SSTI Digest

Congress authorized $10 billion over five years for regional tech hubs to improve America’s competitiveness and regional economies. To date, Congress has appropriated only $541 million for the program—just 5% of the authorized level—of which a $459 million downpayment was provided though the FY 2023 disaster supplemental. SSTI is working with other technology and innovation organizations to encourage Congress to act and fund the program through annual appropriations, supplemental funding, and the proceeds of spectrum auctions—a new means that would be made possible by the Senate’s Spectrum and National Security Act. If you represent or participated in one of the 370 regions that applied originally or want to compete for funding in future solicitations, sign on to a joint letter by November 1. The letter can be found here with the form to sign here. The $541 million provided to date was just enough for the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) to launch the initial program. Consortia representing 370 regions applied, from which EDA designated 31 as Regional Tech Hubs in 2023. The agency is now in the process of finalizing implementation awards to 12…

While both gross domestic product (GDP) and population have steadily increased across the United States over the last decade, the growth of business enterprise R&D (BERD) expenditures has surged ahead at an even faster pace. Nationwide, BERD as a percentage of GDP has jumped over 0.75 percentage points over the past decade, rising from 1.91% in 2013 to 2.66% in 2022, while BERD per capita has more than doubled from approximately $1,020 to $2,075 over the same time. This edition of Useful Stats will explore in depth the varied changes in BERD intensity metrics at the national and state levels over the most recent decade of available data. The data used in this article is from the most BERD survey for business R&D values and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis for GDP and population.   National overview of BERD intensity metrics While prior SSTI analysis of BERD survey data has found large increases in domestic business R&D performance over the past decade, it is important to contextualize this growth within the bigger picture of the U.S. economy. Just because a given metric is on the rise does not necessarily mean that it is becoming…

The Treasury Department has recently approved an additional $106 million in SSBCI dollars for tribal governments: $102 million as part of the Capital Program and $4 million as part of the Technical Assistance (TA) Grant Program. With this most recent wave of announcements, and including two $2 million Small Business Opportunity Program (SBOP) awards made to tribal governments, Treasury has now approved applications for over $520 million in overall SSBCI dollars to tribal governments. All information used in this article is from Treasury’s most recent October 2024 program approval documents for the Capital Program and TA Program and Treasury press releases. The information below and more can be found on SSTI’s SSBCI Information Page.   Tribal government Capital Program overview The most recent wave of tribal government Capital Program awards, announced October, 2024 represents just over $102 million of SSBCI capital across nine awardees operating 11 programs—two equity/venture capital and nine credit support, as classified by SSTI. Treasury awarded the bulk of this total, $86.8 million, to the Cherokee Nation to operate two loan…

The Office of Strategic Capital within the U.S. Department of Defense announced the availability of $984 million for equipment financing for projects to develop critical technologies. Companies can have their loans sponsored by another public or nonprofit entity, which appears to be a means of supplementing applications from companies that are otherwise too new or financially risky. Loan applications will be available from January 2 to February 3, 2025, and the office anticipates making 10 loans from $10-$150 million. Whether the terms will offer any benefits beyond capital access (e.g., low interest rates) is unclear, but the announcement provides many other details about the program. Technology covered by the loans can be in one of 31 “critical” categories, which range from advanced manufacturing to quantum sensing. Funded projects are intended to advance America’s national security or economic interests and to attract private capital to tech with public interest. Individual loan evaluation criteria[1] include information about the degree to which likely purchasers of the specific technology product and any partners in the project, with an apparent preference for…

Are you tired of your organization's impact going unnoticed? Join our webinar to discover how to use compelling, attention-grabbing impact reports to tell your success stories in a way that resonates with funders, media, and the public. You’ll hear from three types of organizations with three very different funding models. Our expert panel will share real-world examples of TBED organizations using impact reports to secure funding, boost media coverage, strengthen partnerships, and elevate their reputation. Learn how to highlight the long-term value of your initiatives, use various communication channels to reach a wider audience, and avoid common pitfalls and maximize the impact of your reports. Don't miss this opportunity to take your TBED organization to the next level. Register now for our TBED Community of Practice webinar on Maximizing visibility: leveraging impact reports for TBED success. Speakers include President & CEO, Arkansas Research Alliance Bryan Barnhouse; Director, Muskegon Innovation Hub at Grand Valley State University Kevin Ricco; and Director of Marketing & Communication, South Carolina Research Authority…

Despite recent attacks on affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion, the TBED community continues to work toward broadening participation in innovation driven growth. This continuing attention may be attributable—as stated in the recently released report Tech Equity in Action—to the practical knowledge among TBED practitioners that “(e)fforts to grow local economies are hampered when sizable portions of the population are left out of this high-growth sector.” The report, published by the New Growth Innovation Network (NGIN), provides practical advice for TBED professionals who want to continue to ensure their projects are equitable and inclusive. “Put frankly, whether one calls it DEI or not, the work must be done,” Mark Skinner, SSTI’s executive vice president, said. “Regions cannot ignore the urgent need for greater involvement in innovation among more of their population to achieve long-term competitiveness and sustained economic growth.” Skinner added, “How one accomplishes that is an integral focus of our conference agenda in December.” More on SSTI’s annual conference, to be held Dec 10-12 in Metro Phoenix, is available here. NGIN…

