SSTI Digest

Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto announced the launch of the Pittsburgh Roadmap for Inclusive Innovation, a strategic plan that is intended to support economic growth and the equitable access to technology, city resources, and information. The roadmap includes three primary goals that include: Bridge the digital divide and facilitate residents’ participation in the new economy; Improve the city’s capacity to serve the public in the digital age; and, Increase Pittsburgh’s resilience in the digital age by strengthening the clean tech and local business sectors. Under the proposed strategic plan, the city of Pittsburgh and its partner organizations intend to undertake over 100 Initiatives and projects including: Increase public wireless Internet accessibility in communities through public locations; Connect underserved communities with Maker and STEAM programming through existing AmeriCorps program funding; Improve the city’s procurement process through a web-based application to streamline the purchasing process, improving procurement efficiency, transparency, and effectiveness; Support the incubation of Clean Tech through a public and private…

German leaders are debating the future of a program intended to help its elite universities compete in research with the likes of Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. The 11-year, €4.6 billion (USD$5B) Excellence Initiative was launched in 2006, and has provided funding to support clusters of excellence, international graduate schools and strategies to strengthen the institutions as a whole. Since the program began, Germany’s universities have greatly increased their research publication output and their number of highly-cited articles. However, an analysis by Nature finds that much of that increased output has come from second- and third-tier schools that received less support through the initiative. In a similar study, academics found that China’s 985 Project to boost research competitiveness had a great effect on output at lower-ranked universities. Germany’s key national research funding agency, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), issued a report on the Excellence Initiative earlier this month in advance of a comprehensive evaluation due in January 2016. The results of that evaluation will determine the future of the program. A total of 45…

Six states received A's for the health of their manufacturing sector in a new study from Ball State University (BSU) – Conexus Indiana 2015 Manufacturing and Logistics National Report. In addition to the category of manufacturing industry health, each of the 50 states are graded in an additional eight areas of the economy that underlie the success of manufacturing and logistics including: logistics industry health; human capital; worker benefit costs;  tax climate; expected liability gap; global reach; sector diversification; and, productivity and innovation. Researchers, policymakers and practitioners can access individualized report cards for all 50 states to compare their state’s performance in all nine categories to other states. The annual research study and benchmarking report was sponsored by Conexus Indiana – a private sector-led initiative focused on the advanced manufacturing and logistics sectors. Read the full report and view state report cards…

Around the world, increased attention is being paid to inclusive economic growth, which, according to the World Bank, suggests that for growth to be sustainable in the long run it should be broad-based across sectors and inclusive of the large part of the country’s labor force, regardless of demographics. Encouraging this type of growth oftentimes requires political, social, and systematic change, though action is already being taken in both the United States and abroad. The United States ranks as a leader among advanced economies in inclusive asset building and entrepreneurship, although it lags in employment and labor compensation, according to a recent report on inclusive growth and development by the World Economic Forum. At August’s first-ever White House Demo Day, the Obama administration announced several endeavors happening nationwide to support inclusive entrepreneurship. These range from venture capital firms committing to actions that advance opportunities for women and underrepresented minorities, engineering deans committing to building a diverse talent pipeline, and technology companies committing to diverse recruitment and hiring strategies.…

Applicants for the Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) FY 2016 Public Works and Economic Adjustment Assistance Programs Federal Funding Opportunity (FFO) will notice some changes to the application process when the FFO is released in the coming weeks. The standard ED-900 form has been replaced with a selection of shorter forms that can be mixed and matched to fit the needs of different solicitations. Also, a short proposal form can be submitted to ascertain whether a project is responsive to the FFO, instead of having to complete a full application. EDA is planning several webinars to provide more guidance once the FFO is released. Read the announcement at: http://www.eda.gov/news/blogs/2015/09/01/highlight.htm.

In a fact sheet released ahead of President Obama’s visit to Macomb Community College in Warren, MI, this week the Obama administration announced new steps to expand apprenticeships and continue other efforts around workforce development and free community college. Notable initiatives announced include: $175 million grants to provide apprenticeship opportunities to 34,000 individuals; the launch of Heads Up America, an independent campaign to raise awareness about the importance of community colleges; and, the creation of the College Promise Advisory Board to further the administration’s efforts to make two years of community college free to responsible students. The $175 million for American Apprenticeship Grants awarded to 46 public-private partnerships will help train and hire more than 34,000 new apprentices in emerging industries such as health care, IT, and advanced manufacturing. In addition to expanding apprenticeship programs into growing industries, the program also seeks to scale apprenticeship models that have already proven successful, such as the International Transportation Learning Center in Silver Spring, MD, and the Focus: HOPE American…

