SSTI Digest

In a document provided to Politico and now widely circulated, the White House revealed its budget reductions for FY 2017. While the budget is currently under a continuing resolution through April 28, the proposed funding numbers largely reflect a partial-year implementation of the administration’s FY 2018 budget blueprint. One new piece of information is that the National Science Foundation would receive a $350 million reduction, equal to about five percent of the agency’s budget. As SSTI covered with the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology last week, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation submitted its policy priorities to the budget committee in a letter that is not yet published. AIP reports the committee continues to support research at NOAA and NIST’s Manufacturing Extension Partnership, in contrast to the administration’s proposed budget, in addition to NSF’s I-Corps program and other prior priorities. 

A better future depends on science, technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship, but it also depends on harnessing these tools as a way to solve society’s shared problems. Growing jobs and wealth in a community is the goal of nearly all economic development programs, but more can be done to ensure that the public good is given an equal priority when developing regional prosperity strategies. The following highlights examples of technology-based economic development organizations increasingly focusing their efforts on creating opportunity through innovation. The Cleveland Water Alliance (CWA) recently launched Erie Hack, an innovation competition and accelerator program that seeks to generate creative solutions to Lake Erie’s biggest challenges. CWA worked with the Creativity and Innovation Team at NASA Glenn Research Center to identify the most pressing challenges facing the watershed. In response to these challenges, regional teams in six cities and two countries, featuring SSTI members like TechTown in Detroit and the Innovation Collaborative in Erie, will compete for $100,000 in prizes that reward both creativity and…

Through Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s proposed budget, the country’s 2017 Innovation and Skills Plan will provide significant support for efforts intended to attract talented immigrants to the country, encourage investments in clean tech, and make the government procurement process easier for small, emerging technology firms. While the country plans to spend heavily on innovation, the rest of PM Trudeau’s budget curtails new spending and major tax changes due to political uncertainty in the U.S. – Canada’s largest trading partner. Proposed efforts include nearly $950 million CAD ($709.8 million USD) to develop superclusters in six key national industries; the creation of Innovation Canada to be a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs and startups; and, $50 million CAD ($37.4 million USD) to launch Innovative Solutions Canada – a government procurement program modeled after the United States’ Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Innovation The marquee innovation initiative of Trudeau’s budget is Innovation Canada – a new platform that will act as a one-stop shop to simplify the…

Once again, more than three-quarters of U.S. venture capital (VC) dollars went to companies in California, New York and Massachusetts in 2016, according to data from the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)/CB Insights’ Moneytree Report Explorer. Approximately 53.3 percent of all VC capital went to California companies, down nearly 4.4 percent from the states peak in 2014 (57.7) and down 3.9 percent from 2015. While California’s share declined, both Massachusetts and New York saw increases in their share of VC dollars invested: Massachusetts increased from 9.7 percent in 2015 to 10.3 percent in 2016; and, New York increased from 10.6 percent in 2015 to 12.7 percent in 2016. SSTI has prepared data on venture capital investment by state per capita and by share of the national total based on the PwC/CB Insight’s data. That data, along with state-by-state totals for 2010-2016 are available in Excel format. The spreadsheet also includes a break of deals and total dollars raised by quarter for each state in 2016. California remained the number one state for share of total number of deals with 41.9 percent in 2016 (up from 40.5 percent in…

The U.S. House Science Committee released a letter last week reasserting the majority party’s interest in setting R&D priorities for federal science agencies and supporting appropriation levels that generally align with the White House’s budget blueprint. The letter notes priorities for most of the $42 billion in R&D budgets within the committee’s purview, including the following: NSF (and all agencies) would ensure all projects are in the “national interest” as defined by the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act; NIST would have an unspecified level of funds appropriated away from the Manufacturing Extension Partnership and Manufacturing USA toward general unspecified tech transition activities (Note: while the committee did not provide a funding level, the administration’s blueprint proposed eliminating all MEP funding); Department of Energy would see more than $750 million in appropriations moved from ARPA-E, energy efficiency, renewal energy and environmental research projects and an increasing emphasis on supporting public access to lab facilities and tech transfer (aligns with the House-passed Department of Energy…

