SSTI Digest

Rising tuition and worsened racial and class inequality are two of the effects of decreasing state support for higher education, according to a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  In it the authors detail how overall state funding for public two- and four-year colleges has not fully recovered in most states following the recession, leaving higher costs and reduced services in many cases. Today’s cohort of students are more racially and economically diverse than previous cohorts, and tuition rates, which have risen faster than median income, increase the cost burden of attending college and could deter low-income students and students of color, who have traditionally faced greater barriers to entry, from attending. Lower attendance can in turn threaten the outlook for communities and states, which increasingly rely on an educated workforce to grow and thrive, the report asserts.

Research universities and their partnerships with industry, including an institution’s research capacity, are important elements to building a state’s economy as well as the national economy and talent pipeline and workforce. Following on our review of higher education and commercialization programs, as well as our ongoing review of state activities in 2019 (see our stories on free tuition offerings, climate change and clean energy), this week we report on new university-industry partnerships, including research capacity activities, launched in 2019.

The following programs represent some of those efforts.

Alabama

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is exploring a national strategy to promote the U.S. bioeconomy. In response to a request for information, SSTI submitted a letter encouraging OSTP to leverage existing regional assets as part of its approach. To see more innovations converted into new products, services and businesses, the letter encourages a new program to fund commercialization assistance and to strengthen SBIR. To see more workers benefit from the bioeconomy sector, and to see companies in the industry become more efficient, the letter highlights the potential value of high-skill apprenticeship models. Read the full letter.

While rankings and annual indices are catnip for some looking to gain attention for their latest rankings, SSTI has always argued that it’s long-term trends that give the best sense of where a state or region stands. With recent release of income data, SSTI has examined the last 34 years data in median household income for each state. SSTI found that while median household income — adjusted to 2018 dollars — has risen in nearly every state and the U.S. since 1984 with an average annual rate of increase of 0.8 percent, the growth, not surprisingly, varies widely among individual states.

Two recent reports highlight the importance of funding innovation in the U.S., and give a glimpse into the perils of ignoring it. The reports, from The Aspen Institute and Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), independently corroborate the role of the public sector in ensuring a more prosperous future through innovation. The Aspen report, An Innovation Challenge for the United States, warns that the innovation culture forged in this country following World War II is now at risk, while the ITIF report focuses on the dwindling support for higher education from both the state and federal levels and details how such changes could negatively impact the research and development efforts that help build the innovation economy.

SSTI and five peer, economic development-focused organizations submitted a letter to assistant secretary for economic development, John Fleming, in response to a request for information about incorporating Opportunity Zones (OZs) into existing EDA practices. The letter encourages the agency to be cautious in its approach, pointing out that OZ’s impacts are not yet understood. In the meantime, EDA can continue to support distressed regions by providing more education about available programs, technical assistance to strengthen competitiveness, and leverage existing research funding and grant reporting to increase the country’s understanding of economic activity within OZs. The other organizations signing the letter are: International Economic Development Council, National Association of Counties, National Association of Regional Councils, National League of Cities, and Rural Community Assistance Partnership. Read the full letter.

Knowing that research universities are integral to the innovation in this country, states continue their efforts to build the economy by supporting efforts to move the research from the labs to the market. In our ongoing review of state activities in 2019 (see our stories on free tuition offerings, climate change and clean energy), this week we report on new initiatives launched in 2019 that were focused on commercialization of technology. The following programs represent some of those efforts.

Alabama

President Donald Trump this week issued an executive order reinstituting the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to advise the president on matters involving science, technology, education, and innovation policy and named the first seven people to the council. The council will also provide the president with “scientific and technical information that is needed to inform public policy relating to the American economy, the American worker, national and homeland security, and other topics.”

In recent weeks, three separate reviews of R&D grants and awards at NIH have shed new light on issues of minority and women representation among researchers and on potential conflicts of interest by investigators. NIH has been publicly working to address concerns about representation and trustworthiness among its investigators. While the results from these studies show that the agency has more work to do, the availability of this information speaks favorably to NIH's transparent approach to these conversations. 

Business R&D activity has been historically concentrated in a few states and became even more so in 2017, according to a National Science Foundation issue brief on the latest Business Research & Development and Innovation Survey (BRDIS). Despite finding total business R&D surpassed $400 billion in 2017, reflecting a 6.8 percent increase over 2016 results, NSF’s data also reveals R&D activity in five states alone – California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Washington and Texas – captured well over half of all of the nation’s business R&D investment in 2017. These top states represented 55.2 percent of the total in 2017, while five years earlier their share was “only” 49.4 percent of the reported results.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon recently announced that changes are coming to the state’s ENDOW initiative, a 20-year vision that was crafted under his predecessor, Gov. Matt Mead. As part of the coming changes, Gordon said the initiative will target certain industries (such as aerospace, defense and healthcare), be smaller in its scope, and incremental in its strategy. The governor said in a statement that while the vision of ENDOW will continue driving state economic diversification, efforts will now shift toward targeted implementation plans. With the 20-year strategy and action plans already submitted, the governor will no longer convene the executive council, but the ENDOW-initiated programs and committees will continue.

The governor said he will announce plans in the coming weeks on the next steps on economic development. 

A new innovation hub slated to open in January in Washington promises to connect 5G startups with investors and technology labs, while also creating a pipeline of jobs for students interested in the emerging sector. A separate effort in Virginia will become a testbed for 5G wireless security that is expected to accelerate cyber research and include 39 universities and four federal partners. Last year, the president directed the secretary of commerce to lead the creation of a long-term spectrum plan and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has since outlined development priorities for American leadership in the emerging technology.  But with no 5G network up and running yet, one may begin to wonder if all the attention is hype, or rooted in reality of a truly disruptive technology that will largely advance society. A recent briefing paper from the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy seeks to answer who is likely to benefit from this promised vastly faster connectivity, and how that value will be captured.