SSTI Digest

Enacted FY16 funding levels are used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.
Proposed FY17 funding for the Department of the Treasury totals $13.3 billion (5.3 percent increase) in discretionary funds, with an additional $2.3 billion for international assistance programs. Much of the increase in funding is attributable to a major investment in cybersecurity under a new $109.8 million initiative. The Treasury request also includes $250 million toward the U.S. pledge to the Green Climate Fund, which would be combined with another $500 million through the Department of State.

Enacted FY16 funding levels are used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.
 The president’s FY17 budget request for the Department of the Interior (DOI) would provide $13.4 billion (0.5percent increase) in discretionary funding. DOI’s primary research agency, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) would receive $1.2 billion (10.1 percent increase). With the proposed funding levels, DOI would participate in cross-agency initiatives related to Arctic research, water infrastructure, clean energy, climate change and economic realignment for coal communities.

USGS collaborates with federal, state and tribal partners to conduct research and provide scientific data concerning natural hazards and environmental issues, including water, land, geological and biological resources. Almost all of USGS’s funding is devoted to its Surveys, Investigations and Research activities. Research programs include:

Enacted FY16 funding is used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) would receive $29 billion in FY17 discretionary funding under the president’s budget request, a 1 percent increase.

For the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), the budget request for FY17 totals $4.2 billion (14.7 percent decreases with $154 million for Research, Evaluation, and Statistics activities. The appropriation for Research, Evaluation, and Statistics activities includes programs that provide grants, contracts and cooperative agreements for research, development and evaluation; development and dissemination of quality statistical and scientific information; and, nationwide support for law enforcement agencies. Of this amount, $48 million (33.3 percent increase) is requested for research, development and evaluation efforts under the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which serves as the R&D agency of DOJ.  Key funding areas included in the FY17 budget proposal for NIJ:

Enacted FY16 funding is used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.
The administration’s FY17 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is $40.6 billion (0.9 percent decrease) in non-disaster, net discretionary funding, excluding disaster-relief funding. The proposed budget would include $471.1 million to support the National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS), commonly referred to as EINSTEIN, to continue to combat intrusions, enhance information sharing, and deploy analytical capabilities to secure the Federal civilian information technology enterprise. DHS also would commit $274.8 million for the Continuous Diagnostic and Mitigation program to provide hardware, software, and services design to support activities that strengthen the operation security of federal networks.

Enacted FY16 funding is used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.
In FY17, the president is $32.5 billion (9.8 percent increase) for the Department of Energy (DOE), with $12.9 billion (27.7 percent increase) to be used to support science, energy and related programming. Of the $7.7 billion in FY17 proposed across 12 government agencies for Mission Innovation investments, $5.9 billion, or 76 percent, would go to DOE. Examples of DOE Mission Innovation projects that would receive funding under the proposed budget include:

Enacted FY16 funding is used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.
The FY17 budget request for the Department of Defense (DOD) would provide $523.9 billion (0.4 percent increase) in discretionary base funding. The budget is intended to make strategic investments in areas identified as priorities, such as developing new operational concepts, adjusting to strategic changes, pioneering and dominating technology frontiers, reforming the defense enterprise, building the force of the future, and providing resources to the U.S. military force and their families.

Enacted FY16 funding levels are used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.

Estimated FY16 funding levels are used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.
The president’s FY17 budget proposal would provide $24.6 billion (4.1 percent decrease) in discretionary funds for the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The administration is proposing a $700 million investment in the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), USDA’s competitive, peer-reviewed research program for fundamental and applied sciences in agriculture. USDA will also contribute to the cross-agency Mission Innovation clean energy initiative and the administration’s clean water innovation strategy.

Research, Education and Economics
USDA’s Research, Education and Economics (REE) agencies would receive $2.9 billion in discretionary funding (1.3 percent decrease). Overall funding however, would increase with several major investments through mandatory funding, totaling $535 million.

Earlier this week, President Obama released his final budget proposal, outlining $4.1 trillion in spending for federal agencies. Each year, SSTI reviews the president’s federal budget request for programs and spending related to entrepreneurship, regional innovation, economic development, manufacturing, research and development, technology commercialization, and STEM education and workforce training.

This week, U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker announced the 25 recipients of the Economic Development Administration’s 2015 Regional Innovation Strategies grants. These awards support innovation and capacity-building in regions around the country through two grant programs: the i6 Challenge and the Seed Fund Support Grants competition. The Regional Innovation Program remains a key priority for SSTI.  Seventeen i6 Challenge recipients will receive a total of $8 million to create and expand proof-of-concept and commercialization centers, while eight Seed Fund Support Grant winners will share a total of $2 million to support cluster-based seed capital funds. The full list of awardees is available at: https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2016/02/us-secretary-commerce-penny-pritzker-announces-awardees-10-million.

Over the last few months, a number of universities across the country have launched pre-accelerator programs – a new trend that has emerged in university-led efforts to support entrepreneurial growth among faculty and students. This week, the Digest examines this growing trend and attempts to provide insight into two important questions about pre-accelerators:

Technology companies raised $225 million globally on rewards-based crowdfunding sites in 2015, according to a new report from the UK-based Crowdfunding Centre. In State of the Crowdfunding Nation, the Crowdfunding Centre reported that reward-based crowdfunding sites helped raise over $1.5 billion worldwide between the calendar years of 2014 and 2015. Global rewards-based crowdfunding campaigns raised $823.5 in 2015 million (a 20 percent increase over 2014) from nearly 10.2 million backers. In the United States, approximately 20,000 fully funded campaigns raised over $590 million in the United States in 2015. When broken down by category, tech companies attracted the most funding from backers and on average raised over $51,000 per campaign. In addition to tech companies, video games companies raised over $47 million in 2015 using reward-based crowdfunding sites. Download the report (purchase required)