Using data to track recent graduates in the workforce helps ensure postsecondary education institutions are preparing graduates for successful careers, according to a report recently released by the National Governors Association (NGA) – Tracking Graduates into the Workforce: Connecting Education and Labor Market Data. In this report, NGA contends that accurate, real-time information is a key element of functional labor markets. The NGA report starts with a discussion about the importance of connecting postsecondary education and training programs with labor market data to spur job creation, address the needs of industry, and stimulate economic prosperity. Through the report, NGA highlights new practices in Florida, Kentucky, and a multistate collaboration (between Hawaii, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington) that NGA authors believe are promising strategies to better connecting postsecondary and training programs with the needs of industry. In addition to the NGA report, the Rand Corporation released a report on how the state of Texas is using workforce information to make informed decisions to develop or expand postsecondary education programs. The authors of the NGA…

Oregon announced an agreement with the four regional economic development organizations to improve business development coordination, help existing Oregon businesses expand, recruit new companies, and align other economic developments efforts to grow Oregon's economy and job creation. To achieve the goals of the program, the partners will share office space, hold regular planning meetings, and develop ongoing communications through shared software tools. Business Oregon will provide $100,000 ($25,000 per regional economic development organization) during the next two years to help offset expenses related to the increased cooperation. The pilot program will serve 11 counties, 127 cities, and about two-thirds of the state's population. Read the announcement…

As part of Nevada’s efforts to better prepare its workers to compete in the state’s technology industries, Gov. Brian Sandoval announced the reestablishment of the state’s Office of Science, Innovation and Technology, naming Brian Mitchell its program director. The office, which Sandoval says is inspired by the workforce development programs he saw in Germany during his recent European trade mission, will coordinate efforts between K-12 schools and universities to improve STEM education and ensure that the state’s workforce meets industry needs. Although the office was originally established in 2001 under Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) chapter 223.600 to establish criteria and goals for science, innovation, and technology based economic development, it had been lightly used.  In his 2015 State of the State address, Gov. Sandoval announced his intention to re-ignite the office. Sandoval signed AB 485 in June 2015, which revises the governing duties and structure of the new governor’s Office of Science, Innovation, and Technology and provides for support to the Advisory Council on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. A…

An August 2015 report prepared by an independent consulting firm for the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU) seeks to answer the question: How Did Revenue and Spending per Student Change at Four-Year Colleges and Universities Between 2006-07 and 2012-13? During the six-year period analyzed, four-year public universities experienced a net loss of $430 per full-time student, as  funding cuts amounted to $2,370 per student after adjusting for inflation, while tuition and fee revenues increased by only $1,940 per student. Despite this net loss, four-year public universities increased educational and related expenditures by $528 per full-time student. The study categorizes public institutions based on the Carnegie Classification of research activity, which segments colleges and universities as very high research, high research, or other. Enrollment grew across each group, increasing by 10 percent at very high research institutions, 12 percent at high research institutions, and 8 percent at other institutions. Education and related expenditures also increased across all groups at very high research institutions increasing by 7 percent during the six…

A new Virginia council will coordinate the state’s efforts to help young people create businesses. Gov. Terry McAuliffe recently signed Executive Order 47 establishing the Governor’s Council on Youth Entrepreneurship, following up on a series of roundtables with students and faculty. The council will issue recommendations later this year on how to give students more rights over their research and intellectual property, promote collaborative spaces for entrepreneurs and students to meet, integrate entrepreneurship into university curriculum, identify ways to award students academic credit for starting a business and remove cost barriers to student entrepreneurship. Read the announcement at: https://governor.virginia.gov/newsroom/newsarticle?articleId=12468.

Tennessee leaders hope to raise $10 million in public and private funding over the next five years to support an effort to attract 200 agricultural technology entrepreneurs and establish 100 ag-tech businesses by 2020. USDA Rural Development and the Tennessee Department of Agricultural recently announced they would seed that effort by contributing $220,000 to AgLaunch, a program to aid early-stage ag-tech companies. Memphis Bioworks Foundation will lead the initiatives, providing mentoring and programming opportunities for entrepreneurs. The program will begin in 2016. The AgLaunch announcement is the latest milestone in Tennessee’s 10-year plan to expand production and economic prosperity in rural parts of the state. Gov. Bill Haslam originally called for ideas to bolster the state’s agricultural sector in 2012, leading to the December 2013 release of the Governor’s Rural Challenge: A 10-Year Strategic Plan, generated by a committee including the state Agriculture commissioner, the president of the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation and the chancellor of the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture. The report included four broad…