SSTI Digest

The Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce unveiled a new website targeting the region’s entrepreneurial community. The Nashville Entrepreneurial Center provides insight and advice on starting a new company, local business and innovation news and several ways to connect to other entrepreneurs and investors. Though the site already offers a blog and social networking features, the group plans to expand their services to include additional resources for entrepreneurs seeking funding and other types of assistance.

On a per capita basis, federal R&D obligations to U.S. universities and colleges increased by 7 percent from FY 2003 to 2007, rising to $83.80 per person in FY07, according to the National Science Foundation. Total U.S. federal R&D obligations to academia increased by 11.1 percent over the same five years to $25.3 billion in FY07.

SSTI has prepared a table listing the academic obligations per capita from FY 2003 to 2007, the percent change of these obligations per capita over this period, and the relative rank of this change.

The range in per capita figures among the states is large. Washington D.C. led the country with $360.10 in federal R&D obligations to academia per capita in FY07. This was followed by Maryland ($279.30), Massachusetts ($230.70), Connecticut ($142.10), and Hawaii ($135.60). Maine, Arkansas, Idaho, Nevada, and Oklahoma were the states with the lowest per capita values. Overall, the U.S. average of $83.80 per capita bested 28 states.

Kathy Collins has been appointed as the Wisconsin Entrepreneurs’ Network (WEN) regional director in Madison. Previously, Collins worked as the technology and financial development manager in the Commerce Division of Business Development.

Ron Cox has been appointed as the assistant dean for economic development in the engineering college at Iowa State University. He retains his current position as director of CIRAS, the Center for Industrial Research and Service.

Frank DiBello, a veteran aerospace consultant who’s been Space Florida’s interim president since May, was named as the permanent leader of the aerospace development agency.

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert appointed businessman and philanthropist Spencer Eccles to lead the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. Eccles, son of the former First Security chairman and CEO Spencer Eccles, will be joined by Josh Romney, son of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. The younger Romney will serve as the state’s national business recruitment policy advisor.

Complete descriptions of these opportunities and others are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

Missouri Small Business Technology Development Center invites applications for an associate state specialist (counselor). This position serves as a statewide specialist to provide leadership, expertise, and training to University faculty and staff, and private sector clients with SBIR/STTR. A master’s degree in engineering, business, science, or a related area with appropriate coursework and five or more year’s relevant experience are required.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced Thursday his plans to create a new Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship within the Department of Commerce and launch a National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Both new initiatives will help leverage the entire federal government on behalf of promoting entrepreneurship in America. The new office is expected to announce additional initiatives in the coming months.

The new Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which will answer directly to the secretary, will be geared toward the first step in the business cycle: moving an idea from someone's imagination, or from a research lab, into a business plan.

The National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship will advise the Commerce Department on policy relating to building small businesses and help to keep the department engaged in a regular dialogue with the entrepreneurship and small business communities. The council is expected to be comprised of successful entrepreneurs, innovators, investors, non-profit leaders and other experts.

The opportunities for improving the partnership your TBED effort has with the federal government appear to be improving rapidly. Are you ready? Is the TBED community ready? SSTI's Annual Conference theme, Seize the Moment, was developed around this growing momentum. Timely and highly interactive plenary sessions, 16 intensive breakout sessions and some of the most forward-thinking TBED practitioners and policymakers will be on hand with hundreds of your peers at SSTI's Annual Conference, Oct 21-23. Shouldn't you be there? More information, including the opportunity to take advantage of the early registration deadline of Sep 29, is available at: http://ssticonference.org/

The national recession that began at the end of 2007 is "very likely over," according to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Recovery, however, may be a long way off. Because states were affected differently by the economic downturn in both timing and impact, recovery for state and local economies is likely to occur at different times. Moody's Economy.com predicts, according to an MSNBC article, that job growth will return first in five states: Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. Four of those states benefit from high-tech industries, and the fifth, Texas, has a strong base of energy industries, the article notes.

