SSTI Digest

If catching up on your reading is a goal over the holidays or on your list of resolutions for next year, the staff at SSTI are sharing some of our favorite reads from the past year. Here we bring you our list of 2018 science, innovation, tech and entrepreneurship (adjacent) reads. Tell us what you think of the list — and what is on your list — by tweeting @ssti_org. Dan Berglund, president & CEO The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 (Richard White, 2017). Income inequality, technological transformation impacting the American economy, tension between rural and urban America, arguments over immigration, and frequent switches in party control of the U.S. House of Representatives: sound familiar? Mark Twain supposedly said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes,” and the echoes between the late 19th century and early 21st century prove the aphorism. This volume, which is denser than it should be, sheds light on how our past has shaped our future. The Soul for America: The Battle for Our Better Angels (Jon Meacham, 2018). A personal pet peeve is hearing…

The latest Farm Bill, expected to be signed into law Thursday, contains provisions that could provide significant new tools for rural innovations. The two greatest opportunities are the Rural Innovation Stronger Economy (RISE) grant program, which creates an innovation cluster and strategy program for rural regions, and a change to allow the existing Community Facilities program to support incubators, makerspaces, and job training centers. RISE Grants This program would provide between $500,000 and $2 million over four years for regional innovation initiatives in rural regions. Activities must be connected to an existing or emerging cluster and could include facilitating market connections, supporting commercialization, and providing workforce and entrepreneurship services. The original bill was sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) with Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). Eligibility includes nonprofits, institutions of higher education, governments and tribes, and requires the support of a network of similar entities to apply. The program is open to communities fitting USDA’s broadest definition of rural, a population of 50,000 or…

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced more than $763 million for economic development projects throughout the state as part of the regional economic development council (REDC) competition. The program, which tasks leaders in 10 regions to determine economic development priorities, has awarded more than $6.1 billion across 7,300 projects since its inception in 2011. In each region, funding went toward projects such as infrastructure, main street revitalization, feasibility studies, strategic planning, microenterprise funds, and workforce development. Of the total amount distributed this year, more than $20 million went to projects related to technology-based economic development. A (non-exhaustive) list of New York projects related to technology-based economic development receiving funding in this most recent round can be found below, while a full list of awarded projects can be found here. New York City The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai will renovate a Mount Sinai Health System-owned building into a state-of-the-art dry lab facility as the first phase of its life sciences hub capital plan. The research component of the dry lab will be complemented by an…

Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo has announced the first three projects for the state’s Innovation Campus Program, an effort to support the commercialization of academic research in key industries such as cybersecurity, data analytics and agricultural technology. The centers, in partnership with the University of Rhode Island and located in Kingston and Providence, will receive a combined $12 million from the state. The funding stems from a $20 million innovation bond approved by the state’s voters in 2016. The governor’s office stated that the next round of awardees for the remaining $8 million in bond proceeds would be announced in 2019. The first round project awardees are: The University of Rhode Island and Arizona State University Innovation Hub in Providence will receive $5.5 million from the bond. Its focus will be on “education and workforce development; research into cybersecurity, big data analytics and visualizations and the IoT; commercialization and start up resources and initiatives; community outreach and citizen science initiatives; and platforms and facilities to support the hub's major efforts,” according to the…

In its latest report on the conditions of the states, the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) found that conditions continue to improve and show more stability, with funding expected to grow 4.3 percent in FY 2019. NASBO also reported that 40 states saw general fund revenue collections coming in higher than budget projections in fiscal 2018. General fund revenues grew 6.4 percent in fiscal 2018, due to an increase in personal income tax collections, and are projected to grow 2.1 percent in fiscal 2019. The improved picture extended to the states continuing to strengthen their reserves, with the median rainy day fund balance as a share of general fund spending expected to rise to 7.3 percent in fiscal 2019. Appropriation increases for fiscal 2019 totaled $41.1 billion across all program areas, compared to $12.7 billion in fiscal 2018, and only seven states made mid-year budget cuts due to a shortfall in FY 2018. The full report is available here.

