SSTI Digest

Connect. Discover. Refresh with your peers in Arizona this December. Our newly released agenda will guide you to immersing yourself at SSTI's 2024 Annual Conference. We will explore nearly the full scope of tech-based economic development in session formats that facilitate conversation, new ideas, and new collaboration opportunities. The event will be packed with practical advice, program suggestions, candid sharing of hard lessons learned, and proven practices of success, all for you to take back to your own initiative and region. The conference theme is for all of us to focus on the future, a better future. All four plenary sessions will guide us through key elements influencing what comes next for regional innovation and TBED. Tuesday morning’s opening session will provide all of us a shared grounding to understand the implications of the new leadership we will have in the White House and the composition of the next Congress next year. We’ll also give updates on what lies ahead for the possible ups and downs of federal and state budgets that will be need to be developed. Wednesday’s first plenary will focus on the technologies and global competition that…

Eleven states and two territories, including Puerto Rico, are holding gubernatorial elections this November, with voters in eight of those states (Delaware, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Washington, and West Virginia) choosing a new governor to replace either a term-limited incumbent or governors who chose not to seek re-election. In Montana, Utah, and Vermont governors are seeking re-election. Many of the candidates have announced their innovation and economic development initiatives. As we enter the final stretch of these gubernatorial races, the following are some of the candidates’ innovation- economic- or workforce-related policies, positions, and prior accomplishments. Delaware New Castle Executive Matt Meyer faces Delaware state Rep. Mike Ramone, the current GOP minority leader. Matt Meyer (D) Meyer Is a former teacher and small business owner. A Meyer administration proposes to build upon Gov. Carney’s green economy, jobs, and infrastructure initiatives, including offshore wind and climate goals, such as net-zero emissions by 2050 in Delaware. Mike Ramone (R) Building upon his…

A recent Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City working paper explores the relationship between inter-state mobility, earnings gains, and initial wealth of young college graduates over time, highlighting the impact of debt. The paper Should I Stay or Should I Go? Inter-state Mobility and Earnings Gains of Young College Graduates by Andrew Glover and José Mustre-del-Río proposes a model to explain the decline in mobility. Looking at historical trends, the authors find that in the late 1990s, nearly 7% of young college graduates moved across state lines annually, experiencing a 30% increase in earnings three years post-move. By the mid-2010s, mobility dropped to 4.2%, while earnings gains became more front-loaded but smaller. At the same time, debt increased among young college graduates (see the recent SSTI article, Addressing Ballooning Student Debt). They propose a model of geographic mobility with incomplete markets, examining how young college graduates make decisions about moving when they face financial risks and limitations on their ability to protect themselves from those risks. The essential idea is that people might be less willing to move if they can't…

October 30, 3:00 p.m. EDT | Free In today's competitive landscape, technology-based economic development (TBED) organizations need to effectively communicate their achievements and impact to secure crucial funding and support. This webinar will delve into how TBED organizations can strategically use impact reports as a powerful tool to capture the attention of media, funders, and other key stakeholders.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) could see its first reauthorization since 2004, depending on how the post-election congressional work period progresses. Leaders of the Senate committee that oversees the annual defense bill have agreed to include a proposal to reauthorize EDA’s public works and economic adjustment programs in their negotiations with the House as part of the national defense authorization bill. Sections of the proposal that seem most relevant to tech-based economic development—Build to Scale and Tech Hubs are authorized separately—include codifying the University Centers program (which is authorized but not defined in detail by EDA’s current statutes), creating a new workforce training grant that would enable nonprofits and municipalities to offer new programs and states to provide scholarships, and establishing an office for disaster response so that EDA can be better-prepared to efficiently award future emergency funds. Details are available from the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), which initially advanced the EDA authorization legislation. Typically, Congress would seek approval from both the Senate…

SSTI recently hosted an informational session with EDA representatives about the 2024 Build to Scale program. The $50 million program is accepting applications until October 28. The recording and slides are now available here for those who missed it or want to review. To help organizations identify counties that meet EDA’s Equity Investment Priority criteria, SSTI has developed a new interactive map. This tool also shows the locations of NSF Engines and EDA Tech Hubs across the country. While not required for eligibility, proposed projects that can demonstrate affiliation with NSF Engines or EDA Tech Hubs can receive up to five points in the evaluation process. Working with rural or persistent poverty counties helps EDA meet its congressional requirements. Access the map here. Additional resources to help you prepare your proposal include: Success stories from organizations that leveraged Build to Scale funding to drive innovation in their regions Lessons learned in federal grant management from current TBED grantees “Useful Stats” stories from SSTI’s weekly Digest providing TBED-focused data insights and analysis Avoid common misunderstandings and hear grant…