Even though women make up nearly half of the U.S. workforce, their involvement in critical occupations going forward does not reflect that. For instance, in 2021, they only constituted 35% of environmental engineers, 17% of civil engineers, and 9% of mechanical engineers, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau analyzed by the Society of Women Engineers. Additionally, the Pew Research Center reported in 2021 that “Women account for 25% of those working in computer occupations. The share of women in this fast-growing occupation cluster declined from 2000 to 2016 and has remained stable” through at least through 2021, the end date of their study.  Furthermore, according to Women in STEM, 2023, “At the current pace, we will not see equal representation in STEM until the year 2070.” The Girls' Index™: Girls & STEM Impact Report, conducted by Ruling Our eXperiences (ROX) and supported by Battelle, aims to provide insight into the root causes of women’s lagging numbers in pursuing STEM occupations. The study, which surveyed 17,502 girls in 5th through 12th grade, is the largest national survey to do so. The Index suggests that girls' lag in pursuing…

Innovation spreads, but how far can it reach? A new study finds that firms operating in multiple tech clusters act as conduits, transmitting knowledge and boosting productivity across distant locations. However, certain types of firms are better at it—and benefit more readily—than others. This insight, from a recent National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, “Innovation Spillovers across U.S. Tech Clusters,” challenges our understanding of how innovation benefits spread geographically. Combining patent data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office with confidential plant-level data from U.S. Census Bureau surveys from 1976 to 2018, the NBER researchers investigated the extent and impact of innovation spillovers between tech clusters. They focused on manufacturing firms with inventors producing patents in the same technological field across multiple plants. The analysis revealed substantial variation in the degree of interconnectedness: the most connected plants had links to an average of 11.3 clusters, exposing them to the knowledge of more than 8,000 inventors. In contrast, the least connected plants were tied to just one cluster, with only 32 outside…

As a part of the State Small Business Credit Initiative (SSBCI)’s Technical Assistance (TA) Program, the Treasury Department has announced 14 Small Business Opportunity Program (SBOP) awards to 12 states and two Tribal governments, each ranging from $1.6 to $10 million, totaling $75 million. SSBCI’s TA program is divided into two major programs: the TA Grant program and SBOP. The TA Grant program is an allocation formula-based grant program for which all eligible jurisdictions having submitted complete and approvable applications are generally recommended for funding. SBOP, however, is a competitive grant program for which only certain applications are selected for approval based on evaluation criteria specified in the NOFO. This information and more can be found in the SBOP FAQs. Note: The nationwide injection of nearly $10 billion from SSBCI has fundamentally transformed finance in most of the country outside the usual regional suspects for tech, innovation and entrepreneurship. Interested Digest readers are invited to join Treasury officials and SSBCI program participants gathering at SSTI’s annual conference Dec. 10-12 to discuss TA, program updates and…

As business R&D expenditures continue to increase nationwide, disparities between states deepen, an SSTI analysis of new Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) survey data reveals. States with the largest BERD values, including California, Washington, and Massachusetts, have all increased their share of overall domestically performed BERD values almost every year since 2013. Nearly 50% of the nation’s domestic business R&D expenditures occurred within the borders of these three states in 2022, up from 39% just a decade prior in 2013. California contained over a third of the nation's total value in 2022, totaling more than the bottom 43 states and Washington, D.C. combined. Figure 1 illustrates this trend, showing the five states with the largest values in 2013 and 2022, alongside the summative value of the remaining BERD dollars. Note that undistributed funds are included in the “All Others” slice of the charts; in 2013 undistributed funds accounted for approximately $12.7 billion, which decreased to $765 million in 2022. Undistributed funds include reported data not allocated to a specific state by multi-establishment companies. Figure 1…

Forty-one states and Puerto Rico will vote on 151 statewide ballot measures this fall.    Many of this year’s measures focus on abortion; citizenship or electoral system reforms (such as Arizona’s Proposition (Prop) 133 and Missouri’s Amendment 7, which would prohibit ranked-choice voting, while Idaho’s Prop 1, Nevada’s Question 3, and Oregon’s Measure 117 would establish ranked-choice voting); criminal justice or drug use policies (including the legalization of recreational (Florida, North Dakota, and South Dakota) or medical (Nebraska) marijuana, as well as certain psychedelic substances (Massachusetts could be the third state to legalize psilocybin); and minimum wage increases. Voters in Alaska, California, Massachusetts, and Missouri will decide on minimum wage increases, with Nebraska voters deciding on an initiative requiring paid sick leave for employees. In Arizona, voters will decide whether tipped workers should be paid 25% less per hour than minimum wage. A dozen initiatives would impact tech-based economic development—providing funding for initiatives, changing the electoral or redistricting system, altering taxes, or modifying the governance of higher education.

The Small Business Administration’s (SBA’s) has announced the Regional Innovation Clusters initiative awards winners. There are 14 winners from a pool of 79 applicants. There are two categories for these awards: emerging and mature clusters. According to the SBA press release, emerging clusters develop and deploy small business support services in their designated regions and industries, and mature clusters have experience building and implementing programming to support small businesses. Learn more about the Regional Innovation Clusters program at SSTI’s 2024 Annual Conference. SBA is partnering with SSTI for the event and will be participate in the Federal Funding Forum and sessions on the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) programs. See the full agenda for the conference and register today. The fourteen awardees are listed below with the amounts of first year funding (new cluster awards can be optioned by SBA for up to four additional years), technology focus, and region: AgTech Innovation Alliance received $250,000 to support AgriFoodTech small businesses in California’s Central Valley. Applied…