SSTI Digest

The Senate confirmed Wilbur Ross as Commerce secretary Monday night by a vote of 72 to 27 and he was sworn into office by Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday. The 79-year-old billionaire investor becomes the 39th head of the office, which oversees several key economic development organizations including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Economic Development Administration, the U.S.

The Trump administration’s initial proposal of a $54 billion increase in defense spending with the same amount being cut from non-defense spending would alter spending rules established in 2013, which set a cap on discretionary spending across the federal government and affected defense and non-defense spending equally. Press reports have indicated congressional opposition to this approach with a key House appropriator commenting, "The president will propose, and the Congress will dispose.” While the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has provided top-line numbers to individual agencies as it works in preparing the FY 2018 budget request, those figures have not been released publicly. The full FY 2018 budget proposal is expected in late spring with an outline to be released mid-March.

Last month, SSTI highlighted a recent research paper on the debate regarding university-industry collaboration’s impact on the academic ideal of open sciences and reduced academic productivity. In a new working paper from National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), MIT researcher Heidi Williams examines another controversial Intellectual Property (IP) topic – whether patent systems, in practice, improve the alignment between private returns and social contributions. Williams findings indicate that for select industries the patents of large firms can reduce the amount of follow-on innovation conducted by small firms and startups – potentially reducing the social impact of those new technologies. However, for select industries, patent invalidation – the denial of patent rights by the USTPO or federal courts – has limited impact on follow-on innovation.

Through How Do Patents Affect Research Investments?, Williams tries to identify three parameters:

Private funders invested more than $2.3 billion in basic research at 34 universities and eight research institutions in 2016, with more than 84 percent of funds going to research in the life sciences, according to the Survey of Private Funding for Basic Research. The Science Philanthropy Alliance, a nonprofit organization founded in 2012 to support philanthropic investments in basic scientific research, conducts the survey – now in its second year.  Funding for basic research at the 26 institutions that completed the survey in both 2015 and 2016 increased by 28 percent, the survey finds.  

State and local governments invested $3.8 billion in R&D at institutions of higher education in FY 2015, with the top ten states accounting for $2.3 billion – roughly 59.4 percent of overall spending, according to an SSTI analysis of NSF data. From FY 2011 to FY 2015, total spending remained relatively unchanged (0.1 percent decrease). Over that same period, colleges and universities in 25 states reported increased expenditures from state governments, while 25 and the District of Columbia reported declines. This edition of Useful Stats examines how institutions of higher education report changing state and local investments in R&D.

The perils of regional economies being too dependent on single industry clusters, particularly as it affects the financing of state governments, are playing out in the Great Plains. Kansas, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Wyoming have been or still are experiencing recessions, beginning as early as spring 2015 for two, according to a new analysis by Jason P. Brown for the Tenth Federal Reserve District.

Testing two different approaches for assessing economic status, Brown’s review of national and state recession occurrences during the past 36 years found states whose economies are heavily dependent on the energy sector experience more recessions than the nation overall. Fortunately, for most of the energy states, recessions are usually shorter in duration than national downturns.

The nation’s largest system of higher education with over 2 million students is trying to connect community colleges to their regional economies through a three-year, $17-million-dollar investment to establish a statewide network of maker-focused colleges. The California Community College (CCC) Maker Initiative may provide a model for community colleges to infuse making, innovation, and entrepreneurship into students’ college experiences while helping them prepare for STEM/STEAM careers with the necessary skills for 21st Century jobs.

 During the initiative’s developmental stage last year, the CCC Chancellor’s Office commissioned the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) to develop a report that provides a critical look at the makers movement, which included a playbook for creating a maker network across the state of California leveraging their community college system.

The Senate passed the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act, directing the National Science Foundation (NSF) to recruit women into entrepreneurial programs, and the INSPIRE Women Act, directing NASA to expand its outreach to women, on February 14. Both bills previously passed the House and now head to the White House for signature.

The Senate advanced Wilbur Ross’s nomination for Secretary of Commerce with a vote in favor of ending debate; the full vote on confirmation is expected for February 27.

Arkansas has new tools targeting growth in the state’s innovation and technology sector after Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed legislation creating a $2 million accelerator grant program for startups and establishing a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) matching funds program. The Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s (AEDC) Division of Science and Technology will administer the programs and seek corporate sponsors to provide matching funds to create accelerator events throughout the state. Grants will be available to qualified applicants of up to $250,000 per event. The SBIR fund will provide funds to match up to 50 percent of federal grant funds for qualifying companies, up to a cap of $50,000 for Phase One and up to $100,000 for Phase Two. The program seeks to create and retain high-tech jobs, foster research, and increase the number of federal SBIR awards for startup and early-stage companies.

Science and engineering advocates are increasingly finding ways to voice their dedication to ensuring that the fields remain open and free of politics. Hundreds of supporters gathered this past weekend at a Rally to Stand Up for Science in Copley Square in Boston, coinciding with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On its Facebook page, the organizers called upon the scientists attending the conference and others to join in the rally, which was supported by more than a dozen science organizations.

SSTI submitted a letter to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) in response to a request for information on the Institute’s investments in early translational research. The letter recommends partnerships and initiatives NHLBI could develop to improve identification of commercializable discoveries, strengthen business and technical development, and facilitate the scaling of innovations and spin-outs. These suggestions are grounded in examples of work by SSTI members. Read the full letter on ssti.org.

After training nearly 80 PhD scientists and engineers in the craft of policy making, the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) has awarded planning grants to nine other states to evaluate the potential to create a policy fellowship for scientists and engineers in their state capital.  The new one-year grant, which is administered by CCST and funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Simons Foundation, will support teams in Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington as they work on feasibility studies and other strategic steps toward creating science fellowships in their state policy arenas. It is up to each state to design the fellowship that would work best in their state, whether that is a position in the legislature or another body.