partnership began its expansion to national presence. Mary was as passionate as she was smart. You can read more about her life here. A strong advocate for building bridges between states, universities and industry, Dr. Joseph Bordogna’s career included nine years as deputy director at the National Science Foundation during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. In addition to advocating for the Partnerships for Innovation program, he was a consistent voice at NSF for including state perspectives in NSF’s operations. Joe’s accomplishments were many, and they are captured in his obituary. While Mary and Joe grew up in different corners of this country (Mary in Texas and Arkansas; Joe in Scranton and Philadelphia), they shared a common passion on improving this country through science…

Sensing a gap in conversation about the importance of higher education, Strada Education Network and Gallup partnered to conduct a study on how Americans value their educations. The resulting report focuses on the relationship between two primary questions; whether consumers feel their educations were worth the cost and if they felt their educations made them attractive job candidates.

The U.S. continues to be the global leader in total R&D expenditures, spending $483 billion (adjusted to 2010 purchasing parity dollars) in 2017 compared to China’s expenditures of $443 billion. However, according to a recent publication from the National Science Foundation, China surpassed the U.S. in expenditures on experimental development in 2014 and has since continued to increase its lead. In 2017, China spent more than $370 billion on experimental development compared to just over $300 billion in the United States. Defined as the systematic work of producing new or improved products and processes based on knowledge gained from previous research, experimental development makes up the lion’s share of total R&D expenditures in both countries. For example, applied research — original investigation geared towards acquiring new knowledge for specific objectives — accounted for approximately $100 billion in the U.S. and nearly $50 billion in China. Similarly, in 2017 the U.S. spent over $80 billion and China spent $24 billion on basic research — theoretical work undertaken to acquire new knowledge about the underlying foundations of…

Across the U.S., the federal government provided 53 percent of R&D funding at institutions of higher education in FY 2018. Those institutions provided 26 percent of the funding themselves, and most of the remainder was provided by a mix of nonprofit organizations (7 percent), industry (6 percent), and state and local government (5 percent). The specific contributions varied from state to state, however, with some relying more on specific relationships to support R&D within the state. As covered recently by SSTI, NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics provides survey data on R&D funding at institutions of higher education. NSF’s report includes source of funding, attributable to federal government, state and local government, institutions, business, nonprofit organizations, or other sources. Maryland (77 percent) and Colorado (70 percent) were the states that were the most dependent upon federal R&D spending, joined by the Virgin Islands (91 percent) and Guam (77 percent) as the only regions with more than two-thirds of their funding from the federal government. North Dakota (34 percent), Arkansas (37 percent),…

Turning good intentions into actions is part of the motivation behind a recent report from the Community Strategies Group (CSG) of the Aspen Institute. The report, Rural Development Hubs: Strengthening America’s Rural Innovation Infrastructure, focuses on actions that could build capacity to advance rural community and economic development to improve equity, health and prosperity for future generations. Identifying those that are working to “do development differently” in rural America, the report draws on the wisdom of leaders from 43 rural intermediaries, and includes recommendations on creating stronger rural development systems. The CSG report authors have termed such intermediaries Rural Development Hubs, saying they are the “main players advancing an asset-based, wealth-building, approach to rural community and economic development in this country.” The report promotes the idea that such hubs are the “critical models for advancing comprehensive economic development strategies in rural places.” The report notes that investment in rural people and places is essential for a thriving, equitable nation, and its key…