SSTI Digest

A short five years in the waiting, but a whole global economic upheaval later, the 2007 edition of the seminal State New Economy Index shows the extent to which each state is adapting to the maturation of the knowledge-based economy. Digest readers will have seen some of the many articles from around the country covering the report’s recent release. Few of those press accounts explored the recommendations embodied in the third chapter, focusing instead on the rankings of their individual states. The report’s importance, however, lies in its call for structural change in most of the institutions we take for granted today.

 

As the 2007 Index concludes, “Success in the new economy requires that a whole array of institutions – universities, school boards, firms, local governments, and economic development agencies – work in new and often uncomfortable ways.”

 

The U.S. needs to increase the number of people receiving a bachelor’s or associate degree by 37 percent over current attainment levels if it desires to have 55 percent of the adult population with a college degree by the year 2025, Jobs for the Future reports. In Hitting Home: Quality, Cost, and Access Challenges Confronting Higher Education Today, the nonprofit organization predicts 55 percent will be the level of degree attainment for some of the top performing OECD countries in 2025. To remain competitive, the U.S. must use this figure as a target.

 

The American science and technology workforce is undergoing a major demographic shift. A report issued last week by the National Science Foundation shows that more women are participating in university science and engineering (S&E) programs than ever before. The biannual NSF report, entitled Women, Minorities, and Persons With Disabilities in Science and Engineering, provides a broad overview of demographic trends within university S&E programs. In 2007, the report's overriding theme is that although U.S. science and technology fields remain predominantly male, trends at the university-level indicate this may be changing.

 

The following recently became SSTI affiliates or supporters:

Aris Melissaratos is the new special adviser to the president for enterprise development at the Johns Hopkins University. The position was created for Melissaratos following his departure as secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development.

Over the last 10 years, the State of Maine has invested more than $296 million into R&D – an impressive figure for a state with an average population over the decade of just over 1.3 million people. In approving a mid-decade injection of funds, the state’s legislature skeptically or wisely asked the executive branch to periodically conduct independent assessments of whether or not the investment is worthwhile.

Few states do that – for R&D investments or anything else, for that matter. As a result, the Maine Comprehensive Research and Development Evaluation 2006 may serve as a model for other states to build their own assessments.

In Maine’s case, the analysis is framed to address five questions, answering each in the affirmative but substantiated with dozens of statistics, comparisons with other states, and closing with a handful of recommendations.

The Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) recently released the results of its fiscal year 2005 licensing survey. The survey, conducted annually by the nonprofit AUTM, provides quantitative information about licensing activities at U.S. and Canada universities, hospitals and research institutions. This year's format is slightly different, however. The 15th annual survey presents data accompanied by success stories and allows respondents to remain anonymous. Appendices also list institutions by the year their technology transfer activities began. The goal, AUTM states in its overview, is to see the number of survey respondents grow and encourage thoughtful discussion.

Among highlights in the 2005 U.S. Licensing Survey Summary, U.S. academic centers responding to the survey had more than $42 billion in R&D expenditures during FY 2005. The summary also notes:

It won’t come to any surprise to Digest readers that there’s a connection between universities and economic prosperity. In addition to educating students and advancing science and technological innovation, the localized economic impact of institutions, alone, provides a buffer to economic swings for many mid-sized and smaller cities and college towns. How best to incorporate universities into regional tech-based economic development strategies without compromising core missions is an art not every community has mastered. The issue has captured the attention of the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has long championed rural economic growth through entrepreneurship and innovation, witnessed most readily through the Main Street Economist.

According to the latest stats on venture capital investments, half of all U.S. VC investment during the last quarter of 2006 supported companies in two small areas of the country: Silicon Valley and New England (primarily the Boston metro area). With the exception of only a handful of other large metro areas and, since the origin of the modern venture capital industry some 25 years ago, most other cities have struggled to attract the attention of venture capitalists. This struggle can be especially difficult for the nation’s secondary cities – cities that do not rank among the 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas. According to the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), these cities receive only 13 percent of all venture capital deals and only 20 percent of total investment dollars. Though these cities account for approximately half of the U.S. population and U.S. business establishments, they have not experienced a proportional benefit from the venture capital revolution.

It is the opening day of AUTM’s 2007 annual conference in San Francisco, the largest gathering ever of individuals from around the world interested in university technology transfer. Academe’s role in helping to commercialize technology has been under attack during the past few years by multinationals complaining institutions are too difficult to work with, by those who think Bayh-Dole needs to be tweaked and by others within academia who believe the university’s fundamental mission and culture is compromised by increased partnerships with industry.

It is then quite timely that a small roundtable of some of America’s most successful universities at turning their faculty and student research into revenue streams for the institutions released a brief white paper outlining nine guiding principles or ideals for all university technology transfer offices to consider while pursing their common goal of helping the private sector to commercialize academic research results.

A gala held last weekend at Google headquarters in California officially kicked off a $50 million fundraising campaign for the X Prize Foundation, which provides funds for the development of new prizes. The prizes are designed to support breakthroughs for specific challenges in medicine, energy production and consumption, education, and transportation.

Big-money, high-profile awards have been used to encourage innovation for centuries, but a new array of these prizes is rapidly advancing entrepreneurship opportunities and philanthropic causes.

Some of the awards announced in the past six months include:

Membership in SSTI allows access to the most extensive network of current and past practitioners, academics and policymakers who are attempting to speed commercialization and encourage innovation.

Joining SSTI places your organization with today’s TBED leaders. SSTI connects you to active members in 46 states, Puerto Rico and Canada, enabling you to share experiences and best practices with your peers from across the continent.