SSTI Digest

Almost 40% of American adults report they struggle to make ends meet each month, an increase from 34.4% in 2022 and 26.7% in 2021. At 46.2%, Louisiana had the highest percentage reporting financial struggles followed by Mississippi (45.7%) and Arkansas (45.6%). Additionally, 11.3% of adults in households in the U.S. experienced some or very frequent times when they did not have enough to eat from April 26 through May 17, 2023. That percentage fell below the national average in 24 states, with Louisiana weighing in with more people (15.6%) going hungry than anywhere else. Meanwhile, people in Montana (5.9%) reported the lowest level of struggling with hunger during the same period.

Residents in disadvantaged communities could soon see progress toward equitable availability of clean mobility options due to two recent initiatives from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO). A new funding opportunity from VTO brings $99.5 million in addition to the current selection of 45 projects totaling $87 million. DOE designed both to help to “onshore and re-shoring domestic manufacturing of key technologies and infrastructure that are critical to reaching the nation’s clean transportation future.”

The selected projects for the $87 million will support the $2.5 billion recently announced by the Federal Highway Administration to build and deploy EV charging nationwide, including in rural communities and low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. The projects are in 18 states and Washington, D.C. SSTI member West Virginia University Research Corporation’s work to diversify the expertise of today’s EV auto technicians is one of the selected projects.

More than 50% of the patents granted in 2020 were related to AI, according to a USPTO report. Considering this large volume of AI-related patents, the office recently sought feedback regarding AI inventorship. Key points made by AUTM, BIO, Google, IBM, and Microsoft are summarized here.

AUTM made the following statements in response to USPTO’s comments:

A new data analysis of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) by SSTI indicates again the significant impact the pandemic had on the manufacturing sector. While job openings in manufacturing ranged on a monthly basis from 0.8 to 3.9% of total manufacturing employment in the 20 years prior to the pandemic, it jumped to as much as 7.4% in April 2022. Job openings in manufacturing increased dramatically after the pandemic, presumably as a result of the American economy attempting to adjust for disrupted supply chains and a move to bring more manufacturing back to the U.S. Only education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and professional and business services had job opening rates consistently higher.  For the economy as a whole, a review of the JOLTS data finds the number of job openings is still significantly higher than pre-covid levels, but is on a decreasing trend.  

As the U.S. seeks to maintain its competitive edge in the global economy, it is important to acknowledge the contributions of immigrant innovators toward U.S. growth and competitiveness. Despite making up only 16% of the population, immigrant inventors are responsible for approximately 36% of the U.S. innovative output since 1990, and have founded some of the most successful companies in the nation. This article draws on a variety of recent reports and studies to provide insights into the many ways immigrant innovators are essential to our robust innovation ecosystem, including their role in U.S.-based startups, contributions to patents, and more.

According to a 2021 U.S. Census Bureau release, foreign-born immigration into the U.S. has slowed considerably since 2016 to its lowest levels in decades, dropping from 1.471 million to just over 500,000 in 2021. The Census Bureau attributes much of the downward trend in recent years to the COVID-19 pandemic and changes in immigration policies.

When Dan Berglund, SSTI’s president and CEO, testified in a hearing before the House on an early draft of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, he noted that funding from the federal government that addresses the whole innovation system rather than individual elements of the system would be critical to building a regional innovation economy and different than any other federal program. With last Friday’s release of the first notice of funding opportunity for the Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs (Tech Hubs) program that approach is becoming a reality. The program is intended to make investments that will help transform regional clusters in specific and critical technologies into globally competitive economies.

OrthoWorx, a nonprofit organization established in 2009 to advance Indiana’s orthopedics industry in Kosciusko County, received a $30 million appropriation from Indiana’s new two-year budget. Kosciusko County, home to companies that represent about half of the $60 billion global market for total joint replacements, is considered the orthopedic capital of the world. In 2022, the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership estimated the industry accounts for more than 22,000 jobs in the region and approximately $19 billion in revenue.

Bob Vitoux, CEO of OrthoWorks, told the Indiana Capital Chronicle that the region needs to advance some of its community amenities and offerings to help attract new talent. Adding amenities is particularly critical currently when many workers opt for remote opportunities. New amenities could include improvements to education, housing, and childcare. Vitoux expects to have a more concrete plan for allocating the $30 million later this year. 

This week, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced 40 new Growth Accelerator Fund Competition awardees. SSTI’s proposal to identify programs and partners that have expanded the participation of minority business owners and researchers in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is among the winners.

With this $50,000 prize, SSTI will work with FAST awardees and other SBIR stakeholders to identify tested, replicable initiatives and build a plan for a national network that will implement similar efforts across the country. Many SSTI members with FAST program experience have already committed to sharing their experiences for the project, and other organizations that have a successful track record of working with inclusive companies on SBIR awards are encouraged to participate—contactus@ssti.org to learn more.

Despite Carnegie Classification as an R2 institution, Northern Illinois University (NIU) and other similar universities do not qualify for existing R&D capacity-building initiatives targeting Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) states or minority-serving institutions (MSIs). In a recent article, Northern Illinois University administrators defended the necessity for a new designation for federal agencies to use to prioritize R&D funding for institutions such as NIU.

This new designation, “Emerging Research Institutions” (ERI), is included in the CHIPS and Science Act. The ERI label applies to all institutions of higher education that have established undergraduate or graduate programs but conduct less than $50 million in federal R&D.

Without information and connections on how to access and leverage the diverse American workforce, foreign multinational companies often have trouble finding qualified workers as they establish new – or expand existing – operations in the United States. Now, these companies have help from the SelectTalent USA initiative, a joint initiative of the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Education. The new partnership seeks to help foreign investors build local and state partnerships, adapt their traditional talent-development approaches to the U.S., and harness America’s unique comparative advantage—its diverse and skilled workforce.

SelectTalentUSA supports the three departments' efforts to promote foreign direct investment (FDI) that creates good-paying jobs in America. The U.S. government is encouraging these investments because they can “create an equitable economy for workers and families and revitalize communities that have been overlooked or left behind.” 

The recession brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic (February 2020 – April 2020) saw an extremely sharp drop in both GDP and employment, followed by a relatively fast return to non-recessionary rates of unemployment. This swift recovery was a substantial contrast to the periods of the Dot Com Recession (March 2001 – November 2001) and Great Recession (December 2007 – June 2009). These previous recessions saw both dips in GDP, followed by gradual rises in unemployment rates over several months or years, with a gradual decrease in unemployment over the coming years.

This morning, NSF announced 44 development, or Type-1, awards from its first Regional Innovation Engines competition. According NSF’s visualization, 33 of the lead organizations are from academic institutions, with 13 of those from institutions that are not classified as R1s, and the remaining 11 leads from other types of nonprofits. The Type-1 awards provide up to $1 million over two years for the partners to work toward strengthening their regional innovation ecosystems, with an eye toward developing a stronger Type-2 proposal in the future. Congratulations to the SSTI members that received awards as lead organizations—including Emory University, Kansas State University, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, University of Hawaii, University of Nevada Reno, University of South Carolina, University of Texas at Austin, Washington University in St. Louis, The Water Council—and the many members participating as partners across the awards.