State budget season shifts from the proposal stage to legislative approval. Over the coming months, the Digest will cover funding of relevant programs. Our first look includes $2.5 million in Wyoming for the Economically Needed Diversification Options for Wyoming (ENDOW) program and $4.6 million in South Dakota for the Office of Research Commerce. Wyoming Wyoming’s Economically Needed Diversification Options for Wyoming (ENDOW) program, which was announced in November 2016 by Gov. Matt Mead, approved by the state legislature in February 2017, and signed by the governor earlier this month, will receive $2.5 million from the state’s rainy day fund in FY2017-2018. Funding for ENDOW includes $1.0 million to create a strategy for growing and diversifying Wyoming's economy around technology, as well as  $1.5 million for the state’s community colleges to respond to key workforce training needs. In late February, the state revealed the official website for ENDOW, which includes a survey to solicit interest from the public. South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed SB 17, South Dakota’s FY 2018 budget bill. While the…

A recent study by the W.E. Upjohn Institute finds that the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program generates a substantial economic and financial return on investment for the federal government. The $130 million invested in MEP during FY2016 by the federal government generated more than $1.1 billion in increased federal personal income tax, a ROI of roughly 8.7:1, according to Upjohn. The study’s authors also find evidence that total employment in the U.S. was more than 142,000 jobs higher than it would have been without the program, based on direct, indirect, and induced jobs generated by projects at MEP centers. Additional economic impacts of the program identified by Upjohn include personal income that is $8.4 billion higher and overall GDP is $15.4 billion greater. The study, The National-Level Economic Impact of the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), uses an economic impact model developed by Regional Economic Models Inc. (REMI) to forecast the indirect and induced effects of reported increases in jobs, sales, cost savings, and investments by MEP clients. Despite Upjohn…

Proposed under previous South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the state’s FY 2017-2018 budget request calls for approximately $3.5 billion to be spent on K-12 and higher education funding including: $5 million for industry certifications and credentials; $2 million in funding for modernization of the state’s careers centers through the Career and Technology Education (CATE) programs; and, $500,000 in funding for highly qualified professionals to leave their occupations to enter a new career teaching at CATE centers – each participant would receive an annual $5,000 scholarship for up to 10 years. The budget also proposed funding to support endowed chairs at institutions of higher education, the MEP center, the SBDCs, and the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness. In the former governor’s proposed budget, the Commission on Higher Education would provide continued support for 51 SmartState Centers and endowed chairs at institutions of higher education.  Launched in 2002, the state legislature committed more than $30 million in lottery funds over six years to support the SmartState program. Through this investment, the Commission of…

While many universities maintain startup investment funds targeted at growing university-affiliated startups, several universities are looking beyond their walls for investment opportunities that will create a return on investment (ROI), but also support economic prosperity. Through these investment funds, universities are able to make strategic investment in startups that will contribute to the future growth of their community, region and state. Massachusetts provides a recent example where MIT will invest $25 million in local startups.  Virginia Tech has also said it will invest $15 million in startups willing to locate in Blacksburg and Roanoke’s innovation corridor. In late 2016, MIT announced a $25 million startup investment fund as part of its broad entrepreneurship initiative, dubbed The Engine. Beyond MIT-affiliated startups, the potential $150 million Engine fund will be open to Cambridge startups in biotech, robotics, advanced manufacturing, medical devices, and energy. In addition to the startup capital, MIT resources would be available through a 26,000-square-foot startup space on the edge of its campus. To ensure no bias in the…

America Makes, the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) have released Standardization Roadmap for Additive Manufacturing (Version 1.0) to help coordinate and accelerate the development of industry-wide additive manufacturing standards and specifications. In the roadmap, the authors highlight 89 gaps – 19 of which are high priority – where no published standard or specification currently exists to address a particular industry need.  Topical areas include standards for design, process and materials, qualification and certification, nondestructive evaluation, and maintenance. The organizations goal is for the roadmap to be broadly adopted by the standards community and for it to facilitate a more coherent and coordinated approach to the future development of standards and specifications for additive manufacturing.

In response to a request for information, SSTI submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s CDFI Fund about the certification process and standards for community development financial institutions (CDFIs). Just 1.4 percent of all CDFIs and 0.2 percent of total assets are registered by the CDFI Fund as “venture capital,” which is concerning given the importance of equity for many startups. SSTI’s recommendations include launching a campaign to make more venture development organizations aware of certification’s benefits and establishing more flexible subsidiary guidelines and target market thresholds for these organizations until investment capital is better-represented in the CDFI Fund’s portfolio. Read the full letter.

The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced dates for this year’s SBIR Road Tour, a national outreach effort to highlight funding opportunities through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Combined, these two programs invest more than $2.5 billion annually as a way to spur innovation. At each of the road tour’s 16 stops, innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and small technology firms will have the opportunity to meet directly with SBIR and STTR program managers at the state and federal levels to discuss the program. The tour begins in May 2017 and will continue through October.