SSTI Digest

Aimee Dobrzeniecki, NIST MEP deputy director, will be leaving the MEP system May 16. Dobrzeniecki is joining Cathy Renault at Innovation Policyworks and will expand the company by opening a DC office.

Mark Crowell, the founding executive director of the University of Virginia Innovation and associate vice president for research, will step down May 16. Crowell plans to become a consultant based in Chapel Hill, NC.

David Wurzer, formerly a senior managing director at Connecticut Innovations, has been appointed chief investment officer and executive vice president.

An impactful program could be underrepresented and its message lost if not presented in a clear, concise manner. The goal of SSTI’s Exellence in TBED awards program is to highlight how successful innovation-focused efforts have transformed economies. Because your story has to be compelling to the reader, we have provided several resources to help your team write a better application – and bring home a win for your state or region! Listen to a call with helpful tips from judges, download writing samples from past years’ winners, and review the brochure, which explains the program and provides complete instructions. Applications are due June 17. Learn more at: http://www.sstiawards.org/.

The FY15 budget agreement approved last week by lawmakers dedicates $60 million to elevate the state’s status in cancer care and research, with another $20 million slated for peer-reviewed research grants. The cancer research initiative was a major priority for Gov. Rick Scott during the session. The budget also increases funding for economic development incentives and provides level funds for university-based technology commercialization.

As a result of deep cuts to higher education funding following the recession, issues surrounding affordability, access to programs and services, and quality could jeopardize the nation’s competitiveness. A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities finds that although a majority of states have begun to restore some of the cuts, 48 states are spending less per student than they did before the recession.

The authors present data on funding for higher education pre- and post-recession and call on policymakers to rebuild their higher education systems by rejecting tax cuts and instead consider options for new revenue. In response to funding cuts during the recession and a slow recovery, higher education institutions increased tuition, eliminated faculty positions and merged programs. For example, Arizona’s university system cut more than 2,100 positions, eliminated 182 colleges, schools, programs and departments, and closed eight extension campuses.

Rapidly rising tuition also is blamed for more student debt and for deterring low-income students from enrolling in college.

Visit www.sstiawards.org to sign up for the May 7 call to learn more about the 2014 awards program and for helpful hints on writing an outstanding application. This could be your year to capture national recognition for your local, state or regional innovation efforts. Check out the latest adventures of SSTI’s Traveling Vase. 

Tyler Okerlund has been selected to serve as the state SBIR/STTR program director at the UND Center for Innovation.

Johnna Reeder has been named president and chief executive officer of REDI Cincinnati, LLC, the regional organization charged with business attraction and expansion.

Northern Arizona Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology’s Board of Directors announced the departure of current President and CEO Russ Yelton. Annette Zinky will be serving as interim president and CEO of NACET. 

State leaders often cite publicly supported innovation infrastructure as investments in jobs of the future. When targeted and executed smartly, such investments can spur job growth over the long-term and help advance technology commercialization. Lawmakers in Georgia and Kansas recently passed budgets that include funding to support high-tech research facilities and similar measures are pending in several other states. The University of Georgia (UGA) is slated to receive nearly $45 million for a Science Learning Center and, in Kansas, the legislature approved $2 million for creation of a new Innovation Campus aimed at attracting technology jobs.

UGA’s Science Learning Center is a 122,500-square-foot facility that will replace current science buildings and increase lab space for students. Construction is expected to start this summer and be completed by 2016. Another $5 million will help equip a new cancer research building at Georgia Regents University in Augusta.

As part of an effort to support rural, small businesses in cutting-edge fields such as bio-manufacturing and advanced energy production, the USDA announced a new capital access initiative to facilitate private investment. The $150 million investment fund is being formed under USDA’s Rural Business Investment Program and will be managed by Advantage Capital Partners. Read the announcement.

The Department of Labor (DOL) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) recently announced programs that will provide financial support to help states and regions assist key industries and small businesses compete in the global economy through the development of regionally focused workforce development and export assistance programs.

A new effort by the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) seeks to make existing companies more competitive, support the growth of startups and create jobs by leveraging the assets of government, industry and higher education around five sector-focused labs. NJIT will launch a new nonprofit corporation, the New Jersey Innovation Institute, to support the labs – geared toward civil infrastructure, defense and homeland security, healthcare delivery systems, biopharmaceutical production, and financial services. The labs will work on technological challenges identified by industry partners. Read more.

The strategic direction of good regional innovation investments, from research through commercialization and production, must be based on the best information regarding the current trends, assets and needs of the regional innovation system. Socio-economic data and asset mapping tools - available through sources like the three EDA-funded sites: Stats America and US Cluster Mapping and the Regional Innovation Acceleration Network (RIAN) – provide good starting points. The first two sites help policymakers and practitioners characterize their targeted geographic area for key demographic, industrial, and economic indicators. RIAN’s site identifies 15 asset blocks integral to all regional innovation systems.

Additional metrics are used in regional, state and national indices and dashboards prepared by numerous groups with the goals of helping ascertain progress toward carefully selected measures of prosperity.

With Earth Day just around the corner, SSTI is taking a closer look at environmental science research spending in the states.  Even as climate change emerged as a key political topic during the first decade of the millennium, spending on environmental research at American colleges and universities declined as a percentage of all R&D, according to data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Survey. Between 2003-12, environmental science expenditures fell from 5.3 percent of all R&D expenditures to 4.8 percent. California universities spent the most in FY12, but Wyoming and Nevada devoted the highest percentage of their R&D spending on environmental science.  The District of Columbia and Maryland spent the most per capita.