Re-examining policy and priorities in the early aftermath of the national recession, governors and business leaders in three states that are likely to be at the tail end of the recovery recently unveiled long-term economic development plans to position their respective states for sustained growth in the new economy. Following is an overview of strategic plans and recommendations unveiled in Connecticut, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The Obama administration's interest in directing more federal support to innovation and research was evident very early in the President's first weeks in office with more than $100 billion of the Recovery Act funding going toward innovation, education and research infrastructure. Earlier this week, the National Economic Council and Office of Science & Technology Policy released a brief report presenting the guiding principles and priorities for the administration's innovation agenda.

"A Strategy for American Innovation: Driving toward Sustainable Growth and Quality Jobs" outlines three broad objectives, each with specific action items. While many of the goals of the plan have already received significant investments through the Recovery Act, there are several more initiatives that are still in the proposal stage or call for additional investments beyond the Recovery Act. Highlights include:

Companies backed by venture capital grew their revenue and employment numbers at a much higher rate than other businesses in recent years, according to a report from the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Between 2006 and 2008, revenue at U.S. venture-backed companies increased by 5.3 percent, while total U.S. business revenues grew by only 3.5 percent. Employment at venture-backed companies grew by 1.6 percent during that same period, compared to 0.2 percent in the overall U.S. private sector. Last year, venture-backed companies accounted for 11 percent of U.S. employment and 21 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP).

The report maintains that because of the remarkable growth of venture-backed companies and the strategic nature of the industries that attract venture investment, the venture industry is important in sustaining national economic growth.

NVCA's biannual report on the impact of venture capital uses data on investment activity from the quarterly NVCA/PricewaterhouseCoopers Moneytree survey.

The differences in economic performance among the metropolitan areas with the largest populations are vast, as a few metros already are emerging from the recession and others are in danger of being left behind, according to a recent brief by the Brookings Institution. To be issued every quarter, last week's MetroMonitor: Tracking Economic Recession and Recovery in America's 100 Largest Metropolitan Areas examines changes in employment, unemployment rate, gross metro product (GMP), housing prices and foreclosed properties through the end of June 2009.

In what Brookings has labeled the 20 best-performing metros (located mostly in and around Texas and the inland Northeast), the number of employed workers was down on average 1.7 percent since pre-recession peaks and 17 of them have seen housing prices increase since June of last year. For the 20 weakest-performing metros (located in Florida, inland California, and around the Great Lakes) employment has wilted an average of 8.2 percent from their peaks and housing prices dropped an average of 11 percent.

Each year, Southern Growth Policies Board honors Southern initiatives that are improving economic opportunities and quality of life in the region. The 2010 Innovator Awards will be chosen from creative initiatives in the region that aim to help communities recover from the recession. Innovator Awards are presented annually to one organization in each of Southern Growth's 13 member states, and winners are recognized at Southern Growth's Annual Conference. The deadline for nominations is Nov 6. To learn more about the criteria for this year's Innovator Awards and to fill out a nomination form, visit: http://www.southern.org/innovators/innovators.shtml

The number of U.S. patents per employee decreased in 43 states from 2003 to 2007, as patents per employee for the U.S. as a whole declined by 10.3 percent over the same five-year period. To track this metric, SSTI has prepared a table calculating the number of patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) per 100,000 employees for each state. The table also displays the relative ranking of each state from 2003 to 2007, as well as each state's five-year percent change.

For the U.S. in 2007, there were 69.2 patents issued per 100,000 employees. Idaho led the nation in 2007 with 210.1 patents per 100,000 employees. Finishing out the top five were Vermont (179.9), California (144.5), Washington (133.1), and Oregon (132.1). On the other end of the spectrum, Alaska recorded the lowest number of patents per employees, at 7.7 patents per 100,000 workers, followed by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Arkansas, and Louisiana.