SSTI Digest

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched a new initiative to fund the exploration of using Big Data to improve national health care outcomes. NIH will provide $24 million per year for four years to establish six to eight Big Data Centers of Excellence. The centers will be used by researchers and students for training in data science and testing the use of large and complex datasets to create tools, methods, and software that can improve health care processes.

Big Data has strong potential to revolutionize the health care industry, not just through the development of new processes and products, but also by establishing new standards for health care policy development and implementation. Global health expert Joel Selanikio recently discussed this issue in a TEDx talk. But while Big Data might have the potential for solving structural challenges in the health care system, the U.S. scientific community is ill-equipped to take advantage of the opportunity.

New business creation in the U.S. increased in 2011 for the first time since the 2007-09 economic crisis, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Census data indicates that 8.2 percent of all businesses were less than one year old in 2011, the first increase since 2006 and the largest increase in a decade. A pair of briefs from the Census Bureau and the Kauffman Foundation link the decline and rebound of American startups to fluctuations in housing prices during the economic downturn. They also suggest that the increase in firm creation has been well-distributed throughout the country.

As federal immigration reform remains in gridlock, cities are leading a charge to make America more welcoming to immigrants. Driven by the potential economic growth, mayors and regional economic development organizations are moving ahead with the creation of new initiatives and entities to attract and retain high-skilled immigrants. For mid-sized, and even larger cities, high-skilled immigrants are viewed as untapped, potential tech entrepreneurs who in the past have been drawn to Silicon Valley and other tech hubs.

As the U.S. manufacturing sector continues to grow, so does the challenge for regions to find “middle-skill” workers who can fill job vacancies in advanced manufacturing. The Council on Foreign Relations has released a new report, Building the American Workforce, that suggests policymakers can fill this need by narrowing the skills gap for underserved, low-skilled workers. To meet this need, the report's recommendations include overhauling the national workforce development system and establishing a broad vision for workforce training that focuses on low-skilled, underserved workers. Examples include advanced manufacturing training programs in New Hampshire and Washington to demonstrate how the vision can be operationalized at the regional level.

Yesterday, the White House honored 11 “Champions of Change” who are working to promote an inclusive technology-based economy. The honorees ranged from nonprofit leaders to a mathematics professor to the author of a children’s book. Eight of the 11 “champions” focused on introducing young students to programming and technology, reflecting the significant emphasis on the long-term investment in future workers, especially those who are underrepresented and underserved. These honorees reflect efforts by nonprofits and citizens, but are only one aspect of a growing movement in the public and private sector to create a more inclusive economy now and in the future.

In the second quarter (Q2) of 2013, venture investment totaled $6.7 billion over 913 deals, according to the quarterly survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Compared to the first quarter of 2013, the amount of venture capital investment increased 12 percent and the number of deals increased 2 percent. Although still well below venture capital investment highs in 2007, Q2 2013 had the largest total amount of investment in a year.

In total, $12.6 billion in venture investments has been made in the first half of 2013 in 1,776 deals. This represents a 3.8 percent decrease in the investment amount compared to the first half of 2012, but a slight uptick, 4 percent, in the number of deals completed.

The software and biotechnology sectors were the largest two recipients of venture capital investments. The software industry received $2.1 billion in investments, although this was a 7 percent drop from the previous quarter. Biotechnology rose 41 percent in investments to $1.3 billion in 103 deals. Other sectors receiving large totals of investments were IT ($654 million) and medical devices ($543 million).

Lawmakers continued to provide support for life sciences at a reduced level in the recently enacted budget; however, other technology areas did not fare as well. In some cases, funding was eliminated for tech-based initiatives, and lawmakers allowed a tax credit for early stage investors to expire. Meanwhile, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center plans to consolidate activities and redouble efforts to keep things moving in the wake of a 27 percent reduction to their budget.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has conducted a Survey of Federal Funds for Research and Development for fiscal years 2010-12. In total, federal R&D obligations were $144.7 billion in FY10. The top state recipients, in absolute terms, are California ($28.3 billion, representing 19.6% of the national total), Maryland ($17.0 billion, 11.8%), Virginia ($9.3 billion, 6.4%), Massachusetts ($8.9 billion, 6.1%), and Texas ($7.3 billion, 5.0%). The states and territories receiving the least are Delaware, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and finally Wyoming.

SSTI has prepared a table of federal R&D obligations by state for FY10, as well as federal R&D obligations as a percentage of states' gross state product.

As in FY09, California's R&D obligations are largely attributable to the Department of Defense, which spent $16.7 billion in total development, with more than $1 billion in research.

Small businesses often are surrounded by a myriad resources and potential partners that could help leverage their products and services to innovate and grow, but they are not always aware of how to access them. In order to remedy this lack of strong regional networks, the Obama administration has attempted to connect existing businesses, institutions of higher education, economic development organizations, investors, small businesses, and startups to create regional clusters that stimulate economic growth through the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Economic Development Administration (EDA) regional cluster initiatives. The EDA and SBA have led a total of 50 pilot programs around the nation thus far. A commissioned study of the first two years of the SBA's 10 pilot cluster initiatives in which the agency invested $1 million toward regional industries and advanced defense technologies found a significant correlation between these initiatives and economic growth.

Green jobs have been at the center of a number of controversies in economic development circles over the past decade. Key among these debates is whether or not sufficient job opportunities exist to justify large public investments in green job-training programs. A recent report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that, at least at the federal level, a great deal of uncertainty remains about the green job labor market. The report lays out a number of challenges for green jobs initiatives at the Department of Labor, where job placement is only at 55 percent of its target levels. In doing so, the GAO report shows that there is room for improvement in green jobs programs at the federal, state and regional level.

A recent report by Cleveland State University's Levin College of Urban Affairs details the economic impact of companies supported by JumpStart Inc. and the North Coast Angel Fund in the 2012 calendar year. The 127 companies included in the study created 2,140 jobs in Ohio (1,652 in Northeast Ohio), generated $269.7 million in economic benefits for the state, and produced $35.5 million in federal, state, and local taxes. Those studied included 63 "portfolio companies" that received technical and funding assistance and 64 "client companies" that received only technical assistance. Read the report...

The city of Los Angeles is working with a consortium of public and private partners to redevelop unused docklands into space that will support new industry cluster development. The project highlights a trend of high-profile projects across the country, with cities like Brooklyn and Philadelphia repurposing dockside warehouse space to seed tech startups and advanced manufacturing.

A 100-year old dock in Los Angeles is being developed as an urban marine research and business park. The development is a public-private collaboration between the Port of Los Angeles, the Annenberg Foundation, and a host of regional universities. The development will be used to focus on an untapped niche in ocean science, turning the LA waterfront into a global center for the study of the effects of climate change on coastal cities, according to the publication Nature.