The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the 2024 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC) Stage Two winners. Each received between $50,000 and $150,000 in prize awards to advance their work supporting small businesses and startups in STEM and research and development (R&D) across priority areas like national and economic security, domestic manufacturing and production, and sustainability and biotechnology. The SBA press release announcing the winners stated, “GAFC Stage One prizes emphasized ecosystem network building, while Stage Two efforts focus on the enhanced support that can be provided to small businesses and startups through these Growth Accelerator Partnerships.” The 2024 Stage Two winners are in 34 U.S. states and territories, including Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Congratulations to the following SSTI members who were among the 44 Stage Two winners: Association of University Research Parks (AURP) Central Indiana Corporate Partnership FuzeHub Invest Nebraska University City Science Center Details about all 44 winners are available here.

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) recently announced $3,889,964 in funding for the Appalachian Investors Alliance (AIA),  a seed fund network that includes several SSTI members. The award was funded through ARC’s Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE) initiative. SSTI caught up with Eric Fischer, a fund manager at AIA, for some details about AIA and the opportunity the grant enables. AIA will use ARISE funding to develop and launch six new angel and micro-venture funds and launch the Appalachian Venture Foundry to prepare businesses for investments within six Appalachian states, according to Project Snapshot from ARC. Fischer noted that AIA collaborates with more than 30 regional partners. These groups identify companies seeking investment funding and connect them to the three service tiers, a progressive educational process through which companies move as they learn what they need to do to appeal to investors. “This is where our partners come into play, and it's the most important part of our partnership network,” said Fischer. This network, he said, grew one partner at a time “slowly and organically.” The network…

Why are people registering for SSTI's 2024 conference at a record pace? It might be the timing of SSTI's conference—one month after a tumultuous election season. It could be our focus of the four plenary sessions being what regional innovation and tech-based economic development needs to look like in the future when you consider other great unknowns like what impact artificial intelligence will have on local economies. 

A recent National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, Immigrant Entrepreneurship: New Estimates and a Research Agenda provides fresh insights into the growth and characteristics of immigrant-founded firms across the United States. The study also outlines directions for future research in this field. Key findings from the authors’ statistical analysis include: In a sample of 25 states, immigrants’ representation among top earners in new firms rose from 22.5% in 2003 to 28.9% in 2020. Nearly two-thirds of this growth came from a general rise in immigrant entrepreneurship across all regions in the sample rather than concentrated booms in specific states. The overall share of immigrant entrepreneurship increased from 18.7% in 2007 to 24.2% in 2019.

State support for higher education in the United States over the last four decades can best be characterized as having fluctuations and shifts in priorities. Using fiscal year (FY) 1980 as a starting point, while overall state support for higher education has grown, it has done so with volatility driven in part by decreased revenue as a result of recessions, and it has frequently taken years for state support to recover to pre-recession levels. In four states, state support on a constant 1983-dollar basis is still less than was spent in 1980. Looking back at the impacts of the Great Recession of 2008 is even more illustrative of the long recovery period after recessions; in FY2024, just 20 states and Washington, D.C., spent more in constant dollars than they did in FY2008. An additional nine states surpassed their FY2008 spending levels at some point after FY2011 but did not maintain that through FY2024. In fact, just one state, North Dakota, has provided support for higher education above FY 2008 values in every year since. About the data and our methodology Data for this article comes from the Grapevine Report on State Fiscal Support for Higher Education, produced…

In this Digest issue, SSTI continues its examination on the state of higher education. Today, we start with rising student loan debt, which research shows has dire consequences on borrowers, including delayed home ownership, hindered retirement savings, and financial stress. Then, we examine college costs and consider why they are rising so fast. We delve into the effects of tuition and fees outstripping household income. Also, our research details the many contributing factors passed on to students, including expanded administrative staffing, inflation, and facilities improvements.   This article was prepared by SSTI using Federal funds under award ED22HDQ3070129 from the Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The statements, findings, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Economic Development Administration or the U.S. Department of Commerce.