SSTI Digest

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

SSTI has an effective new learning tool for TBED policymakers and practitioners seeking guidance in approaches to building and sustaining tech-based economies. Through exclusive interviews with Excellence in TBED Award recipients, find out first-hand how these award winning initiatives successfully responded to a critical need by applying innovative approaches to generate substantial economic gains for their region.

Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholars®

2007 Winner for the Expanding the Research Infrastructure category

Only 12 days remain for you to register before Encouraging Regional Innovation kicks off on October 14 in Cleveland with four pre-conference sessions. With the economy seemingly changing every hour, there's never been a more important time to join your colleagues at the nation's premier conference on tech-based economic development. This year's conference, we think, has a great mix of sessions to help you plan for what the future may hold: thought-provoking policy sessions with an underlying theme of "where do we go from here?," best practice sessions to give you new ideas, and sessions to give you tools to operate your programs more effectively.

More than 330 people have already registered for the conference. Join them by registering on-line at: https://www.ssti.org/Conf08/registration.htm

Anticipated declines in property tax, local sales tax and local income taxes combined with increased expenditures for energy and fuel, infrastructure, and employee-related costs have city finance officers anticipating worsening fiscal conditions over the next two years.

Released this month by the National League of Cities (NLC), the City Fiscal Conditions in 2008 survey finds that in 2008, nearly two in three city finance officers reported that their cities are less able to meet fiscal needs compared to last year, particularly those cities that rely heavily upon property taxes. Moreover, nearly 80 percent of fiscal officers forecast even more troubling times ahead for 2009.

Technology-focused incubators are an important component to fostering entrepreneurial development in a region by nurturing businesses in the earliest stages of development and helping them grow into larger companies that employ high-wage workers and bring new technologies to the market. The following select announcements provide an overview of new incubators from across the nation, illustrating the vital role of entrepreneurial development in growing high-tech regional economies.

The demand for highly qualified talent in Massachusetts' bioscience industry will add more than 10,000 life sciences workers to the state's workforce by 2014, according to a recent report prepared by the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute. As described in Growing Talent: Meeting the Evolving Needs of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Industry, 81 percent of these new life sciences jobs are expected to require at least a four-year degree. In preparation for this need, the report identifies the key challenges for increasing the quality and number of potential employees in the state, as well as policy recommendations for future growth.

Foreign-born and ethnic workers continue to rapidly grow in their importance to the U.S. innovation economy, according to two recent studies that address this issue by examining the links between these groups and patenting activity.

In How Much Does Immigration Boost Innovation?, Jennifer Hunt uses state panel data from 1950 to 2000 to measure the extent of immigration's impact on U.S. patenting, state innovation economies and the science and technology workforce. Foreign-born residents account for just over ten percent of the working population, but represent about 25 percent of the science and engineering workforce. The 2003 Survey of College Graduates found that immigrants patent at double the rate of native U.S. residents. That study found that the difference was attributable to disproportionate educational attainment in science and engineering.

According to figures released last week by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), 85 percent of the nation's 363 metro areas experienced growth in real GDP from 2005 to 2006. For the U.S. metro areas as a whole, the aggregate GDP in current dollars was $11.79 trillion in 2006 - about 90 percent of the U.S. GDP.

Trends in GDP growth can be more informative than one-year changes that might be caused by sudden changes in a local economy (e.g., Hurricane Katrina). SSTI has prepared a table displaying changes in metro area GDP estimates for the five-year period 2002 to 2006. To facilitate comparison across metro areas, the data has been presented in chained 2001 dollars.

The GDP in 23 metro areas decreased over the five years, 2002 to 2006, some like New Orleans and Gulfport-Biloxi for reasons related to the natural disaster. The decline in other metro areas may be more systemic as the local economies continue to restructure away from declining industrial sectors.

John Hindman announced his resignation as secretary of the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development.

Governor Rick Perry recently announced Alan Kirchhoff of Austin has been promoted to director of Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF). Kirchhoff replaces longtime Perry advisor and former TETF director Mark Ellison, who left the Governor's Office to become associate vice chancellor of economic development for the Texas A&M University System beginning Oct. 1, 2008.

Governor Jim Doyle appointed Richard Leinenkugel of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing family as his Commerce secretary.

Thomas Peterson, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Arizona, has been selected as the new assistant director of the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Engineering.

Elias Zerhouni, the director of the National Institutes of Health, announced his plans to step down at the end of October 2008.

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

In an effort to keep science, innovation and entrepreneurship on the mind of our next President, several groups are releasing comparisons of the Presidential candidates' positions on a number of issues affecting state, local and university tech-based economic development strategies. Here is a sampling from this week:

Whether it's symptomatic of a tough job market or increased recognition of the economic rewards for obtaining an advanced degree, the number of doctoral degrees awarded and graduate enrollment in the U.S. rose sharply in 2007. Most trends for the past ten years also are positive; suggesting at first glance that a commitment to advanced education is permeating more of the population, particularly among women and minority groups.

Enrollment and awards of masters degrees are seeing much lower growth rates, and in some critical cases like engineering, experienced a decline. Consequently, rises in the number of engineering doctorates may be short-lived trends.