A new report from The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) released last week describes the misleading perceptions resulting from employment rates used by the three entities tasked with oversight of the U.S. higher education system and proposes two specific measurements that could better inform student choices. In Of Metrics and Markets: Measuring Post-College Employment Success, TICAS examines accrediting agencies, state governments and the federal government and found an uncoordinated and differing sets of regulations that “makes meaningful comparison across programs and colleges nearly impossible and leaves major questions about the accuracy and reliability of the available information.” Noting that most students rank finding a good job as one of the most important factors in choosing a college, they sought a way that would better inform student choices. To ensure that job-placement rates are consistent, accurate and transparent enough to inform decision making TICAS makes specific policy recommendations. First, TICAS recommends that federal, state and accrediting agencies standardize the job placement rate and that states collect the…

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a paper making recommendations to improve federal technology transfer. Recommendations are organized around five topics: regulation and administration, private-sector engagement, R&D workforce, tech transfer tools, and metrics and benchmarks. These recommendations — and the responses they generate — are expected to lead to regulatory and legislative proposals over the course of the next two years. The Draft Green Paper is part of the Return on Investment Initiative, a project managed by NIST and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to improve the returns on federal R&D investments. The initiative itself is part of the President’s Management Agenda. The paper was produced in part based on feedback from the request for information conducted earlier this year on Stevenson-Wydler and other tech transfer policies. A summary of NIST’s recommended actions is reproduced below. More details on the intended actions, including what regulatory or legislative changes may be required to implement the solutions, are provided in the paper. Some of the…

For the first time, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis has released prototype gross domestic product (GDP) data at the county level. This preliminary data, which includes the years 2012 to 2015, provides a granular look at county-level productivity. Furthermore, standardizing this data by population – GDP per capita – makes it a useful metric for comparing counties over time and across the country.  From 2012 to 2015, per capita GDP grew in 82 percent of counties. Of the 138 counties with a population of more than 500,000 (large counties), GDP per capita increased in all but five from 2012 to 2015, led by Palm Beach County, Florida (32.2 percent increase), Santa Clara County, California (28.6 percent) and Denton County, Texas (27.6 percent). Using data from the BEA and the U.S. Census, SSTI has prepared a spreadsheet showing GDP per capita at the county level from 2012 to 2015, as well as an interactive map highlighting this data.

Bringing the innovation community together and examining how it has advanced — or how it hasn’t — is one of the driving goals of SSTI’s annual conferences. This year we brought together thought-provoking leaders to help reflect on whether stakeholders in the innovation economy are moving the needle in the right direction. From considering the workforce of the future and whether we are “robot ready,” to challenging our current practices of capital development and investment, while also challenging the entire ecosystem to be more genuinely and authentically inclusive in building the economy, this year’s thought leaders explored the current and future disruption of the economy. Michelle R. Weise, senior vice president of workforce strategies and chief innovation officer of the Strada Institute for the Future of Work, focused on the human skills needed for the future and the current disconnect between education and the workforce. In what she refers to as “human+” skills, Weise noted that future jobs will utilize both artificial and emotional intelligence skills. A recent report from Strada and Emsi analyzed more than 100…

Envisioning a future where all Americans will have lifelong access to high-quality STEM education, and where the U.S. will be the global leader in STEM literacy, innovation and employment, the federal government released a five-year strategic plan for STEM education. Noting that the federal government has a key role to play in furthering STEM education and removing barriers to participation in STEM careers, especially for women and other underrepresented groups, the report issues a call to action for a nationwide collaboration with learners, families, educators, communities and employers.

With a potential economic impact of $2.5 trillion over the next decade, a new report from Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute projects that the manufacturing skills gap may leave more than 2 million positions unfilled from 2018 to 2028. In the 2018 Skills Gap in Manufacturing Study, the authors find that the talent shortage is accentuated by two factors: a prolonged economic expansion that has increased the number of job openings in manufacturing and projected growth in baby boomer retirement. Although these two factors are expected to lead to more than 4.6 million manufacturing jobs over the next decade, the authors’ research finds that fewer than half of these jobs are likely to be filled. In addition to making the case that this skills shortage poses risks to the broader economy, the authors also put forward strategic approaches to influence a more positive employment future over the long-term. Examples of recommendations include engaging the overall talent ecosystem and changing the way they recruit and retain talent, and tapping the resources of the retiring, experienced workforce. Additional recommendations include developing in-house training, with a…

The governments of France and Canada said last week they would create a joint International Panel on Artificial Intelligence (IPAI) to study and respond to the changes resulting from artificial intelligence and facilitate an international collaboration focused on sharing research and best practices. The mission of the IPAI “will be to support and guide the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence that is human-centric and grounded in respect for human rights, inclusion, diversity, innovation and economic growth.” The announcement was made by Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau and Mounir Mahjobi, the French secretary of state for digital affairs, in conjunction with the G7 Multistakeholder Conference on Artificial Intelligence that took place last week in Montreal, Quebec. According to the proposed mandate, the IPAI will rely on the expertise of the scientific community, industry, civil society and governments to conduct analysis in order to guide AI policy development and adoption that is grounded in human rights. At the request of its members, it will produce reports and assessments and establish working groups to share information. It aims…