SSTI Digest

As part of an official kick-off for a yearlong Policy Academy, interdisciplinary teams from around the country met in Washington, D.C., last week to advance policies that strengthen their manufacturing sectors. The four state participants – Kentucky, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and Utah – are comprised of leadership from governor’s offices, state economic development departments, Manufacturing Extension Partnership centers, manufacturing trade associations, and other manufacturing centers. In addition to facilitated working groups, the event featured speakers from Deloitte, The National Center for the Middle Market, NIST, MForesight, New America, and the National Governors’ Association.

Twenty-four local economic development entities, Small Business Technology Development Centers, Women’s Business Centers, incubators, accelerators, colleges and universities were granted $125,000 by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) under the Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program. The 24 grant recipients, including seven that are members of SSTI (boldfaced below), provide support to small businesses developing and commercializing high-risk technologies.

FAST provides one-year funding to organizations to execute state/regional programs that increase the number of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) proposals (through outreach, training and financial support); increase the number of SBIR/STTR awards (through business assistance and mentoring); and better prepare SBIR/STTR awardees for commercialization success (through business assistance and mentoring). Candidates were endorsed by each of their state and territorial governors, as each state may submit only one proposal.

The Massachusetts legislature ended its 2018 session with a slate of bills related to tech-based economic development. Legislation for general economic development, life sciences industry, and green communities created new authorizations and provided for more than $1 billion in bond funding authority, with a substantial portion allocation to innovation-related activities. From broadband access to SBIR support to workforce development, the bills created a host of new opportunities for TBED in the Bay State.

Economic Development (Ch. 228)

The legislature passed bond funding authorizations for a long list of more than $500 million in local economic development projects and several statewide initiatives. Among the latter, MassVentures was approved for $12.5 million to continue supporting SBIR/STTR awardees; $25 million was authorized for Manufacturing USA centers in the state; and, $2.5 million is approved for cybersecurity innovation. The innovation-related local approvals include:

Two recently released, federally funded reports from the Urban Institute and Workcred provide insights into the Trump administration’s efforts to develop competency-based apprenticeships and new workforce credentials. Over the past year, the Trump administration has positioned these two workforce development approaches as the central focus of its workforce development planning.

Developed under a contract from the Department of Labor (DOL), the Urban Institute released the first set of recommendations for competency-based occupational apprenticeship frameworks. Separately, in partnership with National Institute of Standards and Technology Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (NIST-MEP), Workcred – an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) affiliate – published a report to help strengthen the quality, value and effectiveness of manufacturing credentials in the United States.

The U.S. Census Bureau seeks comments on all aspects of the Business Research and Development Survey for the 2018-2022 releases. Collected in partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF), the survey provides comprehensive data on Research and Development (R&D) costs and detailed expenses by type and industry. The U.S. Census Bureau also announced that it would start collecting data about R&D on artificial intelligence and geographic detail of companies' R&D workforce in 2018.  For those interested in providing feedback, comments are due by October 23.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released a draft of its 2018-2022 Strategic Plan. The draft plan identifies three strategic goals to guide USPTO’s activities over the 4-year period. They include to: optimize patent quality and timeliness; to optimize trademark quality and timeliness; and, provide domestic/global leadership to improve intellectual property (IP) policy, enforcement, and protection worldwide. For interested parties, USPTO is seeking comments regarding all aspects of the plan. Comments are due September 20.

Are you looking for ways to meet the challenges of today’s technology-based innovation economy? Explore the many sessions and speakers that will be featured during SSTI’s 2018 Annual Conference: Navigating the New Innovation Landscape, happening Dec. 3-5 in Salt Lake City. Our conference brochure is now available online and registration is open.

Four states have been selected to participate in a Policy Academy designed to help grow and strengthen manufacturing in their states. State teams will begin meeting on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. with policy experts to develop or further refine strategies to bolster manufacturing. The four participants chosen for the Policy Academy are Kentucky, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and Utah.  Each team includes representatives from the participants’ governor’s office, state economic development department, Manufacturing Extension Partnership center, manufacturing trade association, and other manufacturing centers.

“Manufacturing is a vital component of the economy in each state and the success of the manufacturing sector is imperative for the country’s strength and competitiveness,” said Dan Berglund, president and CEO of SSTI, which is helping to coordinate the Academy. “We are looking forward to supporting the states as they strengthen their manufacturing base and build on their success. We expect that each of the participants will develop new initiatives or expand on those already in place to advance their manufacturing agenda.”

The ability of states to deliver the services promised to its residents relies on their fiscal soundness. With most states beginning their fiscal year in July, SSTI has reviewed the current fiscal standing for each state and here presents a snapshot of our findings.

Most states ended their fiscal year with a surplus and continue to recover from the Great Recession, with a growing economy and job gains. However, they face continuing demands on their budgets, with expanded Medicaid payments and the growing opioid crisis confronting nearly every state. Such decisions affect the state’s ability to fund innovation efforts, from the amount of support available for higher education and STEM programs, to funding for entrepreneurship, and forging public private partnerships to strengthen innovation programming that the private sector cannot fully support.

Our analysis found that some states that rely on the energy sector to fund their spending priorities continue to struggle, while others are already factoring in anticipated revenues as a result of new Supreme Court rulings involving gaming and online sales tax collections.

Alabama

Last week, SSTI looked at an academic research study on the impact that accelerator feedback has on firms. This week, we examine two recent academic studies that looked at the impact accelerators have on regional innovation systems. In the first study from researchers at USC and Rice University, Fehder and Yael Hochberg found that the introduction of an accelerator into a metro area helped to stimulate startup capital. In another recent study, two City University of New York researchers and one from Michigan State University contend that there are three distinct types of accelerators that serve different roles in an innovation system. They include deal-flow makers, welfare stimulators, and ecosystem builders.

As the National Science Foundation points out in a recent press release, people of Hispanic descent comprise 16 percent of the U.S. workforce, but only 6 percent of people working in STEM-related occupations.  Other minorities, including African Americans and Native Americans are also underrepresented in the career paths most critical to maintain American preeminence in innovation and science. New funding rounds distributed by three federal initiatives at NSF and NASA intend to help improve the imbalance.

NSF announced the first 31 undergraduate STEM education projects to be funded through the new Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) program on Aug. 8. Totaling $45 million, the new awards are intended to help build STEM related capacity at these HSIs and increase retention/graduation rates of Hispanic STEM students. More than 60 percent of Hispanic students attend college at an HSI. Several of the recipient institutions of the inaugural awards — five community colleges and three four-year universities — have received little or no NSF funding in the past, according to NSF.

At the end of this month, applications are due for two of the federal government’s most notable programs for funding clusters and regional innovation initiatives: the SBA’s Regional Innovation Clusters (RIC) program and the EDA’s Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program. As practitioners develop their proposals for these programs, it is worth considering potential lessons learned from the successes of previous awardees and the major challenges they have faced.

Less than 18 months ago, the future of the RIC and RIS programs seemed dim. However, due to the support of bipartisan congressional champions and an all-hands-on deck advocacy effort led by SSTI’s Innovation Advocacy Council, these programs received funding in FY 2017 and FY 2018. Continued support for the programs in future years looks promising, although a likely decrease to the federal budget leaves them less than secure.